Where does "Scramble" fall into the Gradius series

[spooie]

Well, I've got both Gradius Galaxies and Konami's Arcade Advanced games for GBA. During the opening of Gradius Galaxies, there is a Gradius timeline that shows Scramble, and then Gradius, and then Salamandar, and then the rest of the Gradius games.

Well, I know that Salamander/Lifeforce was a spin-off of the series, but how is Scramble related to the line? I've played quite a bit out of it on the Arcade Advanced cart and it doesn't really scream Vic Viper to me.

:P

[Mayhem]

No, but seeing as it's a horizontal scrolling shooter with different stages that Konami released way back in 1980... I suppose they can take some "liberty" including it in the timeline ;)

[SoulBlazer]

Scramble is considered the 'pre-Gradius' game. Konami borrowed some if the ideas and concepts when they made Gradius. Hence, I guess they felt it was allright in listing it in the timelines.

Gradius Galaxies ROCKS, BTW. Fun game, especily on the big screen. :D

[spooie]

I got my GBA and PS2 over the summer... and I was gonig through this strange SHOOTER fixation... so of course, I set my sights on the Gradius games... but no matter where I looked, I could never find Galaxies or the 3&4 release on PS2. Of course, one day, probably around October, I was in Walmart checking out the GBA games and noticed what looked like the side of Galaxies stuck way in the back behind a pile of games in the glass case. So I got the clerk to come over and look, and sure enough, there it was... Gradius Galaxies for $29.99. I figured I had get it now, before I never see it again, so I brought it up to the register and they rang it up for $14.99, which I found interesting considering I also got Super Monkey Ball 2 for $19.99 when it was priced $29.99, the week earlier. So, of course, I wasn't going to say anything about that to the clerk.

;)

Anyway... I got home and tried it out and REALLY got into it, and it was like I was back in 1991 all over again. I was never really big on Gradius games growing up, but playing it now, it always has some sort of weird nostalgiac effect on me.

[Ze_ro]

In Konami Arcade Advanced, you can use the Konami code (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A) to "enhance" Scramble, and it actually gives you a choice of three different ships. None of them are the Vic Viper though, nor do any of them even resemble the Vic Viper.

Frankly, I'd say Konami is just making things up to make it look like Gradius has a more long and celebrated history than it actually does.

--Zero

[Ed Oscuro]

No, but seeing as it's a horizontal scrolling shooter with different stages that Konami released way back in 1980...
That's 1981, actually.

I'm also intrigued by this (the topic came up recently for "longest running game series). It could be folks in Konami's European offices trying to make the claim that their series is longer than any others, I dunno.

The sequel was a helicopter game, right? Odd since Scramble's ship looks futuristic (that or the primitive colors have me confused). Of course issues of consistency have never one stopped Konami; there's a helicopter in Contra 2, for example, when the game's supposed to be sometime a few hundred years from now. o_O

[spooie]

The Contra games don't leap into the "Hundreds of years into the Future" until Alien Wars came out. The Original, Super C and Operation C take place about 30-40 years after the red falcon infestation crashed on the island, and I recall that being back in the 50s or 60s.

:)

[Ed Oscuro]

The Contra games don't leap into the "Hundreds of years into the Future" until Alien Wars came out.
Trying to impress me with your Contra knowledge, eh?

Hogan sez: Go play the Famicom cartridge (which I own) and then we'll talk!

Edit: Forgot to add "Hogan sez" as a tribute to Atomic Thumbs' hillarious picture edit in defense of the xBox, didn't mean that to come across too harshly ;D

[Ed Oscuro]

Damn forum edit function :angry:

Anyhow, I've been trying (for the last five minutes, I might add) to edit the post to say this:


The Contra games don't leap into the "Hundreds of years into the Future" until Alien Wars came out.
Trying to impress me with your Contra knowledge, eh?

Hogan sez: Go play the Famicom cartridge (which I own) and then we'll talk!

Forgot to add "Hogan sez" as a tribute to Atomic Thumbs' hillarious picture edit in defense of the xBox, didn't mean that to come across too harshly ;D

I didn't mean for that post to come across that way, oops :}

[spooie]

Actually, I was refering to the instructions, which, I believe, explained the story about it crashing back then.

But who knows, maybe Helicopters are the wave of the future... they do have some old era plains in Alien Wars and Hard Corps too.

