Gradius V

Gradius V (グラディウスV) is a horizontal-scrolling shoot-em-up developed by Treasure and G.Rev in 2004.

Gameplay Overview

Gradius V features 3 selectable modes:

• Game Start: Uses the difficulty and lives/extends setting you selected under the options, allows for continues and multiplayer, score is saved to the Ranking screen. Every hour of playtime adds 1 credit to your starting stock of credits, until you reach 20 hours which unlocks Free Play mode.
• Stage Select: Lets you play any stage on any loop you've accessed. Infinite continues, the game ends when you clear the stage. Unusually, you're forced to start with no powerups whatsoever, but you can pause and input the Konami code so you're not forced to start a late stage with no Multiples whatsoever. Pause, then input the following: Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, (L1, R1) OR (L2, R2). Ending the code with L1, R1 gives you Laser, and ending the code with L2, R2 gives you Double.
• Score Attack: Single player only, uses the default difficulty and lives/extends setting, and does not allow you to use continues. Unusually, scores obtained here do not save to the Ranking screen, and instead you're given a high score screen that includes a code you could input into the Gradius V website to submit your score online.

Controls

At any time, you can soft reset the game by pressing all of these at the same time: L1 + L2 + R1 + R2 + Start + Select

Controls can be freely remapped in the options screen to any of the PS2 face buttons or shoulder buttons.

• Power Up: Uses the currently selected upgrade to power up your ship. Collect orange pods repeatedly to change which upgrade is selected.
• Rapid Shot: Rapidly fires the currently selected weapon. When a Laser weapon is equipped, it won't actually rapidly tap the button and instead holds the shot button to fire a continuous stream. This also applies to the E. Laser weapon which is a charge attack; to rapid fire weak shots with it you need to manually tap this button quickly.
• Rapid Missile: Rapidly fires missiles as quickly as possible. You generally want Rapid Shot and Rapid Missile mapped to the same button for convenience's sake.
• Multiple Control: Does various things when you hold the button depending on what Multiple type you're using. With Type 1: Freeze, holding this lets you lock your Multiples in place while moving around. With Type 2: Direction, hold the button then press the d-pad on analog stick in different directions to change what direction your Multiples are firing. With Type 3: Spacing, holding the button lets you spread out or tighten the gap between your Multiples. With Type 4: Rotation, hold this to cause your Multiples to spin around you.

There's also two other buttons that don't appear to be useful (they're non-rapid fire versions of the above controls):

• Shot: Fires one bullet with no rapid fire (unless Laser is equipped), meaning you have to keep manually tapping this to shoot. Doesn't appear to be terribly useful, Rapid Fire already fires extremely fast when using the default weapon or Double.
• Missile: Same as above, except for missiles.

Shot Type Selection

There are 4 preset weapon types that are selectable, with a 5th being unlockable called Weapon Edit.

• Type 1: Speed Up / Missile / Double / Laser / Freeze Multiples / Force Field

Super versatile, and features by far the most powerful Multiple type available that can be used effectively in nearly any situation. You can spread your Multiples out for coverage, move them behind you for protection, focus them in front of you for damage, or really anything else you can think of. The versatility of Freeze Multiples is unmatched for creative players. Can be used to quickly kill bosses faster than any other Multiple type by jamming your Multiples directly in their cores. Unfortunately, Type 1 (and Type 3) both fire lasers that have periodic gaps in between them, unlike Type 2 and Type 4's lasers, and the missiles aren't spectacular, but those are about the only disadvantages.

• Type 2: Speed Up / 2-Way Missile / Tail Gun / Laser / Direction Multiples / Force Field

Your Multiples fire their lasers in a continuous stream which is really useful, and 2-Way Missile is great for extra coverage. Being able to sweep your lasers around to destroy enemies anywhere is really useful, but you can't easy attack through walls or focus damage on small boss cores, so it's a shot type that's more intended to be useful on stages rather than bosses.

• Type 3: Speed Up / Eagle Wind / Tail Gun / Laser / Spacing Multiples / Force Field

The least useful of all the default shot types. Spacing is relatively easy to handle as you can adjust your Multiples without needing to move, and you can tighten them up easily for bosses, but your Multiples trail behind you with a slight delay, and the default lasers fire with periodic gaps. Eagle Wind is pretty good, providing coverage on the top and bottom of the screen effectively, but it's not really worth it. Spacing your Multiples out too far really reduces your coverage and lets small enemies slip through your shots. Try Spacing Multiples instead with Weapon Edit, where you can use Ripple, Fire Blaster, or E-Laser which tend to work better with this.

