I still remember the first time I played Gradius III. I thought there was something wrong with the game, or that my shiny new console was screwed up somehow. Eventually I just came to realize, no, nothing’s overheating; the game just likes to go into bullet-time to help you dodge enemy fire. Later, the Wachowski brothers would totally rip off Gradius III’s innovation and become incredibly wealthy as a result.
The only time I’ve ever beaten the Yellow Devil in the original Mega Man without cheating is in the Genesis remake — which suffers from bad enough slowdown that yes, it’s pretty much like bullet time and makes dodging much much easier.
(Currently stuck on him in Powered Up, actually, where you have like four character widths between his two halves. And a weapon that can slow down time, but it doesn’t work nearly as well as the slowdown the Genesis did all by itself.)
Beating the Yellow Devil is crazy tough in the original, no question. It _can_ be done (without the select trick, even), but it’s crazy tricky. His Mega Man 3 incarnation is much easier, as the pieces fly in at a much slower pace.
This just reminds me, honestly, of how brutal the original Mega Man was compared to the others in the series.
I don’t know if there’s an official AP Style verdict but Ebert’s been calling them the Wachoski Siblings for a number of years now.
Wachowski Siblings now, actually. One of them is a lady.
I think the SNES port was only short one level overall compared to the arcade.
Is it unfounded to say that I think Gradius II has aged better in both its arcade/PCE Duo and Famicom forms? I still do feel that Gradius III is solid, but slow even by Gradius’ own standards, and doesn’t really stand out aside from the configurable power-up gauge.
Sir, you make me laugh.