Famicom Gradius II (1988) previewed by EGM, GamePro, mid 1989. A highly underappreciated game

[parallaxscroll]

The Famicom version of Gradius II fascinated me, because we never got it on the NES in the United States.

We got Life Force, which itself wasn't quite as good as Salamander on the Famicom. The Japanese version had a Konami MM chip (VRC3) that Life Force NES didn't.

And yet, Gradius II on the Famicom had an even more powerful Konami chip, the VRC4, allowing for a significant leap in graphics and audio.
Compared to the earliest Famicom games in 1983, Gradius II looks almost 16-bit. Maybe not technically, but relatively.

I'm happy to provide these mid 1989 previews from EGM and GamePro for Famicom Gradius II which had already been released overseas in 1988.

I threw in a few images, the Konami VRC4 chip, the Gradius II cartridge board and a youtube video.





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Gradius II Famicom (1988)


Salamander Famicom (1987)


Life Force NES (1987)

[Niku-Sama]

I might have to pick this up, special chipped games intrigue me

[parallaxscroll]

It's also really fun to play.

[Tanooki]

I've owned it for a few years now, put it easily in the Top 3 maybe Top 5 Famicom games we didn't get released (or were brutally censored.) It's quality right up there with parodius, (jp) castlevania 3, yume penguin monogatari, crisis force, twinbee 3, wai wai world 2 level stuff that's a must play.

[Thrillo]

This game pushes the NES/Famicom hardware to its absolute limits, and has the gameplay to match; it's easily one of my top 3 games on the system. Shame it didn't make it to the US. Did Konami feel it wasn't worth the effort, due to the special mapper it used?

[SparTonberry]

Maybe. They probably would've made cuts to make it fit on a Nintendo mapper, as they did with Contra and LifeForce.
Although aside from NoA giving publishers the five-game quota they supposedly were telling publishers what they could publish with the supposedly "shortage" chips.
I read a rumor on another forum Konami once considered a US release of Bio Miracle Upa but NoA struck it down as "not worth it". (to only get an official western release as a Wii Virtual Console "import" download)

[parallaxscroll]

This game pushes the NES/Famicom hardware to its absolute limits, and has the gameplay to match; it's easily one of my top 3 games on the system. Shame it didn't make it to the US. Did Konami feel it wasn't worth the effort, due to the special mapper it used?

Yep.

And the leap from NES / Famicom Gradius (1986) to Gradius II Famicom (1988) is so impressive.

This is pretty interesting stuff for me. The only version I own and have played is the PCE CD version, which is great, but the steps they took to get this going on Famicom makes me want to play that version.

PC-Engine CD Gradius II is on a whole nother level of course. I just bought it for the Wii Virtual Console.

Here are two previews of the PCE CD version.