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. Weapon Edit adds some interesting possibilities such as switching the missiles to Spread Bomb or Flying Torpedo.

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).

Video Replay Index

For replay videos, visit the Video Index.