Gradius Gaiden (1997) — the classic that a still image could not sell, and that sold 34,383 copies

August 28, 1997: the first Gradius built for a home console

Hello, this is Toki. Episode 41 of “Today Is Release Day.” Today’s game is a rare case where the praise and the sales never met.From the thumbnail of “Gradius Gaiden (PSX) | Shmup Longplay Walkthrough Playthrough (4K)” (Retronomicon, YouTube)

Gradius Gaiden, released by Konami for the PlayStation in Japan on August 28, 1997, at 5,800 yen.

The series was born in arcades. This was the first entry designed from the start for a home console, and it reportedly took less than a year to make.

You fly right, you grab capsules, you get stronger. The skeleton was the old one. What changed was everything inside it.

Four ships — and you can reorder how you get stronger

There are four ships. The familiar Vic Viper. Lord British with its Ripple Laser. Jade Knight, whose Circle Laser scatters deadly rings. And Falchion β, which fires a Black Hole Bomb that sucks enemies in.

The clever part is that you can rearrange the power-up meter yourself. Put the shield second and you can take one speed-up, then armour up immediately.

You also pick your barrier. “Guard” lets you survive scraping the terrain; “Limit” makes you fully invincible for three seconds.

And for the first time in the series, two people could play at once.From the thumbnail of “[Longplay] PS1 - Gradius Gaiden [2 Players] (4K, 60FPS)” (xRavenXP, YouTube)

The stages are inventive too. Level one is snow, a first for the series. Then the remains of a boss, crystals that reflect your laser, and rotating Moai heads.

A “sea of mud” stage was considered as well. It simply wasn’t fun in testing, so it was dropped.

Dismissed as “a 2D shooter, now?” — and it sold 34,383 copies

The reaction at the time wasn’t so much split as twisted.

The four reviewers at Famitsu called it one of the best-looking shooters on the PlayStation.

The wider public was colder. A Japanese game-catalogue wiki later summed it up: at release it was taken negatively, as “Gradius III with slightly better resolution” and “a 2D shooter, now?”, and it ended up hidden in the shadow of beautiful 3D games.

The same entry notes that magazine screenshots simply could not convey how the game felt. 1997 was a year when eyes went to 3D.

The numbers are blunt. It sold 34,383 copies in its lifetime.

There was almost a North American release. In December 1997 Konami announced it as a bundle with Salamander Deluxe Pack Plus; the plan was later cancelled.

So please don’t judge this one from a still image. Here it is in motion.

Twenty-nine years later, it was one of only twenty

The game only became officially playable outside Japan in 2006, via Gradius Collection on PSP. That version dropped the two-player mode and suffered slowdown.

In Japan it was reissued repeatedly: as a PlayStation the Best budget release on July 30, 1998, and in PSone Books on November 20, 2003.

Then, on December 3, 2018, it was built into the PlayStation Classic. That console holds only twenty games.From the thumbnail of “グラディウス外伝(プレイステーション クラシック収録タイトル)ノーコン1周 ファルシオンβ” (# Tommy, YouTube)

Those twenty also include I.Q Intelligent Qube, XI [sái], Mr. Driller and Super Puzzle Fighter II X. Puzzle fans will know the faces.

The reassessment arrived, too. Jeremy Parish of Retronauts called it “The glorious high point of classic Gradius.”

Kurt Kalata of Hardcore Gaming 101 wrote: “Gradius Gaiden is a fantastic game – it’s really a toss-up between this and Gradius V as to which is the best.”

There was an ironic tailwind as well. The same Japanese wiki notes that because the officially numbered Gradius IV turned out lukewarm, this one was reappraised later.

Is there a game you passed over because of a still image?

I sat with that number for a while: 34,383. It is rare for the praise and the sales to miss each other by this much.

Part of the reason was probably presentation. A game that only comes alive in motion was introduced, that year, through pictures that did not move.

August 28, 1997. Let me write the year down properly. That makes today exactly twenty-nine years.

Have you ever skipped a game because of a magazine shot or a box, and regretted it later?