NES gamepad:Gamepad control:Player 1:Player 2:↑↑-↓↓-←←-→→-AZ-BX-SELECTShift-STARTEnter-Emulator selection:The following emulators are available for this game: (JavaScript), (Flash), (JS) and (Java).Other platforms:Unfortunately, this game is currently available only in this version. Be patient:-)Game info:box coverGame title:Gradius II (Vulcan Venture)Console:Author (released):Konami (1988)Genre:Action, ShooterMode:MultiplayerDesign:Hiroyasu Machiguchi, Shigeharu Umezaki, Toshiaki Takatori.Music:Shinji Tasaka, Motoaki Furukawa, Hidenori Maezawa.Game manual:not availableDownload:not available (stream only)Game size:165 kBRecommended emulator:From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:Gradius II, known as Vulcan Venture in arcades outside Japan, is a horizontally-scrolling shooter originally released for the arcades in Japan in 1988. It is the sequel to original Gradius and was succeeded by Gradius III: From Legend to Myth. Ports of Gradius II were released for the Family Computer (under the shortened title of Gradius II), PC-Engine Super CD-ROM², and the X68000 in Japan. The original arcade version is also included in the Gradius Deluxe Pack compilation for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn and in Gradius Collection for the PlayStation Portable.The player returns as the role of the pilot of the Vic Viper spaceship to battle the second onslaughts of the Bacterion Empire, under the new leadership of Gofer, the giant head. Gradius II has kept the gameplay from the original game, but infused it with enhancements brought from the spin-off, Salamander (Life Force). This is primarily evident in two of the weapons configurations that are selectable.
Download and play the Gradius 2 hM04 (J) ROM using your favorite NES emulator on your computer or phone.
Another first in the series was the inclusion of the 'boss rush' (also known as 'boss parade' or 'boss alley'), a level designed entirely with only boss confrontations.Gradius II retains the selection bar from Gradius, but now the player can choose between four different weapon configurations and progressions. All schemes have speed-up and multiples (Options), but have differing 'Missile', 'Double' (laser), and 'Laser' weapons. The player can have at most four multiples. Additionally, there are also two types of shielding to choose from: shield and forcefield.
The shield option adds more durability, but only for the front of the Vic Viper, while the forcefield adds protection for the entire spacecraft, albeit only against three hits.
Used to play this and thought it was fun. But now, i just can't stand it. The tight clearance conditions make many levels nearly impossible to do, unless you're the luckiest person on earth, or just have a great disposable income.' Purely Pay to Win, otherwise you cannot progress anyhow. ,639000000,35,null,null,'5','Extra Neatro',null,null,2,null,null,null,'kee',null,2,null,null,null,'game but added all the ads and now makes it a pain to even play. Peggle game app.
At the dawning of the 16-bit era, import videogames were a practically mythical: previewed and reviewed by videogame mags, but unavailable to the average American gamer unless you actually visited Japan or you had some contacts over there. It wasn’t like today, where you can hop on ebay and spend a few bucks and have a rainbow of multicolored Famicom cassettes delivered to your door before you know it. From what I remember, it wasn’t until Strider (and its surrounding hype — AN 8 MEG CARTRIDGE!!) came out on the Sega Mega Drive that import game purveyors began appearing in the pages of gaming magazines, promising rabid Genesis owners that for a little extra (and the purchase of an adaptor), they could play the Japanese version of this and many other games before they were available in the US. Thus began the practice of import videogame collecting, adaptors (or simple physical console and cartridge modding), and new subculture among videogame enthusiasts. Naturally, it followed that early adopters could also buy the Super Famicom and its paltry offering of launch software before it was released in the US.Anyway, one day I thought I’d give one of these import game places a call and see if I couldn’t track down a copy of Gradius II. To give an idea of the precise point in time, the Genesis and TurboGrafx were out in the US, and the Super Famicom had just launched in Japan. It wasn’t even yet known what form the console would take in the US: there were rumors of it being an add-on for the NES, or maybe a new console that would play both NES and SNES games, but nobody knew for sure.
So I picked a place that had a small ad in EGM called Japan Video, located somewhere in Canada, because I think their ad said they had Famicom games.My call was answered by a very nice Japanese lady who spoke broken English and at first couldn’t understand what I was asking for. I had asked if they had any Famicom games, because I was looking for a specific game. She said, “Yes, we have nine games for Super Famicom.”I clarified that no, I was actually looking for a game for the original Famicom, and to this day, I can still hear her hilarious answer:“What you want that for? That go outta style long time ago.”I laughed and told her well no, here in America we didn’t have the Super Famicom yet, and I didn’t have a Genesis or TurboGrafx, so I was still playing the NES, and I was looking for Gradius II.
