A playthrough of Konami's 2009 shoot 'em up game for the Nintendo Wii, Gradius ReBirth.

Played through three loops beginning on the normal difficulty setting. The best ending is shown.

Gradius Rebirth was released as part of Konami's ReBirth trilogy, a line of retro-styled "throwback" sequels to the company's most popular franchises from the late 1980s. It was only ever sold as a WiiWare title - there haven't been any ports of it to other systems, and you can no longer buy it from the Wii Shop Channel.

Like Contra Rebirth and Castlevania: The Adventure Rebirth, Gradius ReBirth takes its inspiration from classic Konami games of the late 1980s/early 1990s. The graphics and sound are upgraded versions of what we originally saw in the company's 16-bit arcade hardware, and the gameplay takes most of its cues from Nemesis on the Game Boy.

The game has five stages, and it doesn't last very long as a result, but if you really get into it, you will see changes occur in each stage over the course of multiple game loops, and clearing three loops will earn you the final, complete ending. There isn't anything markedly original in Gradius ReBirth, but the core mechanics are all sound, and the game feels like a giant mashup of previous Gradius titles. As long as you aren't too averse to the blatant recycling of so many past Gradius elements, you'll find a very entertaining title here, especially for how cheap it went for on the Wii Shop.

And finally, the presentation is pretty excellent here. Just like the other Rebirth titles, the graphics are all comprised of pseudo 16-bit pixel art, though the smooth rotation and scaling effects, floods of enemies, and massive explosions would've all brought the SNES to its knees far worse than Gradius III ever managed to. It *looks* like what you remember games from the late 80s looking like, but in reality, it's a pretty huge boost. The music is the same, though instead of going with the SNES-style sample-based playback, Gradius ReBirth's remixes of classic tracks go with heavy drum samples that enthusiastically punch through the wicked FM-synth arrangements - think Gradius III's arcade OST instead of the SNES's - and it makes for a highly enjoyable, nostalgic accompaniment to the action.

All three of the ReBirth games are thoroughly enjoyable experiences, but I do feel like Gradius ReBirth is probably the weakest link. It features the least amount of original content of the ReBirth trilogy, and to be honest, it represents the series I like the least of the three. Still, that in no way means I dislike it - I just prefer Castlevania and Contra. For any diehard Gradius fans, though, this one is a clear win.

If you'd like to see Castlevania: The Adventure Rebirth, you can check it out here: [ Ссылка ]

And here is my video of Contra ReBirth:
[ Ссылка ]
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.

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