Gradius III (1989)
Gradius III is a 1989 shooter video game made by Konami.
Epic in scope and remorseless in execution, Gradius III pits the lone Vic Viper spacecraft against Bacterian's entire invasion force threatening the planet Gradius. Players build power by collecting capsules and choosing which systems to upgrade: speed, missiles, a laser, a force field, a cluster of orbiting Options that mirror every shot you fire. Death strips everything away and sends you back to the start of a stage with a bare ship in the middle of enemies calibrated for a fully powered one. Konami's 1989 SNES flagship is a brutal, beautiful space shooter that rewards mastery and offers no shortcuts.
Quick answers
What is Gradius III about?
Epic in scope and remorseless in execution, Gradius III pits the lone Vic Viper spacecraft against Bacterian's entire invasion force threatening the planet Gradius. Players build power by collecting capsules and choosing which systems to upgrade: speed, missiles, a laser, a force field, a cluster of orbiting Options that mirror every shot you fire. Death strips everything away and sends you back to the start of a stage with a bare ship in the middle of enemies calibrated for a fully powered one. Konami's 1989 SNES flagship is a brutal, beautiful space shooter that rewards mastery and offers no shortcuts.
When was Gradius III released?
Gradius III was released on 11 December 1989.
Who made Gradius III?
Gradius III was made by Konami.
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A few thoughts on Gradius III
Gradius III's planetary-defense stakes and space-opera atmosphere connect well with Knights of Sidonia, where humanity's survival against an alien threat similarly runs through one pilot and one ship. Both commit fully to the weight of being the last line of defense.
Outgunned heroes taking on a force built to crush them
Gradius III resets the Vic Viper to bare metal after every death and throws it straight back at an invasion fleet built for a fully powered ship. That mismatch, one desperate defender against a force with every advantage, drives Knights of Sidonia's outmatched colony vessel and Old Man's War's underequipped recruits, while Half-Life 2 and Portal put their own heroes up against opponents built to win.
Concept albums that imagine a cold, mechanized future
Gradius III's Bacterian empire is a machine-cold threat with no motive beyond conquest, and that same chilly, mechanized future runs through Deltron 3030's robot-run dystopia, Vangelis's synth-scored Blade Runner, Muse's alien-paranoid Simulation Theory and Black Holes and Revelations, Ayreon's space-migration saga Universal Migrator Part 2, and the surgical dystopia of Repo! The Genetic Opera. Each one scores a world where technology has already won.