By Samantha “Kitten” McComb
Nemesis is a game that left me feeling they could have done better. I’ve played it before and was impressed at how well they did Gradius on the Game Boy, but having now played Interstellar Assault a fair bit I can’t help but feel as though it’s a bit boring, at least by comparison. Perhaps I would appreciate it more if I played the MSX Gradius games and saw how it was translating some moments from them onto the Game Boy. As it stands, it’s one of the more forgettable games in the series, up there with Gradius IV.
I mean, it’s competently designed and no doubt one of the better shmups available on the Game Boy (Unlike the R-Type games, it does not fall prey to trying to overly detail things and keeps the sprites small enough to have a better replicated experience), but the sequel does everything so much better I just can’t see myself really wanting to replay Nemesis very much. I like to evaluate the quality of a GB game by how much I like to come back to it and quickly tread through it again, and there are too many other Gradius games out there to play for Nemesis to stand out as something I’d want to play several more times. Its lack of replay value is sorely disappointing.
The lack of vertical scrolling also hurts the game a lot. The 2nd stage has a ceiling that curves, at points, and even dips down about halfway through the screen later in the stage, but the screen never scrolls vertically. This leaves the levels feeling very flat and plain, especially if you’re playing it in proximity to having played its sequel. The levels do have some interesting and fairly varied visual design to them despite feeling so narrow, but having already played Gradius Rebirth for the Wii, I’ve already seen them all look considerably better.
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The strongest point I’d give to the game is that it has some impressive boss fights that sometimes span the entire screen. They feel mostly original, and they’re a breath of fresh air when you’ve feel like you’ve played the rest of the game in better ways before. Gradius is a series that often prides itself on homaging its best bits over and over again, but this unfortunately leads to some entries failing to do so in a way that makes them stand out.
I’m sure I’d be much more generous to the game reviewing it back in 1990, but today, there’s not a lot of reason to go back to it. It does feature two different loops, but I was able to clear them both without dying very quickly. The bottom line is that it is, when it comes down to it, Gradius on your Game Boy, but it’s been phased into obsolescence.