• Type 4: Speed Up / 2-Way Back / Double / Laser / Rotation Multiples / Force Field

A defensive shot type that spins your Multiples around while firing continuous beams of damage. Quite effective for protecting yourself, and you don't have to rotate them when you want to focus your damage for a boss, either by moving rapidly left and right to move your options together, or quickly tapping the Multiple Control button to suck them in to your ship. 2-Way Back isn't essential and loses some frontal damage, but does give you coverage behind you which can be helpful in several stages like the end of stage 6 or in any other section where enemies walk along the walls from behind to shoot at you like in stages 2 and 3. The downside is the relative simplicity and lack of versatility compared to Type 1 and Type 2.

This shot type really struggles on Stage 5 where at full power the lasers don't concentrate damage enough to really destroy the asteroids in a timely fashion. If you want to use Rotation Multiples, the unlockable Weapon Edit adds some interesting possibilities such as switching the missiles to something with more raw frontal damage like Spread Bomb, Flying Torpedo, 2-Way Missile, etc.

Weapon Edit

This special customization option essentially lets you make your own custom shot type to play with. The possibilities are incredibly powerful, far better than the 4 presets generally allow, and with a much greater variety of weapon types to choose from. To unlock Weapon Edit, simply beat the game using any number of continues (including in Free Play mode once you have it unlocked with 20 hours of play).

Speed Up

The first icon is the only one that can't be customized. Unlike most Gradius games, when you collect your 5th Speed Up, the game will instead say "Max Speed" to signal your ship's at its fastest, and the Speed Up icon will then read "INIT. SPEED" as in Initial Speed, allowing you to reset your ship speed if you wish. So, if you accidentally make your ship faster than intended, or want to reset your speed after the high speed section in Stage 7, you simply need to keep collecting Speed Up upgrades.

Generally speaking, you want 2 or 3 Speed Ups depending on what you're comfortable with. 0 or 1 Speed Ups is too slow to safely avoid attacks. 4 or 5 Speed Ups is quite doable if you enjoy faster response speeds, and 4 is the minimum necessary to safely navigate Stage 7's high speed section, but keeping your speed that high throughout the game makes it trickier to safely get close to walls without crashing into them.

Note that when playing with an analog stick, pressing the stick lightly will allow you to move at a very slow speed, regardless of how many Speed Up upgrades you have. There's no slow / focus movement button, so this isn't possible with an arcade stick or a d-pad, but tap dodging to adjust your position can achieve the same thing and is more precise on those than with an analog stick.

Missile

The second upgrade icon that outfits your ship with a secondary attack. Spread Bomb is overwhelmingly the most popular and generally the strongest due to its area of effect and damage, making it great for stages with difficult environmental hazards such as 5 and 6, or for pointblank damage on bosses. However, many other useful missile types exist, most of them built to attack enemies on walls such as walking mechs and turrets.

Missile types generally can only fire 1 missile (or volley of missiles) onscreen at a time per Multiple.

Double

Without any weapon upgrades, your default shot fires up to 4 shots onscreen at a time. Double upgrades cause you to fire two shots at a time, in different directions, generally sacrificing frontal damage to provide extra coverage. Because they're typically so much weaker than Laser weapons, and there's a lot of very durable enemies in the game, they're really situational and aren't intended for general use.

Laser

Upgrades your main shot to a more powerful attack. This is generally what you want to be using, especially against bosses. All the Lasers in this game are useful, but perform very differently, allowing for a variety of different playstyles to suit your tastes (once Weapon Edit is unlocked).

Multiple

Lets you select from the 4 types of Multiples that the 4 preset shot configurations use. Freeze is overwhelmingly regarded as the best due to its versatility, but the other types are also useful.

• Freeze Multiples:

Hold the Multiple Control button to lock them in place, allowing you move around and arrange your Multiples to give yourself vertical spread, close defensive coverage, concentrated damage on bosses, attacks on targets behind you... this Multiple is overwhelmingly popular because it can quite literally do just about anything.

Spread Bomb is particularly useful with this Multiple as it allows you to jam your Multiples in bosses and deliver concentrated damage to rip them apart.

The only downside is that it requires a bit of finesse and planning to use. It's very difficult to move around and reposition your options in a tight area such as the asteroids in stage 5, so learning how and where to position in advance helps a lot.

When using the thin Laser weapon with this Multiple, the lasers fire with a brief delay in between shots.

