Played on MAME 0.217

As far as the Arcade entries go, Gradius II is without a doubt my favorite one. It lacks the annoying, trial & error design of III while still feeling quite speedy and challenging, and it doesn't get ultra over the top like Salamander to the point where sometimes I can barely keep up with what's going on. The length also feels right and it lends itself perfectly to a 'pick up and play' style game. This may sound obvious considering it originally came out in the Arcades, but Gradius III and Gradius V say the opposite. Your average Gradius II run takes 30 minutes assuming you don't die, and it's not like this game really allows you to, more on that later.

Something you will notice right from the beginning is the addition of different weapon setups and a new shield, the Force Field, that can only take up to 3 hits but can protect you from all directions. While it's not mandatory to beat the game (I've made it to the Boss Rush with the normal shield, and there are japanese players that have scored +10M using it), there really is no reason not to pick Force Field unless you want to intentionally cripple yourself, and it's so good it made the normal shield pretty much obsolete in later entries.

About the weapon setups, they all get the job done just fine. Does this mean they are well balanced? Heck no. Type 3 and 4 break the game, Type 2 has severe problems taking out enemies in the final stage and Type 1 is the classic loadout from the first Gradius. Normally I use Type 3 but lately I've been really liking the green Force Field Type 1 has, so I went with that one. A cool little thing is that each Type has a defining color that determines your laser, shield and even the explosion sprite when you die. If you get killed using Type 1 the explosion will be green, Type 3 will be blue and Type 2 and 4 it will be red. That's pretty silly attention to detail.

This game also introduced the Option Hunter. As the name says, it will try to get your Options and if it touches them, and it can steal UP TO FOUR, so this new enemy can be quite pesky and lethal. Good timing makes it easy to dodge it, and there's a trick where if you play with only 3 Options the Option Hunter will never appear. Something weird that I discovered by accident in this run is that IT SEEMS the Option Hunter will only steal your shit if its mouth is open and you can see it happen on the moai stage, I should've had one Option taken away from me but it didn't happen.

However, in spite of all the good things I've said, this game has some serious problem. I think this is the title that truly started the infamous "Gradius syndrome", that is, dying and getting stuck in a checkpoint where there are:
a)too many enemies you can't defend against.
b)not enough power capsules to properly recover and be able to fight back.
c)both.
And you die over and over until all your lives are gone and you have to start from scratch. Ok, in Gradius I, chances are if you died in a tough spot you would keep dying and have to start over, ESPECIALLY seeing as the Japanese version doesn't have continues, but in Gradius II, pretty much everytime you die the Gradius syndrome will be in effect and you'll Game Over. Even during the first 4 stages where recovery IS possible at any point, it just becomes obnoxious to try and do it so you're better off resetting the game anyways. That's not even mentioning the latter stages. Pulling off a recovery in the moai stage is 99% impossible unless you're at the very end and the checkpoints in the last stage are particularly atrocious. This is also why I don't like the powerup system in Gradius that much despite it being really creative and sounding cool in paper, it takes too dang long to equip all your shit and it's too easy to lose everything.

Despite that, I still think this is an amazing game and my second or third favorite Gradius game. Many of the franchise's most memorable concepts (be it stages, music and bosses) first appeared on this one and I just find this game pretty damn enjoyable. The length's perfect, the difficulty isn't too bullshit despite my checkpoints rant and it's a game I can always boot up and have a fun time with it.

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