GRADIUS IV (G4 in short) is the most recent title in the Gradius history.
It has been 10 years since the previous chapter GRADIUS III. GRADIUS IV is first released in Japan in the February of 1999 on the Arcade platform, though the title screen is written in copyright 1998(this is actually one of the game bugs). Arcade G4 is first exported to oversea countries since near the end of 1999, as my understanding. My first contact (saw and play) to GRADIUS IV was near the middle of March, 2000. And the PS2 version, near the middle of May, 2000.
AC GRADIUS IV is the first Gradius title featuring the official Internet Ranking. At the end of the ending theme, and after game over beyond the first loop, there will be a password screen appear which will stay for about 10 more seconds. Players were use these information(the score and password) to apply the official ranking. But please take attention that, due to some reasons, KONAMI has stopped collecting score for the Arcade G4 ranking since the 18:00 of August 27, 1999. This means the passwords are of no use for now. But you may prefer to keep it for reference, as I did so.
GRADIUS IV belongs to the main line of the whole Gradius series. This is the chapter people take most attention in recent years. Unfortunately, G4 is just not as prefect as expected, actually it is quite an unsuccessful release as refered to many people's opinion, including some of the Japanese. The main reason making G4 non-popular (or not as popular as expected) is the ungly game bugs. The most series bug in G4 should be the Bubble stage. In which, the moving speed of bubbles and floating ice blocks is highly unstable. The floating ice blocks can be in the speed like bouncing in a pinball game, totally out of imagnation. Actually this kind of situations did happened many times in my G4 experiences. I think many people will also agree that game will be totally different if without the Bubble stage or not designed in this way. For my own opinion, I think GRADIUS IV is a great game, surely the best shooter in recently years. But the design of the Bubble stage is seems a big mistake.
PS2 GRADIUS IV (the GRADIUS III AND IV) was first released on 13th April, 2000. The PS2 version remain the AC bugs in 1 and 2 Players mode, while they are fixed in the Hi-Score Try mode(the Internet Ranking mode). The PS2 version is very close to the original AC. One of the main differences should be the wait level(slow motion). In which, I don't see there is wait level in PS2 which made the game a little bit harder. In arcade machines, game wait is especially apparent near the end of the Cell stage, and in the explosion of the Cell stage boss. Moreover, the resolution in PS2 is seems higher (more beautiful) than the original AC one. The GRADIUS III AND IV is for sure one of the best vaule Gradius collections. There is also an official Internet Ranking for the PS2 version.
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