The O.V.U.M. is easily one of the series' showier villains, but Venom still wins the Pragmatism award. He thinks to attack the Player when they aren't armed to the teeth and cutting a vast swath through the Bacterian Empire... Even if it doesn't do him much good in the end. Still, at least he bothers arming himself for his final showdowns. :P
These Gradius Gaiden video brings a lot of joy to me, though I still own the original PS1 print and Gradius Collection, the one on PS1 was my first ever import bought way back in 2004 off ebay from 16-bit, and second overall ebay purchase (first was Gradius 3/4 PS2, got tired of never finding it locally). I remember trying it "out" the pirate way the first time, getting hooked on a Gradius I have never previously touched or known about and had to have it legit. I took care of that real quick.
Rough times on that Heavy Ducker and the build up enemies to it but GG overall! I love Gradius III and have played it on SNES and emulator for years but I'm not 3 loops cleared in one game good haha.
3 LOOPS!!!!???? OK. I'll be honest, I didn't expect to see someone beat 3 loops in a row on a single session, man, I'll sill need to practice a lot. Great Run. :D
ahh...didnt this video have annotations/subtites and commentary to go along with it...i was just doing a playthrough of gaiden myself recently and remembered "some playthrough with alot of personal commentary and dialogue that was fun to read through" i think this might've been it
The Japanese version (Generation) added in a Challenge mode according to the Gradius Wiki. It's what you would expect: Beat at least one loop to unlock several challenge levels. Here's MoogledKupo's video of an auto-play of the so-called "Final Challenge": ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-4gK6tbDXRlQ.html
The game becomes quasi impossible on Loop 4 and onwards. You have to use tricks like setting Forcefield to the first slot with Jade Knight and then spamming that.