• Direction Multiples:

Hold the Multiple Control button to lock your ship in place and allow you to freely aim your Multiples in any direction. You can sweep the screen of enemies and attack targets at awkward angles that would normally be tricky to hit, such as the Stage 3 boss when it's above you.

You need to manually wiggle your ship to focus your shot damage on bosses, as with classic Gradius games, but the benefit of being able to aim in any direction is very useful in many situations. Still, Direction Multiples are not nearly as popular as Freeze Multiples as Freeze lets your Multiples extended far past your ship to attack targets behind walls, something that's always incredibly useful.

When using the thin Laser weapon with this Multiple, the lasers from your Multiples fire in a continuous stream of damage. Your ship still fires normally with a brief delay between lasers.

• Spacing Multiples:

Weapon Edit makes this a lot more useful than Type 3's setup is, with Ripple, Fire Blaster and E-Laser all proving useful with shots wide enough to cover the gaps the standard Laser has. It's still nowhere as helpful as Freeze or Rotation Multiples tend to be, trading raw power to gain easier usability, but if you're struggling to handle the quirks of the other Multiple types this one is pretty straightforward to use, and allows you to focus or spread out your Multiples without needing to move around at all. Consider using 2-Way Back Missiles with this to cover your rear, the main disadvantage this Multiple type has.

When using the thin Laser weapon with this Multiple, the lasers fire with a brief delay in between shots. Because you can't position the multiples on top of each other unless they're all focused together, it makes the thin Laser particularly bad at protecting you from small enemies trying to ram you; consider Ripple or Fire Blaster as better laser slot alternatives.

• Rotation Multiples:

Holding the Multiple Control button causes your Multiples to spin around you. It's pretty easy to use, and the continuous beam you get with the standard Laser is pretty effective, but the tradeoff is that you don't get the possibilities for raw damage that Freeze Multiples offer. Like Spacing Multiples, it's easy to use, but Spacing tends to work better on bosses as it's easier to focus your shots. With this, if you want to focus your attacks you either have to wiggle your ship, or tap the Multiple Control button to suck your Multiples into your ship.

Weapon Edit gives you a few interesting options with this, such as substituting in Spread Bomb or Photon Torpedo which gives valuable damage or frontal coverage. E-Laser isn't recommended to use with this, but Fire Blaster is potentially a fun alternative to the standard Laser, especially since its damage is way higher and still gives you a constant ring of damage around your ship. Ripple also works decently as the extra wide shots mean you get mix of frontal damage and spreadfire all at once.

When using the thin Laser weapon with this Multiple, the lasers from your Multiples fire in a continuous stream of damage. Your ship still fires normally with a brief delay between lasers.

?

This final slot lets you pick from two defensive upgrades, or a fullscreen attack.

• Force Field:

Grants your ship an aura that can absorb up to 3 hits before dissipating. Normally your hitbox is an extremely small rectangle around your cockpit, but the aura from Force Field greatly increases your hitbox, and it's possible for bullets that wouldn't have hit your cockpit to damage your Force Field. It'll also be damaged if you graze against solid structures like walls.

Note that it's possible to actually move through seemingly solid objects such as Stage 7's closing walls in the high speed section, or the high speed vertical energy beams, if you have a high speed and move through them quickly with a fresh Force Field. It appears getting hit while Force Field gives you a few frames (like 2 or 3 max) of invulnerability which allows for this (needs confirmation on how this works).

• Shield:

Instead of the all around protection Force Field provides, this instead only covers the front with two circular orbs. The benefit is they absorb an insane number of hits, 15 each, giving you far more durable coverage and also serving as a powerful attack if you summon them while you're directly in front of an enemy core which will cause them to rapidly deal damage. Their size does shrink as they weaken and to refill them can be a bit of a nuisance compared to Force Field as you have to push up against a wall or some kind of enemy to break them, so they're trickier to use, but in the hands of a skilled player they're a powerful alternative to Force Field.

• Mega Crush:

Instead of a defensive barrier, this allows you to clear the screen of enemies that die in 1 hit as will as clearing all bullets. This appears to have the same effect as the blue items that occasionally appear, except that it can be used freely at any time when your upgrade is on the ? icon. Losing access to a defensive shield isn't that big of a deal in a game where your hitbox is quite small, but Force Field and Shield are still typically a lot more popular. Potentially very useful, but Force Field is overwhelmingly more popular for soaking accidental hits.

Video Replay Index

For a comprehensive video overview demonstrating all the weapons, please see this video by KietTezend: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axahD-_D2bE

For replay videos, visit the Video Index.