Gradius III and IV
2000 video game for PlayStation 2
Gradius III and IV is a video game compilation for the PlayStation 2 combining ports of the arcade versions of Gradius III (1989) and Gradius IV (1999). It was released in Japan on April 13, 2000, and North America and Europe in November 2000. The game was a launch title for the PS2 in PAL regions.
Gameplay
The overall gameplay is similar to the arcade versions, but included with a stage select and option menu. The option menu is similar to the configuration menus in the arcade versions, except that the ability to save and load high scores and adjust the screen has been added. For Gradius III, the option to change the amount of lag has been added because the PS2 processor is much faster than the arcade processor and for Gradius IV, the option to change sound (stereo/mono) and screen size (PCB/full-size) has been added.
Reception
By December 25, 2000, Gradius III and IV had shipped 84,703 units in Japan alone.
The game received "mixed" reviews according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. Some critics felt that they were still fun to play, while others said they were dated and suffered from a lack of updated features. GameFan listed Gradius III as the worst of the two due to suffering from "mundane" level design, a mediocre soundtrack, and a high difficulty level.
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This entry incorporates text from “Gradius III and IV” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.