It still wasn’t enough. Even though the other versions were technically superior, I needed that Famicom cartridge. As time went on, I searched ebay and vendors at game expos for it. It’s not a hard game to find — I came across plenty of loose copies, but I wanted a CIB copy for a fair price.
I’m not one to overspend on my collection; I know what things are worth and what I’m willing to pay for them, and most CIB copies I found were overpriced for my wallet.The climax to this story is not particularly dramatic. A couple years ago, I was keeping an eye on an ebay auction for a CIB copy of Gradius II for the Famicom, and my ebay phone app woke me up one morning at about 5:30 with an alert that the auction had only 10 minutes remaining. There were no bids on it, so I groggily clicked on the auction and threw out a maximum bid because screw it, I was half asleep. 10 minutes later, I was the uncontested owner of the game I had wanted for 20 years for the very reasonable sum of 35 bucks.
Ta-da!Still, there was nothing quite like finally opening that box a week later, shipped from Japan, and holding that chrome silver box with the iconic green and orange spaceship graphic. For the Nintendo Family Computer. It was mine at last. Ok that first post I swear I saw it elsewhere before and I replied to it, but this, this thread is better if anything because of that quest for Gradius II story on the bottom end of it.I too had heard of the game back in the 90s, probably was EGM as I had a free sub to it (never got into Gamepro but did see some.) I had a circle way around getting it too which was a bit different. I had got a Turbo Duo around 1997-98 and starting digging into the JP library of CD games since I had no HuCard adapter. I bought a lot of games at a local shop (which now still exists but the owner turned mean on anyone who doesn't buy from him, he who asks 2-4x ebay rates) in the HuCard format but also discs as he had both imports and not. I found out about Gradius II on there early as I originally sought and got Dracula X, Macross 2036 and a few others.
I think it may have been on tzd.com (turbo zone direct who sold all new duos, tgs, pce, pcecd and games for both) where I finally found it along with other goodies and snapped it up. The CD version was like arcade accurate as I used to poke around with MAME in its early days before it was cool to screw with rom sets by release and force huge re-downloads.Years (many) later I still remembered the FC version and like you, emulated it and it was marvelous, even if a bit flawed in early emulation of the 90s as people still tried to figure stuff out.
It wasn't until maybe 7 years ago I got of all things in a trade the retrozone release of the cart in a NES style shell and wow was it fun. As odd as it may be I don't even have it anymore, I got offered a ridiculous amount of cash for it and did it, but what I did for me was best, reinvested like 10% of that money and bought a nice FC copy of the game and it still sits with me today.
I too have a honeybee I got around 5-6 years ago through a pair of really poorly done ebay auctions so I had no worries, worked great, and it still also works great direct in a Retron5 too. I know a lot of people ogle Crisis Force as Konamis gift of shooter godliness for the FC but I still think Gradius II has the edge on it in many more subtle ways.Truth be told I've never finished it, it's freaking hard, but I don't hate it for that matter though.
I've taken down 1 and 3, but 2 eludes me on Famicom. Fairly certain I did it on the TG CD back in the day but that was in the 90s and I forget. Ahh don't bother it's mostly a dead board. Other than celery over there almost no one contributes to new topics as it is really.It's a fantastic post about a really great game. It's got me right on the edge of maybe pondering getting another couple Famicom games to dink around with a bit as it has been well over a year since I bought my last legit cartridge and some of them have some real class and style. I'm contemplating making a Famicom thread on here just to see what suggestions may shake out. Maybe I'll do it in 5min, 5 hours, tomorrow or not but I've been thinking more about it between this post of yours and that other one with the 300+ games picked up as I even learned about one I didn't know of with that Valkyrie in it that looks cool.
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More importantly, I then saw the Vic Viper on the front of the box. My jaw dropped as I realized I was looking at the box for Gradius II, the fabled Gradius sequel that had never been released in the U.S. Chris and I had read (and drooled over) the previews of the game we'd seen in EGM and Gamepro a couple of years earlier, and we were both extremely disappointed when this incredible game never surfaced in stores. Immediately I went over to where Chris was still playing SF2 and excitedly told him what I had discovered.
