[PS2] Gradius V - 1-ALL Clear (3,139,570 to 2-5)

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Gradius V was released in 2004 as a PS2 exclusive, five years after the last mainline Gradius game. The game is interesting because it's a Gradius game made by Treasure. Treasure being known for Ikaruga, Radiant Silvergun, Gunstar Heroes, Alien Soldier etc. You can quite see the influence, the game is very, very good. The game is also designed to be a bit more modern, in the sense of upping the bullet count and lowering the hitbox sizes.
It's quite a shame it was never released in arcades, because it certainly has arcade quality and difficulty.

Speaking of difficulty, the game is pretty damn hard. Which is not something you'd expect from a console exclusive shmup. It's very much the arcade difficulty you'd expect from an arcade Gradius.
The game is brutal and relentless and you'll be slaughtered if you don't know exactly what you're doing.

Gameplay is like what you'd expect from Gradius. Enemies drop powerup capsules that advance the powerup meter and you can get the current highlighted weapon if you so desire.
Like always you have a ton of different weapons to choose from. You can choose between four weapon load-out types from the start and beating the game also unlocks Weapon Edit.
Weapon Edit lets you customize your load-out while also having a ton of weapons that are not featured in the main four types. Many of these being callbacks to previous games.
Of all the missile types I find Spread Bomb to be the best by far. It does a ton of damage and also covers a large area of effect.
For Double I like Vertical because it's useful for the stage 4 boss as well as the backwards scrolling section in stage 6.
For Laser I like Ripple. It's continuous fire unlike the normal laser and it's also pretty wide.
For Multiple the Freeze options are easily the best. Being able to freeze options is extremely versatile. It also lets you do a ton of very useful tricks and boss speedkills that the other option types cannot do.
For the ? category, Force Field is also easily the best. It gives you three free hits and those hits are pretty essential in later stages and the loops.

Freeze options change the normal Gradius gameplay very drastically. With enough finesse you can make all kinds of different formations that you normally wouldn't be able to make. Like clumping up all four options at once and placing it on top of a core to melt it instantly. Max speed also lets you make formations with the options spread out really far, making you able to reach places that are normally very far out of reach.

Speaking off speed, unlike previous games, max speed is still very controllable. Having max speed is also really beneficial because your options are spread out more, so there is no reason to not go for max speed in this game.

Something this game does different from the previous games is that there are no checkpoints. If you die you don't get send back to a previous checkpoint. You still lose all your powerups, but you have an opportunity to pick up your dropped options, which makes recovery a lot more doable. A bit like how it works in Salamander.

Like all previous Gradius games though, this game does have infinite loops. Which is a bit surprising for such a modern game to have. Each loop keeps getting harder until like loop 10, where the rank maxes out. Differences in the loop is that enemies fire more, are faster, more aggressive and destroying enemies will make them shoot suicide/revenge bullets at you. There are also more enemies added in various places and some bosses have new attacks. The stage 1 boss in particular is wildly different because there are now two of them.

The Option Hunter makes a return from previous game and functions basically the same. They will aim for your first option in an attempt to steal all your options. How they work exactly in this game is that they will appear around 14 to 15 minutes after you activate your 4th option. They are annoying and will get in the way a lot, but luckily if you time your 4th option well you can make them only spawn at the start and end of stages. You do this waiting to activate your 4th option until you reach the part in stage 2 where the screen start scrolling vertically (thanks to @Nickvonwilhelm for the tip).

Your hitbox in this game is actually really tiny, it's literally a 2x2 pixel hitbox. The hitbox of the Force Field is a lot bigger though, so keep that in mind.

PCSX2 usually has really bad input lag making shmups mostly unplayable, but this game is actually quite playable combined with DisableDWM to reduce windowed input lag.
The only issues I've noticed are the graphical glitch in the stage 2 cutscene and the occasional lag freeze.

Only real complaint I'd say is the length and the bullets being really hard to see in the loop.

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