LOL

[Ze_ro]

The sequel was a helicopter game, right?

You mean Super Cobra? Was that actually meant to be a sequel to Scramble?

--Zero

[NE146]

The sequel was a helicopter game, right?

You mean Super Cobra? Was that actually meant to be a sequel to Scramble?

--Zero

Yeah I think so... most definitely. I've always thought of Super Cobra as "Super Scramble" although yeah, I guess it doesn't really make too much sense since it goes from a Space theme to a Helicopter. :hmm: But hey, those things didn't really matter too much then. :P

Super Cobra came shortly after Scramble, had all the same play mechanics, a lot of the same sounds (even the Scramble intro tune).. It was just obviously Scramble enhanced a bit to be more challenging, have more stages, and more enemies... but just 'updated' with the chopper theme.

So was it a "sequel"? Maybe not officially, but considering fledgling tiny Konami at the time and their small time production process following up their minor hit Scramble with a follow up game that happened to be Super Cobra, my vote says 'yeah' :D

[bargora]

Like ne1, I always had Super Cobra pegged as a Scramble sequel, for the reasons he mentioned.

Also, I had to shout out that I cleared the first loop in Scramble (GBA) for the first time last week. w00t! Mad skillz! \^_^/

[Ed Oscuro]

Damn forum system. It didn't update until after I'd posted the follow-up x_x

I was drawing off of KLOV for the Scramble to Super Cobra bit. They (and most everyone else) seem to agree that Super Cobra is Scramble's successor. They know more about it than I do, certainly.

As for what the US manual for Contra says, Spooie, I could care less what the crackheads in Konami's American offices say. The game is Japanese and it is the Japanese version that counts. The Japanese version's intro clearly gives a date from the future - 2631!

Yeah, if I listened to the crazy folks from Konami's US and UK offices I might believe that Super Castlevania IV was a sequel and that the Japanese name for Contra is "Gryz0r." But I don't, and hey, here's a link to the Japanese version. (http://www.classicgaming.com/contra/games/contranes/contranes-foreign.htm)

[Lady Jaye]

I'd consider Super Cobra to be a prequel rather than a sequel to Scramble, but that's just to justify going from a space schmup to an helicopter one...

And if you want revisionist history, how about Midway's site:


Midway has been a leader in the industry since the dawn of the video game revolution, with early breakthrough titles including Pong, Defender and Spy Hunter. Recent blockbuster titles include Ready 2 Rumble Boxing, Hydro Thunder, NFL Blitz and the Mortal Kombat series.


Hmm, okay. Yes, Midway has the rights to Pong, Defender and Spy Hunter... But those were not originally released by Midway. Now, if Midway had acknowledged that these games were originally released by Atari and Williams, it'd be more accurate. It's even more surprising, considering that the company currently known as Midway was formed by Williams swallowing Atari Games and Bally/Midway...

[Ed Oscuro]

...that's just not right. ._.

[Lady Jaye]

Of course, I meant that Defender and Pong fall in that revisionist history... Spy Hunter was actually released by Bally/Midway (that's what happens when you don't have the time to construct your posts properly and don't do some fact-checking...). :embarrassed:

[Dire 51]

As for what the US manual for Contra says, Spooie, I could care less what the crackheads in Konami's American offices say. The game is Japanese and it is the Japanese version that counts. The Japanese version's intro clearly gives a date from the future - 2631!

One wonders exactly what they were smoking when they came up with those stories and those horrible instruction manuals. I'm glad I got into importing for the obvious reasons, but it's an added plus to find out the real story behind some of my favorite games, like Contra here.

Here's another example of KoA's wackiness: Nemesis (GB) - it's a portable Gradius, right? So you fly the Vic Viper and fight Bacterion as usual, of course... NO! screams the horrible KoA-approved storyline. Now you're an intergalactic cop flying the "Proteus 911" trying to "apprehend" "King Nemesis", a space mobster or whatever those howler monkeys at KoA decided to make "him".

...yet at the end of the game it says something along the lines of "Get back in your Warp Rattler and challenge again!" Guess that slipped by them. And that's not a mistake, the original Vic Viper, the protoype, was called the Warp Rattler.

I'm also going to have to go with Super Cobra being the sequel to Scramble. I've seen and heard too much to support that theory over the years to think otherwise.