He was enthused, but wanted to finish the game he was playing before he checked it out. 'So which one are you interested in?'
I picked out Gradius II, and he nodded. 'That's a great one,' he said. 'Never could finish it myself.' He then asked if I had a Famicom or a way to play it on my NES. I said I didn't have either, and he fished three Honeybee converters out of the tote. I picked the gold one (the other two were grey), and he asked if I was interested in anything else.
I saw another game called Holy Diver, the box for which I had noticed earlier. It had piqued my curiosity due to its surface resemblance to Castlevania, so I picked it out and put it on top of Gradius II. By the time we walked out of the store, Chris had bought the Famicom version of Dragon Spirit and a converter, Steve had bought nothing (since he wasn't really into videogames I honestly didn't expect him to buy anything), and Shaun had gained a customer for life. I frequented the store for the next two years, until a robbery forced Shaun out of business (at least, that was the story I got).
Gradius II worked beautifully on my NES (Holy Diver had some odd glitches), and I was incredibly happy, as it was probably the most incredible 8 bit game I had ever seen, and a stellar entry in the Gradius series. As far as I knew, I now had all of the console Gradius releases, and I couldn't be happier; plus I had gotten my first taste of importing. The material in this thread is FANTASTIC! Thank you for sharing!I'd always been attracted to the 'exotic' aspect of the Famicom library growing up, but it wasn't until I grew up that I was able to get my hands on a converter of some kind and start picking up a few.
I limited myself to 'Japan-only' games (with a few exceptions), and as my wife had then-recently shared her childhood love of Life Force with me, I realized I was smitten with Konami shooters. So Gradius II was up near the top of the list. (Okay, TwinBee was first.)I was so impressed by it in just about every way. The graphics were a leap above Life Force and even those are pretty damn good. The music was cool, the weapon system was impressive in context - it just popped right off the screen. I even remember being so anxious for the couple weeks it took to ship from Japan.
I loved, loved, loved it, but was inexplicably still gaming on a cheap-ass plasma screen with notable lag at the time. I made it to the boss rush, but was no match for it. I still want to go back and try again on the CRT I've since acquired, but I'm afraid of getting spanked again.Anyway, I adore this game, glad to see I'm not the only one.
Thanks again for taking the time to post all this! Yeah, they do, where'd you get that idea? Was it maybe the fact the VRC6 and 7, and various other third party boards have their own added sound channels that the stock NES/top loader can't handle because of removed things from it? If you do a simple mod to a US system, or go nuts and have a hidefnes kit installed, full audio is restored.I canceled an order of TwinBee 3 because I found out it was a VRC4 game and didn't know it would work. Good to know that it will.
Just ordered it again. As far as I can tell TwinBee 3 only uses the VRC4 and not additional sound channels. Edited November 26, 2018 by TravisHuckins. Hey, my blog stats told me that this thread pointed someone in the direction of my 'My Weird Obsession with Famicom Gradius II' article. Thanks for including it in your discussion! Glad you liked it! I remember seeing that GamePro article on it too, but I never really cared for that magazine so I never bought it, just flipped through it at the bookstore.
Nice to see the original color scan of the EGM article in the OP as well, and the rest of the Gradius coverage from all the US magazines. Those were great days!TJretrogamesuperhyper.com. Hey, my blog stats told me that this thread pointed someone in the direction of my 'My Weird Obsession with Famicom Gradius II' article. Thanks for including it in your discussion! Glad you liked it! I remember seeing that GamePro article on it too, but I never really cared for that magazine so I never bought it, just flipped through it at the bookstore.
Nice to see the original color scan of the EGM article in the OP as well, and the rest of the Gradius coverage from all the US magazines. Those were great days!TJretrogamesuperhyper.comWell it's a well read piece, and good on you for keeping up on the stats. Stick around, despite the atari name there's a lot of stuff covered here as all sorts of interests are covered which seem to include things on your site. Well it's a well read piece, and good on you for keeping up on the stats. Stick around, despite the atari name there's a lot of stuff covered here as all sorts of interests are covered which seem to include things on your site.Oh yeah, I've been visiting AtariAge for many many years, I think I used to be registered for the forums but I just created a new login - figured I might as well align it with my blog. Anyway, not to derail the topic, yay Gradius! 😅 Edited January 13, 2019 by RetroGameSuperHyper.