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Gradius Clones and Ports (Gradius-likes)


Clones & Ports of Konami's Gradius



This article is concerned with clones and ports of Konami's Gradius coinop of 1985 that have appeared on Western home computer game machines.

Gradius-likes are defined by me as shoot 'em ups that feature a weapons system bar from which different weapons may be incrementally selected and enhanced via power-up collection. Gradius-likes can feature horizontal and/or vertical screen-scrolling.

If the shooter in question does not feature a weapons system bar, it isn't a Gradius-like. Instead, it is likely to be a Salamander-like.

Gradius-likes are some of the most difficult shooters. For example, the three big Gradius-likes on the Amiga are three of the hardest games to beat in the history of computer games (see below).

The origin of Gradius is Konami's Scramble of 1981. The article is only concerned with Gradius clones and ports that appeared on Western home computer game machines. The clones and ports are presented chronologically.

Gradius Clones


Delta Commodore 64 1987


Thalamus released Delta aka Delta Patrol for the Commodore 64 in February of 1987. Delta was programmed by Stavros Fasoulas and composed by Ron Hubbard. Delta features many rotating and spiraling enemies, tanky enemy blobs and spawning minefields. Delta power-ups bestow shields and increase movement speed, number of projectiles and rate of fire.

Sequel to Sanxion of 1986 and predecessor to Armalyte of 1988, Delta is one of the greatest shoot 'em ups of all-time.


Ziriax Amiga 1990


The Whiz Kids released Ziriax exclusively for the Amiga in 1990. Running at 50 FPS, Ziriax features extremely fast-moving sprites and sprite-cloaking. Only veterans with good reflexes need apply because Ziriax is one of the hardest shoot 'em ups out there.


Ziriax bosses:


Ziriax was programmed by Peter Verswyvelen, drawn by Erlend Robaye and composed by Tomas Dahlgren.

Apidya Amiga 1991


Kaiko / A.U.D.I.O.S. released Apidya exclusively for the Amiga in 1991. Apidya is one of the best horizontally-scrolling shoot 'em ups on the Amiga. In addition, Apidya's music is some of the best that can be heard on any computer or video game of 1991. Apidya features perfect controls, articulated sprite animations and silky-smooth screen-scrolling.


Apidya was lead-programmed by Peter Thierolf, lead-drawn by Frank Matzke and composed by Chris Hülsbeck.


Apidya Weapons System:

  • Primary: Light-sword (converts enemies to flowers, which upgrades weapon levels)
  • Power Blast (charged light-sword)
  • Upgradeable: Spread Shot (3x light-swords), Lightning Bolt, Plasma Pulse
  • Speed-up, Bomb, Shield, Drone

Gradius Ports


Gradius 1987 Commodore 64


Konami's godly 1985 Gradius coinop was ported to Commodore 64 in 1987 by Simon Pick. This king-tier port is fast, smooth and accurate. Overall, the speed is incredible.


Gradius Windows PC 1997


In the Gradius Deluxe Pack of 1997 Konami bundled ports of their Gradius of 1985 and Gradius 2 of 1988 coinops to Windows 95 PCs. These belated ports display in 256-color square-pixel SVGA 640x480 via DirectX 3.0 (DirectDraw & DirectSound).

This port came out way too late. Way, way, way too late: Quake had crushed coinops. Gradius should have been ported to PC a decade earlier.


Gradius Deluxe Pack requires a Pentium 90 MHz CPU, 8 megs of RAM, 1 meg of vRAM and 40 megs of HDD space, but 133 MHz, 16 megs of RAM and 2 megs of vRAM is recommended.

cf.


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