Gradius II And Me

[Dire 51]

Is the contest over? I don't know, but since the forum is still open, I've decided to post one final story. I don't really intend this to be an entry (of course, if the judges like it then yeah, it's an entry ), but I wanted to share it with everyone. It's a sequel to the very first LORE entry that I ever wrote, which made it into the Advance Guide ("Gradius III And Me", for those of you keeping score).

Anyway, enjoy!

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Gradius II And Me
by Rob "Dire 51" Strangman

1994. The beginning of the closing days of the 16-bit wars. The next generation of gaming was almost upon us. And here I was, playing my SNES, Genesis and TG16, not caring at all about the fantastic gaming promises that the future held. In fact, I was going backwards. I had a nice collection of SMS games that I would play on a regular basis, and I was still playing and loving my NES games. My Atari 2600 and 7800 games were getting a serious workout every so often as well.

At the time, I wasn't working. Rather, I was living expenses-free at my parent's house in Central Florida and using the money I still had in savings from my last job to buy the un-necessities I "needed", such as videogames and CDs. Most of my friends had left the area, due to their new naval careers, and I had no real desire to get off my butt and find work or go back to school, nor would I for at least another year. I was enjoying a fairly responsibility-free existence.

My best friend Chris came back on leave at this time. One night he and I were driving around Orange City when we spotted a new videogame store that had apparently just opened, called the Video Game Warehouse. I had never seen it before that day, despite traveling through that part of Orange City quite a bit. It was closed at the time, but we vowed to come back the next morning and check it out.

The next afternoon - I was a late sleeper; after all, I didn't need to be anywhere - Chris, our friend Steve (who was about to go into the Navy) and I arrived at the Warehouse. We walked inside, and we could see that for such a small store, it had a huge selection of games going from the current stuff back to the NES. There were also several arcade cabinets, including a Neo Geo.

Steve and Chris were astonished to find that the Street Fighter II machine there allowed you to switch characters in mid-game by pressing a button, and as such were glued to it. I, on the other hand, had no interest in SF2, bizarre gameplay alteration or not. So after watching them play for a minute, I decided to browse the selection of games for sale (and rent, as it turned out).

There was nothing there that I was extremely interested in, so my attention started to wander. It was then that I noticed several small boxes hanging from the ceiling. I'm a tall guy, so I was able to get a good look at the boxes. They were in Japanese, and I noticed that several of them had a logo that read "FF: Famicom Family". At the time, I didn't know much about the Famicom, but I did know that it was the Japanese version of the NES. My interest in these boxes was suddenly piqued.

It was then the owner of the store came out from the back room. He greeted us, and went about whatever it was that he was doing at the time. I continued to look at the Famicom boxes, and the last one I looked at was hanging in a corner of the store. It was silver, and I noticed the Konami logo on the side.

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 I went to talk to the owner, Shaun. I asked him if the games that he had hanging from the ceiling were for sale. His response was a look of surprise. "You mean you actually want to buy one?" he asked. I assured him that I did, and he said to wait here, that he'd be right back. He then disappeared into the back room.

Several minutes later, he came out with a small plastic tote loaded with Famicom games. My jaw dropped for the second time in ten minutes. At this point, Chris and Steve had finished their game, and had come up to the counter. The look on Chris' face when he saw the tote matched the one on mine, I'm positive of that.

"So which one are you interested in?" Shaun asked. 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.

Then came the big question: the price. Shaun thought for a few moments, then said "Twenty dollars for both games and the converter." Having expected to hear a price much higher than that, I covered my surprise and immediately said "Sold." Shaun took both boxes down from the ceiling, put the games in them and rung me up, and then it was Chris' turn.

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.

Little did I know that my first taste wouldn't be my last.