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The following are Subjective Tropes relating to Gradius.
- Adaptation Displacement - Most American fans believe that the NES version of Gradius is the first in the series due to the fact that arcade version was renamed Nemesis outside Japan.
- Best Level Ever - Stage 7 of Gaiden, which stards off as a seemingly-innocent volcano stage...and then gets gradually sucked into a black hole. Too bad it slows down to a crawl on a PS2.
- Complete Monster - Most of the Bacterians. They take over planets and change the environment to suit the Bacterians, which could potentially kill the other people who can't handle the change environment. In the Salamander OVA series, they indirectly orphaned Stephanie (they kidnapped Stephanie's father, turned him into a cyber brain, and Stephanie had to destroy her father. Stephanie's mother... well the mother died long before the Bacterians' invasion) and were going to make Stephanie a Cyber Brain too. All this with no regret.
- There maybe an exceptional Bacterian named Tita Nium whose one of the heroes of Otomedius. She may be a Bacterian.
- Crowning Moment of Awesome - "Warning. There is a space-time anomaly forming. Two objects have emerged. Ship identification code cannot be processed for the large craft. The other is Vic Viper T-301"
- Crowning Moment of Heartwarming - Gradius Collection plays this melody upon completing the first Gradius
- Crowning Music of Awesome - Gradius contains a large amount, listing them here would take too much space. Examples can be seen on the trope page.
- Degraded Boss: Venom went from a difficult final boss to an regular Gradius Anticlimax Boss. This also applies to Zelos and Big Core MK 1.
- Demonic Spiders - Those bouncy things that shoot omnidirectional bullet spams, the Bubbles in the titular stage, especially in IV (where you have bouncing icebergs to dodge as well), the dreaded Option Thief, the goddamned Zubs (who sometimes materialize on top of you), the inflating mini-Moais that the Moai Boss spawns, the fireballs that generate indestructible shrapnel, and the dreaded Cube Rush at the end of the Ice Stage.
- Ear Worm - Aircraft Carrier aka the boss theme in the first Gradius aka the first theme of the boss rushes. It is literally only 4 measures that loop over and over again but god damn it if it isn't catchy.
- Game Breaker - Some of the custom weapon set-ups can be this if the right weapons and option formations are used.
- The Falchion Beta is this in Gaiden. The Auto-Aiming at full power covers 180 degrees of the top of your ship, the Gravity Bullet speed kills bosses, and the Rolling Missile both goes in both directions and pierces through weak enemies.
- Goddamned Bats - Lots of examples. One particularly irritating example the "Strobe Ship" in Salamander's second and fifth stages, which Inferface Screws you with seizure-inducing flashes.
- It's Short, So It Sucks - Gradius ReBirth is in trouble as far as this trope goes, as it's just five stages.
- Well, you do have to beat the game three times in order to actually beat it completely with an ending.
- Moral Event Horizon: In Nemesis 3, Venom attacked planet Gradius and kidnapped a three-year old James Burton to change history in favor of the Bacterians. His attack has indirectly killed many of Venom's own species due to radiation.
- Narm - Several boss taunts, such as:
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"You think you can beat me with THAT? Loser!" --Moai Dimension, Gradius Gaiden stage 4 |
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- Nightmare Fuel - Usually the Bacterian Emperor either looks like a Brain, a Giant Eye (Zelos), a skinless head (Gofer), a three headed humanoid (Doom), or a face surrounded by smaller faces (Bacterion).
- There is also the two facts that :
- A. The Bacterians are pieces of Bacterion who is an cell.
- B. The Homeworld of the Bacterians is Bacterion himself.
- What's really scary is that every the Bacterian Emperor gets defeated, the cells composing the Bacterian Empire increase in numbers, making a new and stronger Empire.
- There is also the two facts that :
- Scrappy Level - The Fire and Ice zones in III Arcade, the Bubble and Cell stages in IV, and the "green slime factory" stage in V. And the fortress stage in almost every game. ALL of Gradius III arcade.
- The first stage of III Arcade is pretty fun, and provided you played perfectly (you have four options, your laser, and missiles) and keep up a steady stream of fire, the second stage is tense, but enjoyable. It's the third stage where it all goes downhill (ironically, the third stage is virtually a rehash of the first stage of I only a hell of a lot harder, and appears again in Gradius Rebirth, where it is nowhere near as hard).
- Sequelitis - Gradius IV is victim to this, due to not adding anything new to the series (the first stage is even a re-hash of the first stage from Gradius II) and for the 3D effects looking rather cheap.
- That One Boss - Big Core MK III and the Moai boss in Gradius III Arcade/[PS2], Heaven's Gate in Gaiden(possibly the hardest in the series), Belial(a suped-up remake of Golem from Salamander/Life Force) in Gradius IV, Bolboros, the twin ships from Gradius Galaxies/Generations/Advance and most of the bosses in V, particularly the remake of Beacon from Gradius III SNES.
- How can we not have mentioned the Boss from Gradius 4's High speed stage...already a frustratingly difficult stage, they have the nerve to throw a boss this troper and his friends have dubbed "Suckbot" a half eaten donut with small laser guns filling all the empty space down the flat side facing you, the "donut hole" core aims independantly of the outer shell, so it fires around 10 lasers in one direction and another 4-6 in another... and every time you think you've got his pattern figured out...he throws something new at you, like turning the core sideways and blastoing you with a no "other" warning laser blast. And then Konami has the gall to bring "Suckbot" back for a rematch in a BOSS RUSH in Gradius 5.
- Doom, the Final Boss of Salamander 2. Yes, he is a Final Boss. However, it's extremely rare for a Gradius final boss to be not a Zero Effort Boss.