Gba Longplay #29: Gradius Galaxies
26Gradius Galaxies, also known as Gradius Generation (Japan) and Gradius Advance (Europe), is a horizontally-scrolling shooter handheld video game published by Konami in 2001. The game, released for the Game Boy Advance, is the only Gradius Series title to be available for the system.
Gradius Galaxies plays almost identically to other titles in the series. The player takes control of the Vic Viper spacecraft attacking onslaughts of enemies. All of the usual Gradius staples are present—moai, an ungaurded final boss, and the power meter. The weapons system remains mostly unchanged as the configurations available are identical to Gradius III, with the exception of a weapon edit mode. There are four different types of weapons configurations: Balanced (traditional Gradius), Wide Area (Salamander), power, and Air-to-Ground. Each configuration is differentiated by a palette swap for Vic Viper. Unlike Gradius III, there are only two shield options: Shield and Force Field. In addition, the S.Option ("snake option") is not present; however, the player can choose to have the computer assign weapon power-ups automatically or leave it manual. New to Galaxies is the feature to resume the game from any completed stages, marked by checkpoints.
The Japanese version of the game featured an exclusive game play mode called Challenge. (this mode is entirely absent from the U.S. and European versions) Challenge must be unlocked by completing the main game, and consists of several difficult stages that test the player's skills.