Happy 41st Birthday, Gradius
Happy 41st Birthday, Gradius
“Habeas corpus for the Gradius corps is called for on this 41st anniversary.”
Fans of classic Konami franchises have had a lot to celebrate of late, with an all-new or newly reimagined Castlevania, Contra, Metal Gear, and Silent Hill games being announced over the past few years. But what about Gradius, the shooter series that helped put the publisher on the map in the first place? Other than the excellent (albeit short and sweet) Salamander 3 featured in the recent Gradius Origins collection, the franchise hasn’t seen an all-new game in the shmup genre since Gradius ReBirth for WiiWare in 2008.
For those who don’t know, Gradius was one of the biggest and best shooters of the 1980s. Born from the desire to outdo Namco’s Xevious, the prevailing king of the genre in the early ’80s, Gradius took everything to the next level. It allowed you to choose your own power-ups path using the patented Weapon Bar, which was unheard of at the time. It featured giant bosses and off-the-wall environmental challenges that put Xevious’s equivalents to shame. It was the first game to feature the famous Konami code, which has become a sort of secret handshake among game enthusiasts of a certain age.
And, maybe most importantly, it introduced gaming to the “Option” power-up: a glowing invincible ball that trails behind your ship regardless of what direction you move in, simultaneously blasting whatever laser and/or missile you’ve armed yourself with. It essentially doubles your firepower. Move up, and it will be below you; move backwards and it will be in front of you; and so on. This essentially gives players the “option” to control the position of their ship and their ship’s shield at the same time, allowing for an unprecedented degree of action strategy.
Gradius was a huge hit and spawned ports for nearly every computer and home console of the ’80s, along with a squadron of sequels and spin-offs, including the multiplayer-infused Life Force/Salamander titles, the turn-based strategy Cosmic Wars, the “maiden voyage” of Otomedius, and the cutesy-comedy Parodius franchise. It also saw multiple imitators, the most successful of which being the R-Type games, which evolved the Option concept into an even more versatile and weaponized shield companion called the Force. The fact that neither Konami nor LucasFilm went after them for that one is something of a miracle.
They’re still making new or newly reimagined R-Type games today, with R-Type Final 3 Evolved seeing release in 2023, and R-Type Dimensions III having launched this past month in 2026. If R-Type is able to keep going so long after the peak of 2D Shmup’s popularity, why can’t Gradius? Or more to the point, why is it that the franchise can’t make the jump to 3D and take up some of the space currently occupied by Star Fox and the many games it helped inspire?
Regardless of how they do it, it’s high time that Konami showed us that it still holds the Gradius franchise in the same regard that fans do, that they would be willing to let it out of the annals of obscurity, with a new stand-alone title in the series. If The Mandalorian and Grogu can light up theaters nearly half a century after Star Wars first debuted, then making a comeback after 41 years of solid shoot ’em up service should be no problem for the Vic Viper and company.