
But I was shocked to find out that Life Force wasn't technically a sequel to Gradius. It was more of a spin off series of it's own. A monster known as Salamander. Perhaps for another post. ;)
Then I was even more shocked to see that the Super NES was to be launched with a very interesting launch title: Gradius III!! Wait!? Gradius III is coming out for the 16-bit SNES? We only got Gradius and Life Force. Where is Gradius II? Was Konami trying to pull the old "American's are too stupid to know it's not the official Gradius II."

But, it always left me a bit empty..... Where was Gradius II?
Fast forward to the years of OBEY!!
As an adult I found myself continuing to grow an amazing library of titles on a console that simply outshone the rest of the video game systems. That console is the Turbo Duo. Whichever console version you choose you simply cannot go wrong. The TurboGrafx, the PC Engine, the Turbo Duo, the TurboExpress, DuoR, DuoRX, SuperGrafx, or whatever! It's an amazing system. Then one day it happened.
I saw a for sale listing in an issue of EGM. There it was, O_O GRADIUS II!! this title that had eluded me for so long was actually released on a console somewhere in the world (of course in Japan!). I quickly called the 800 # and had purchased a copy of this gem! I was really excited to finally play the trilogy of Gradius! I had convinced myself, that because this was simply the second game in the series, that I shouldn't get too excited and knew that it would probably be a step backwards in many ways. Graphics, gameplay, and music shouldn't be as pretty as the third game in the series.
Well, boy was I surprised. Not only did the Turbo Super CD release of Gradius II surpass the SNES's version of Gradius III in music (Not the biggest surprise), but it also trumped it in graphics and gameplay!!
Gradius II has parallax scrolling, amazing beautiful sprites with DOZENS on screen at a single moment with next to NO slow down! The music is a rokken mix of some of the best tunes in the series, and the gameplay is so blisteringly fast that I actually thought the difficulty was through the roof as I had become used to relying on the slowdown to help me along the way.

The game style is your usual Gradius game. It's side scrolling shoot 'em up. It's got the same power up system, with many of the same baddies and elements from Gradius and Gradius III returning. The bosses are huge, the levels are at times SUPER SIZED so you have to scroll up or down to get to the correct paths avoiding GIANT planets or enemies to get through.
In comparison between the two; Gradius II on the PC Engine has faster gameplay and more crisp graphics, while Gradius III on the SNES has very excellent SNES style music, but has issues with slowdown. Both are wildly fun games, but only one is truly faithful in graphics, music, and gameplay, and that is The PC Engine's Gradius II. I would even go as far as saying that the SCD version of Gradius II surpasses the Arcade original!! O_O
If you've got the capabilities to play Super CDs on your Turbob, this one is a no brainer. Gradius II is a blast from beginning to end. If you love Konami shooters, and you're looking for more Gradius- GET THIS GAME!!
'til next time-
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