Gradius
Few shooters left as deep a mark on the genre as Gradius. In 1986 Konami brought to the NES a revolutionary idea that dozens of games still copy today: gradually upgrading the Vic Viper ship through your own choice. You collect orange capsules, which light up a bar at the bottom of the screen, and at the right moment you pick what you want to upgrade, speed, double shots, laser, Options (satellites that mirror your fire) or a shield. That freedom turns you into a strategist before you even fire a shot.
The game became famous for a difficulty that mercilessly punishes every mistake: lose your ship and you lose all your upgrades too, returning to a bare Vic Viper right into the ongoing chaos. That's exactly why Gradius is so inseparably linked to the legendary Konami Code (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A), which hands you a full loadout at the start, players passed it around like a secret incantation.
Retro enthusiasts love Gradius for its clean, precise design and iconic bosses, including the pulsating brain Big Core. It's a game you learn by heart, level by level, and every successful run through a volcanic or organic stage is a small victory. A cornerstone of the whole series and of the entire genre of upgrade shmups.
Game 86 of 120 for Nintendo NES
The same title elsewhere (2)
Konami's arcade original had a full colour palette, smooth scrolling with no slowdown and a rich FM sound chip that home versions struggled to match. The NES port had to make do with the console's weaker sound chip, so the music sounds thinner, sprites occasionally flicker, and slowdown appears when many enemies are on screen; the punishing difficulty here is exactly why the famous Konami Code for extra lives was born. The Sharp X68000 conversion, by contrast, ran on a computer built to approach arcade specifications, and it is still regarded as the most faithful home port of Gradius — preserving colour, music and pace almost unchanged, and ranking among the best-regarded versions of the game overall.
From the same series Gradius →
Gradius / Salamander MAME 
Nemesis 2 / Gradius 2 MSX · 1987+ 
Gradius III MAME · SNES · 1989 
Gradius: The Interstellar Assault (Nemesis II) GB · 1992 
Gradius II X68k · 1992 
Gradius Gaiden PS1 · 1997 
Gradius IV: Fukkatsu MAME · 1999 
Gradius Galaxies GBA · 2001 
Gradius V PS2 · 2004 
Gradius Collection PSP · 2006 
Gradius ReBirth Wii · 2008 
