Three is a trend, right? So between Mega Man 9 and Gradius Rebirth, all we need is one more pixelated, faux-retro update in a classic game series to hit WiiWare before we can write a trend story about it.
In the meantime, Konami has just released Gradius Rebirth onto WiiWare in Japan, a $10 downloadable title that looks like a Super Nintendo game but is in actual fact a new production. Anybody who's ever sat in front of their tube television for hours on end blasting tiny aliens in the Vic Viper will be instantly transported back to a version of 1993 that never actually happened.
In this case, I'm not so sure it's a good thing. Mega Man 9's design evokes a nostalgic retro charm. Gradius Rebirth's looks more like a reminder of why we left 16-bit processors behind in the first place. The intro screens are an unappealing mess of bad art and blurry kanji, the chiptunes ever so slightly grating. Luckily you can skip past all that and jump straight to the shooting. You can play using the nunchuk and Wiimote, or just turn it on its side for that extra old-school feeling.
Rebirth, like its predecessors, is hard. The real kind of hard, the kind that frustrates you and makes you want to pitch your controller out the window. It's meant for those who are already experts at this sort of thing, in a way, because it just relentlessly punishes you. It's not as bad as, say, Contra III -- you'll definitely make it far into the first level without having to start over. But after that, it unleashes the hounds and doesn't let up.
Here's the trick, though: There are unlimited continues, and the checkpoint system is generous. So while you do have to get sent back to a checkpoint, thereby assuring that you can't simply brute-force your way through the game, you're not overly penalized. They just drop your high score down to zero.
What this creates is an interesting cycle of frustration and accomplishment, as you have as many attempts as you feel like to get through each of the game's little challenges without blowing up. So even those who ordinarily wouldn't touch these kinds of games with an eleven-foot pole, like me, can get drawn into it without wanting to give up.
Image: Konami
