Gradius V

Combines best-of-class graphics with a surprisingly back-to-basics approach to the series' familiar gameplay. The result is a sublime shooter that not only does its legacy proud, but actually transcends it.

Balanced, tuned and counter-weighted to within a pixel’s distance of perfection, Treasure have masterminded a game both technically adept and visually astonishing. Revel in this pean to the art of destruction. [JPN Import]

Gradius V may not reinvent the wheel that is the space shooter, but it refines it to near perfection. This is a title that no serious gamer should miss.

Very challenging and incredibly addictive. The game does a great job of doing what it set out to do and this is a solid side scrolling shooter.

The best side-scrolling action game for $30 this side of buying $30 worth of live crabs. That means buy it.

For all its tight gameplay and superb visuals, this is simply Treasure by numbers and if you’ve played any of its past games you’ll find nothing here that you haven't seen already. [Oct 2004, p.104]

Even though its more visually polished than some of the other shooters out there, the lack of innovation and the small number of seven stages makes Gradius V a must for fans of the series only. [JPN Import]

Gradius V is a better Gradius game than Konami could ever have dreamt of making themselves, and is the sole reason I still hold onto my old PS2, since this game is one of - if not the finest - example of the genre. Please someone port this to modern consoles, and by modern I mean Switch :) A true Treasure of intense shooting action.

Uno de los 5 mejores Shmups de todos los tiempos, lastima que el genero esta finiquitado y casi ya no salen juegos de esta factoría para las nuevas consolas

If you like lasers, space, and action you'll like this!

A beautifully polished feast for the eyes, with fantastic level design, and is completely faithful to the spirit of the Gradius series. I would give it a 10 if not for the controller-smashingly high difficulty level. Even by Gradius standards, it's stupidly hard. Sometimes the screen can fill up with deadly crap on the level of a "bullet hell" game, but even those have projectile patterns you can theoretically avoid. This game just throws random clouds of death at you. Mercifully, the hit detection is on the forgiving side, and you respawn right where you die, otherwise this work of art would barely be playable past level 2.

This isn't Gradius.. this isn't Gradius at all. However, what it is- is in fact a much better, much improved, and much better looking Gradius than any other installment in the series. Even though at times Treasures influence is incredibly obvious, seeing as they had everything to do with making this title, you'll still see some glimpses of original Gradius concepts from older games and maybe even old bosses or enemies. Its been re tweaked for awesome throughout, has a pretty cinematic quality to it and it even quite challenging in a relentless sort of way. However, the power-up system overhaul has left the room for error less-so than in the older games, seeing as you can do quite well with a fully powered ship in each stage. That doesn't mean you won't get you're ass murdered by level layouts or strategically placed enemy patterns of fire or otherwise. You may in fact enjoy this game or hate it for being nearly completely different the the other games.