GRADIUS ORIGINS

Mediocre screen options (poor scanlines, ugly filters) as usual with M2. Salamander 3 has quite a few stutters on my 4K 120Hz screen (shouldn't be an issue with a 4080) and has even worse screen settings than the rest. No option whatsoever to remove slowdown in the older games, no pitch-black background. Overall, another disappointment from M2 after their lacklustre Aleste collection!

Even after all these years, it's still amazing to me to be able to play these arcade hits at home that, when I was a kid growing up in the 80s and 90s, we had to go to the arcade at the mall or various stores out there like Walmart, Harvest Foods, various gas stations and convenience stores, etc.. that typically had arcade machines stationed at the front, and pump out quarters and tokens to play these games. I'm no expert at these games by any stretch of the imagination. But, I have had a blast playing these again (along with the brand new Salamander 3) and I'm looking forward to spending alot more time with this. Great job also on Salamander 3. That was alot of fun. If you decide to do any more Gradius Collections in the future (Parhaps with Gradius IV/V/Gaiden and the various other console/handheld version gradius/nemesis/salamander games in it), I would definitely consider buying it. :) But, thank you for this great release. It runs great on my system. No problems here.

Probalbly the collection that is most for absolute sickos that M2 has ever released. Gradius is in an odd position in being the one shmup a lot of more casual players will recognise whilst in the shmup landscape these earlier games in particular are known as being kinda a bit wack, especially on the difficulty front. Basically all the games in this pack are a bit all over the place in terms of how hard they are, with huge spikes and hard recovery. They're great games but if you just recognise the name gradius i'd be a little wary and suggest checking out something like Gradius Rebirth via dolphin first. If you're a new shmup player I reccomend checking out the invincible modes in this, they're really well thought out as an option for players to experience the "real thing" thats approachable to literally everyone and still has a component of not just freewheeling it through stages. There's a serious case to be made though this is M2's best collection. All the games have a remarkable a...

Salamander 3. Your ship is blue, your options are blue, your shot is blue. Enemy bullets are, obviously, blue.

Bought it mainly for the brand-spankin' new Salamander III; otherwise this isn't my preferred method of playing the rest of the games in the collection (but I respect that this makes them readily available on modern platforms for everyone else). That being the case, I probably should've waited for a steep discount. NITPICKS: 4K / High refresh / Variable refresh DISPLAY ISSUES: -Single 1px line of white pixels along the top of the screen when in 4K. (Not present when in 1080p.) -Slight stuttering; fast-scrolling stages are a tad choppy and the force field in Salamander 2 doesn't flicker how it rightfully should. Likely because of three-way conflict between 160Hz monitor, 60fps game, and variable refresh rate coupled with the lack of in-game VSync toggle; Need GPU control panel app to address this, but even then I cannot seem to fully fix it. (High-refresh/fps gaming is a can of worms.) -No true fullscreen option. "Windowed Fullscreen" only. High scores are NOT saved between ...

You're gonna die die and die again. For those new to the series, be ready and get used to it. As a long time Gradius fan, this is a fantastic collection and I am very glad Konami brought a lot of these Gradius games back from the unknown so everyone can experience them again. Salamander III was an unexpected but welcome addition and I thought it was good overall. My only hope is Konami expands this collection later on with the Nintendo and PlayStation line of games. I understand this is the arcade but I'd love to see SNES Gradius III, the Gameboy games, Gradius Gaiden, IV, and V get to shine again. Konami may not make more major Gradius games but I'd love to see an expansion make this an entire package of the Gradius series.

Perfect 10/10. This is a must buy if you were a kid who loved Life Force on NES.

Seeing the stone heads spew froot loops at me again brings back fond memories.

Great collection of Gradius/Salamander games! M2 did another amazing job and Salamander 3 is incredible! It only has 6 stages but that's the Salamander/LifeForce tradition I guess. Great new music, and gameplay! The only thing missing is Gradius Gaiden :( Highly recommended!!

Giving this a big thumbs up in the hope that we might get the rest of the gradius games at some point. I'm assuming anyone reading this will already be familiar with these crusty old arcade shooters, and no doubt they will also be familiar with M2 and their reputation for accuracy and attention to detail. There's a whole new salamander game here as well, which is a lovely bonus. And of course there are all the save state and rewind options. Every run can be replayed, and you can even download replays from the online high score tables, which is cool. Some things I would have liked: high scores don't appear to be saved in the games themselves, which makes putting in your initials kind of pointless. Unless there is an option somewhere I missed for doing that. I also couldn't find any options to reduce the slowdown. I know they put a lot of work into faithfully recreating the slowdown, and playing without it would be kind of suicidal in some of these games... still it would be an in...