Gradius Clones and Ports (Gradius-likes)

Clones & Ports of Konami's Gradius

This article is concerned with computer-game clones and ports of Konami's Gradius coinop of 1985. 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 it doesn't have a weapons system bar, it isn't a Gradius-like. Instead, it could be a Salamander-like.

The origin of Gradius is Konami's Scramble of 1981.

The article is only concerned with Gradius clones and ports that appeared on Western computer game machines. The clones and ports are presented chronologically.

Gradius Clones

Delta Commodore 64 1987

Delta was coded by Stavros Fasoulas of Thalamus for the Commodore 64 in 1987. Delta features many rotating and spiraling enemies, tanky enemy blobs and spawning minefields. King-tier.

Audio by Rob Hubbard.

Apidya Amiga 1991

Developed by Kaiko / A.U.D.I.O.S. Apidya of 1991 is one of the best horizontally-scrolling shoot 'em ups on the Amiga. Perfect controls, the music is absolutely awesome and the graphics aren't too shabby either.

Apidya music 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

Project X Amiga 1992

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 for the C64.

Gradius Windows PC 1997

In the Gradius Deluxe Pack of 1997 Konami bundled ports of their Gradius (1985) and Gradius 2 (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.

• History of Shoot 'em Ups 1976-2000
• TRS-80 Shoot 'em ups Listed in Chronological Order
• Amiga Shoot 'em ups Listed in Chronological Order
• Commodore 64 Shoot 'em ups Listed in Chronological Order
• IBM PC Shoot 'em ups Listed in Chronological Order
• Invader-likes: clones and ports of Taito's Space Invaders 1978
• Galaxian-likes: clones and ports of Namco's Galaxian 1979
• Asteroids-likes: clones and ports of Atari's Asteroids 1979
• Berzerk-likes: clones and ports of Stern Electronics' Berzerk 1980
• Defender-likes: clones and ports of Williams' Defender 1981
• Scramble-likes: clones and ports of Konami's Scramble 1981
• Galaga-likes: clones and ports of Namco's Galaga 1981
• Robotron-likes: clones and ports of Vid Kidz's Robotron 1982
• Xevious-likes: clones and ports of Namco's Xevious 1982
• Gravitar-likes: clones and ports of Atari's Gravitar 1982
• Gyruss-likes: clones and ports of Konami's Gyruss 1983
• Commando-likes: clones and ports of Capcom's Commando 1985
• Salamander-likes: clones and ports of Konami's Salamander 1986
• R-Type-likes: clones and ports of Irem's R-Type 1987
• Western Computer-game Machines
• History of Computer Games 1976-2024
• History of 1990s Computer Games
• cRPG Blog (Master Index)