Konami’s Shoot ‘Em Up History Endures with the Excellent Gradius Origins

By Marc Normandin | August 6, 2025 | 2:31pm

Video Games Features gradius origins

Konami’s Shoot ‘Em Up History Endures with the Excellent Gradius Origins

Konami has made dozens upon dozens of shooting games in their decades of development and publishing, but unless you were there for it—or are devoted to Hamster’s Arcade Archives series—then you might not know as much. And that’s because almost all of those STG were released between 1981 and 1999, with the megapublisher returning to the genre on only the rarest of occasions after the turn of the century.

It’s not that Konami never makes a new shoot ‘em up, so much as it used to be a constant. And despite the revival of the genre both among major publishers and on the indies over the last decade-plus, Konami has mostly bowed out of those proceedings, other than some re-releases of their own and, again, a whole lot of games that came out again through Arcade Archives.

An STG is what put them on the map in the first place. Scramble, released in arcades in 1981, was both innovative and Konami’s first major hit: it had forced scrolling, which was new to the genre and not the norm for games in general—please remember how close to the release of Space Invaders 1981 was—and distinct levels, which was also a relatively new idea in ‘81, as it was a major selling point for Nintendo’s Donkey Kong later that same year.

Three major franchises created by Konami in the ‘80s were shoot ‘em ups, with Gradius, TwinBee, and a parody spin-off of the former, Parodius, all arriving between 1985 and 1988. These series were all popular enough and important enough to Konami that they then received ports to pretty much every conceivable platform, games in other genres, or both. Gradius not only had MSX-exclusive Gradius games, but also ones made for the Game Boy, and ports for the Famicom and NES that were developed specifically with the strengths of that hardware in mind. Cosmic Wars is a tactical space warfare game set in the Gradius universe, Moai-kun is a platformer featuring everyone’s favorite statue head found in every Gradius title, and let’s not forget the aborted plans in the ‘90s for a WipeOut- and F-Zero-style battle racing game featuring Gradius’ ship, the Vic Viper—Konami felt this franchise could play host to whatever kind of game they felt like making. TwinBee’s cute-em-up characters ended up with an anime, a radio drama, multiple manga, appeared in a whole bunch of unrelated Konami games just because, and had their own attempts at other genres, including a killer platformer that never made it to North America, as well as an RPG.

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While their shoot ‘em ups didn’t generate the same kind of sales that their home console pillars did—think Pro Evolution Soccer, Metal Gear Solid, Castlevania, and Power Pros—they were still vital to Konami’s success in the arcades. And success in the arcade used to matter quite a bit! As the business shifted more and more toward homes, however, Konami did, too. Shoot ‘em ups were no longer a key part of their structure—even as they acquired another player in the space in Hudson Soft—and the rate at which they released new STG dropped precipitously. Gradius V, sure, a collection of shooters here and there, the creation of Otomedius—that’s “Otome” and “Gradius” in case it didn’t click for you right away—but otherwise, things were quiet.

And even with Konami turning their back on the genre for almost the entirety of this century, there were already so many Konami shoot ‘em ups out there that Hardcore Gaming 101 kicked off their multi-volume look at the games within the genre with a book dedicated entirely to their STG output. It’s over 150 pages long! It covers over 60 Konami shooters! It was released a decade ago, and there’s basically no need to update it, because Konami hasn’t added to their legacy much in this space since.

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The August release of Gradius Origins changes that, however. The collection is almost entirely re-releases of Gradius games Konami put in arcades between 1985 and 1999 (as well as a previously unreleased variant of Gradius III), with one major exception: Salamander III. That game is entirely new. And it’s a good one.

While new, it’s not meant to feel like it came out in 2025. Instead, developer M2—also responsible for the rest of Gradius Origins—designed the game in the present as if it were a long-lost arcade game from the late ‘90s. As its predecessor, Salamander 2, was released in 1996, and Gradius IV was an early 1999 title, visually and in terms of design elements, you’re supposed to act as if Salamander III fit right in between those two, and post Gradius Gaiden on the Playstation.

Which is why there’s a doubling down on some of the design elements of Salamander 2 that define that series much more than Gradius, as well as including what had been a Gradius Gaiden-exclusive ship in the series: the Jade Knight/Gray Layer, and its extremely powerful (if you know how to use it) pulsing round laser, which fires off concentric rings from the ship and options, and requires you to get up close and personal to bosses when it’s time to shoot the core.

Salamander III doesn’t attempt to innovate in a meaningful way, but is instead just a new Salamander game that seems like it exists in part because there hasn’t been one in nearly three decades. How it goes about its design, though, still makes it plenty enjoyable. Or another way to put it is that if you’re a person who was planning on getting Gradius Origins, then you’re going to be happy with Salamander III.

