Gradius V INFO BOX SYSTEMS PS2 PUBLISHER Konami RELEASE DATES (PS2) Japan - 07/22/04 NA - 09/21/04 Europe - 12/31/04 Gradius V, what do you expect? You shouldn't expect the series to dwell too far from the roots, even with Treasure at the helm here. Ok, so where to begin? The game is faster then its predecessors, as well as riddled with far more bullets and enemies then before. Other then that, it's the same old Gradius action you should expect. The power up system is the same as before. You collect power up icons from killing certain enemies, and then select the power up you want, ranging from a speed increase to extra options. At the beginning of the game you can only choose from four pre-set ship settings, but later you can unlock an edit mode that allows you to choose all your specific power ups. Graphics and music have, of course, improved along with the hardware. It's no lie that this is a very pretty game. The screen is constantly full of action, with stylish effects flooding the screen. The music, by Hitoshi Sakimoto who also composed the music for Radiant Silvergun, is a large departure from his usual style and I quite like it. Fast, exciting techno style beats usually complement each stage with a few exceptions. Even so, I've always had a hard time getting into Gradius games. The length of the game is pretty long. You'll be playing for around an hour just to beat the first loop, and there's a ton of them after that. It's not likely you'll ever beat all the loops though. The problem with a fixed scrolling shooter being long is that you will always be forced to slowly crawl through the first few levels just to get to the later sections. I quickly lose my desire to play the game when I know it'll be a half hour before I get to the exciting parts. But it doesn't matter. I didn't expect to love the game, so I'm not really disappointed. For those that love the series, and other games like R-Type final, then this is exactly what you should be looking forward to when it's released in your parts of the world.