Gradius or Life Force?

[cosmicpsycho]

Both of these NES games were great. I'm not sure how to make a poll on here so you'll just have to answer in the thread. So which do you think is better.

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

I prefer Life Force, but both are awesome, classic, genre-defining shooters.

[DigitalSpace]

Hmm, that's a tough one. Both are among the greatest games on the NES. I'm going with Life Force - I play that a little more often, and it's also the first shmup I ever played.

[Sudo]

Life Force, it's my favorite shmup ever.

[The 1 2 P]

I don't even know what a shmup is, but I would say Life Force too. It had the classic Konami code, cetchy music and was even more fun in two player mode. Also interesting to note is that the Japanese famicom version of Life Force (titled Salamander) had an additional 3 endings(for a total of 4 different ones).

[PresidentLeever]

Yeah Life Force for me too, it has 2-player and better music overall.

I prefer the TG16 version of Gradius.

[Quintracker]

Life force hands down. I can loop that game as many times as I want and it still is fun to play (sort of like the contra games). Gradius never really caught my intention for long. For me the replay value was nil.

[Wraith Storm]

I have to follow suit and say Life Force as well. When it first came out my brother borrowed it from a friend and we had it for months until he finally made us give it back. I never beat the game but played it every day and loved every minute of it.

[DefaultGen]

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[LifeGame]

Im for Gradius, i love it, one of my favs all time

[Damaramu]

Out of these two shooters, I prefer Gradius.

[Oobgarm]

Agreed. Gradius is the best.

[Sabz5150]

Wow... hard one. Gradius is an excellent title and an excellent series, but Life Force has it beat if you are comparing the two NES titles only.

[Sotenga]

Life Force is the technically superior shmup and a fantastic game. However, for sentimental reasons and my contention that it still holds up to some of the best shmups today, I'm voting for Gradius.

[Graham Mitchell]

Another vote for Life Force.

[roushimsx]

I greatly prefer Gradius and find Lifeforce to be an annoyingly tedious game with some pretty neat graphics. At least it was better than Salamander, but Gradius is still tops.

[zektor]

I'll have to go with Life Force due to the fact that I purchased this shooter back then first, thus I have fonder memories of it. Although Gradius is an awesome game as well mind you.

[bangtango]

For starters, the ship controls a little bit smoother in Life Force. Secondly, Life Force has a better opening stage.

The most important thing to me is that Life Force is also a little more accessible. You have a 30-lives code at your disposal, which I need to get through Life Force. Unless I missed it for the past 20 years, there is no such code in Gradius.

Plus in Life Force you don't have to replay long sections of the stages (minus your power-ups) when you die, which IS the case in Gradius. I mean would Contra or Super C on NES really have been improved by sending people back 1/3 to 1/2 of the stage upon losing a life?

[DefaultGen]

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[GnawRadar]

I prefer Gradius. Primarily because I became a fan of Gradius later on in the series with Gradius 3 and then bought and played Gradius and Life Force and I like Gradius better and found Life Force to be a little tedious at times.