Let’s dig into that. Gradius Origins and Salamander III aren’t M2’s first work on the series by any means. In the late-aughts, Konami produced a series of classic revivals under the “ReBirth” label. There was a Contra ReBirth, a Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth, and, crucial for our purposes, a Gradius ReBirth. The three projects released on the Nintendo Wii’s downloadable game line, WiiWare, and there they stay to this day. (Since the shop shut down at the start of 2019, if you didn’t already buy them, then you’re not able to anymore.) M2 was responsible for developing all three games, and while none of them were a “rebirth” of the series so much as a way to revisit them with an eye toward their late ‘80s and early ‘90s output, it worked well. It’s worth remembering that the full-on force of the retro revival was not a thing yet; we were still in the early days of, “Oh wow, a new Mega Man game in the NES style,” so “new Gradius but it’s 1989 again” was both welcome and uncharted territory.

Castlevania ReBirth was a remake of the Game Boy title, Castlevania: The Adventure, and M2 took a similarly less-tread path with Gradius ReBirth. It’s an ode to both the portable Gradius games on the Game Boy, as well as the series’ history on the MSX, which is where games like Gradius 2—which is different from Gradius II—lived. Contra ReBirth’s entire soundtrack was remixes of classic Contra music, and Gradius ReBirth did the same with its soundtrack, only using the MSX tracks rather than the arcade ones more people were familiar with.

In addition to this very obvious looking backward and forward at the same time approach, Gradius ReBirth is also arguably the most balanced Gradius game out there. It’s a bit more approachable out of the gate, and while it’s still plenty difficult, it’s less punishing with fewer spikes in difficulty—it’ll still challenge the majority of Gradius players, without driving those less attuned with its specific design rules away when they ultimately fail.

And while it was very much “Remember Gradius?” in its approach, Gradius ReBirth still included new takes on old levels, and the bosses, outside of the first one, were original for this game, as well. Salamander III has taken the same approach throughout: it’s exceptionally balanced, as you’ll find yourself able to get pretty far into the game on your first credit if you’ve got any familiarity with the series at all, and that same kind of mix—or remix—of past Salamander and Gradius ideas is present at all times, only with new twists attached to keep it feeling just fresh enough.

There are differences between Salamander and Gradius, which makes a lot of sense given the former was a spin-off of the latter in the first place. Salamander was the first sequel to Gradius, but not a direct sequel, as it removed the upgrade bar for power-ups that allowed you to guide the growth of your ship a la RPGs, and, rather than having you start with nothing after dying and being sent back to a checkpoint, you instead picked up from where your ship exploded, and some of your weaponry was there waiting to be reacquired so you could return to the fight swinging rather than pea-shooting.

The levels themselves were significantly different, too, with every other stage in Salamander switching from a horizontal to a vertical orientation. When the game was released in North America as Life Force, Konami leaned much more heavily on the organic nature of the level design and enemies, and had the game now take place inside of an enormous living space creature. Eventually, the two were blended together into one game, and Salamander 2 followed suit, mixing the very bioorganism-centric style of Life Force with the original Salamander and Gradius set ups. Salamander III does this as well, with living walls growing toward you that you need to shoot paths into, and familiar-looking mechanical enemies covered in bright-pink organic matter that changes the nature of your battles with them.

Familiar, but new. That’s how Gradius ReBirth worked, and it’s the same approach that M2 took with Salamander III, which for all intents and purposes is basically Salamander ReBirth: it pulls heavily from Salamander 2, Gradius Gaiden, and 2004 mobile phone game, Gradius NEO, which certainly seems to be in the spirit of the ReBirth series.

And that’s not a bad thing—Gradius ReBirth is great fun, and Salamander III is, as well. You can choose which ship you want to gain access to different weaponry options, rather than a straight loadout, as each of the ships has its own specific specialty weapons. And on top of that, these weapons have a “Burst” mode, which is a temporary and massive uptick in both how often you can fire and the firepower you produce. The Burst version of the Ripple Laser, for instance, is the upgraded version of that shot, the Buster Ripple. The Hyper Ray is the Burst attack for the Cyclone Laser, whereas in Salamander 2 it was just an upgrade to it. You can use Burst attacks as often as you want, but there is a cooldown for them, so you also can’t just spam them: figuring out the right time to deploy them is how you’re going to save your life or end that of bosses in a hurry, so get experimenting.

Konami isn’t making shoot ‘em ups with any regularity anymore, but handing the keys to M2 (again) was the right call (again). Salamander III is an ode to both Salamander and Gradius, games that have been basically ignored outside of some re-releases for the better part of two decades now, and it’s a treat. Familiar, but with enough little wrinkles to make it distinct, and a clear understanding of what makes Salamander work. A fitting piece within Gradius Origins, which does what Konami hasn’t done nearly enough of in these past couple of decades: celebrate Gradius and what makes it both excellent and enduring 40 years on.

Marc Normandin covers retro video games at Retro XP, which you can read for free but support through his Patreon, and can be found on Bluesky at @marcnormandin