Gradius III retrospective: Life at half-speed | Super NES Works
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- Опубликовано: 5 сен 2024
- Konami makes its Super NES debut (and so soon on this channel after their first NES game!) with the third Gradius game, and the second to make its way to the U.S.: Gradius III, a verrrrry sloooow adaptaaaation of a murderous arcade game. While it doesn't show off Nintendo's shiny new Super NES hardware to the most flattering effect, the constant, all-consuming slowdown actually does have its share of beneficial side effects....
As a kid, the slowdown never bothered us- it honestly felt like a feature. It' was like going to slo-mo to highlight how crazy the action was at that moment in the game!
I can almost forgive this game's shortcomings as the music is some of the best Gradius music ever, even best video game music ever!
I think Konami realized that the slowdown made the game easier. If you input the traditional Konami code during gameplay the Vic Viper explodes. Sure, there's an updated version that swaps L and R for the left and right inputs, but you get trolled hard the first time you attempt to cheat.
Parodius one ups that and makes you hold the controller upside down
There's a ROM hack of the game running on a Super FX 2 cart and it's finally running at full speed 100% of the time.
Yeah! Well, it's the SA-1 chip that Mario RPG ran on. The same guy has also converted Contra III and is working on widescreen patches next.
I'll always remember the bubble stage. Frustrating yet also wonderful to look at. The slowdown seemed more helpful than annoying there too.
I think the slowdowns on initial Snes titles are overstated, obviously devs won't know how to push the hardware at the very beginning of a console's lifecycle. In the later Snes games particularly, I notice way less slowdowns in most games even though many of them push the hardware even harder than the initial titles. I concede that the Snes was slower than their 16-bit competitors CPU-wise, but clock-rate alone does very little to determine that. You have to account instructions per cycle, RAM/ROM size and speed, etc... The Snes had a complex architecture with variable CPU-clock, a weird bitplane format for graphics and lots of auxiliary chips so it was less straightforward to program. If I remember correctly the Snes could do a lot more instructions per cycle than the Sega Mega Drive, so the raw difference in CPU speed is much less drastic than you'd think, though the Mega Drive is still much faster, not necessarily only because of the CPU
Fun fact: I remember in an interview, the programmer of the SNES port of Another World complained she almost couldn't make it run on the Snes not necessarily due to the CPU, but because of lack of fast memory: "Since Interplay wouldn't pay for a Super FX chip, I found a way to do it with static RAM on the cart and DMA which got me a great frame rate. Interplay wouldn't pay for the static RAM either, so I ended up using Fast ROM instruction. Interplay wouldn't pay for a 3.6 MHz ROM either. So, frustrated, I shoved my block move code into the DMA registers and use it as RAM running at 3.6 MHz. It worked. I got fast block moves on slow cartridges and made a game using polygons working on a 65816 with pure software rendering."
Interesting. I'd love to hear that interview
This is crazy, this game always seemed perfect to me. For me it was especially sought after because I only got to play over my cousins house.
I've woken up to Mechanical Base from the SNES version of Gradius III for 6-years now, and regret nothing. This isn't just one of the SNES's best soundtracks, but one of Konami's as a whole.
The slowdown was definitely my best friend in this game, especially on that aqua planet!
I'm definitely one of those fans who looks back on it fondly. Yeah, the breakup & slowdown were certainly disappointing. But the dark sci-fi glow of its graphics and that soundtrack that's burned into my brain to this day really set the tone for what the SNES was going to be about.
I played the living daylights out of this when I was a kid. Compared to the other hardware I had access to at the time (NES, Atari 2600, TRS-80 Model III, and Apple //e), even this on the SNES seemed outstanding. I remember we didn't get a PC until around 1992, and it was a slower 486 with no sound board until we installed one a year or two later.
That soundtrack
Gradius 3 for the SNES is kind of a hybrid of the arcade version and Gradius 2. The Moai stage for example plays much more like a remix of the Gradius 2 Moai stage than the Gradius 3 arcade version. Same thing with the speed rush stage, which is also much closer to the Gradius 2 version. Its like Konami plugged in Gradius 2 concepts in place of Gradius 3 concepts that were just too much for a first generation SNES cartridge to handle.
That SNES Gradius III speed zone always felt like it was a straight rip from Gradius II, minus those huge mechanical spheres that you had to shoot at in 2's speed stage.
This is my favorite Gradius. I've only played the NES original and Life Force (suggestions on the best, anyone?), but this one is near and dear to me. The soundtrack is phenomenal, and as a 12-year-old at the time I didn't care about the slowdown. I actually wasn't made aware of it until years later when I played through Gradius III on MAME. Anyway, great video and looking forward to Final Fight (another favorite)!
I think general consensus is that V on PS2 is the best, but it's kind of Gradius for people who don't like Gradius. Gradius Gaiden on PS1 is another good one as is Gradius 2 on arcade and PC Engine, all are worth playing.
I see that both Gaiden and 2 are on the Gradius Collection for PSP. I have a long trip coming up so I'll track that down. Thanks!
Dude another amazing video! And you are the only guy to I have ever heard in recent years to say that the severe slow down in GIII actually aids in making it easier. I got this game back in December of 1991 when I was 14 years old. I was obsessed with Gradius on the NES and HAD to have this game. But because I was only allowed a new game every 6 months or so back in those days I played the living shit out of this and got so good that I can now master a full run in the hardest mode "ARCADE" with almost no death. I still own the cartridge to this day and replay the game every now and again. Great work man keep it up!! Your video on Kid Icarus also struck and emotional and nostalgic cord with me.
The SA-1 mod sure adds an interesting postscript to all of this.
The SNES class of '91 ports did feel a little shoehorned due to the slow CPU and lack of
Looking forward to the eventual (hopefully!) entry for Famicom Gradius II. Bummed that it never showed up on VC outside JP.
I recently did a pretty deep dive on Gradius III on my own channel, and my conclusion was similar to yours: yeah, it slows down a bunch, but it's ultimately more playable than the ridiculously difficult arcade version.
Also, I'm reminded of the time someone told me Space Megaforce (Super Aleste) wasn't that impressive, because "Gradius III doesn't slow down on the SNES." I wasn't sure if he'd ever actually played Gradius III.
Excuse me, it's pronounced "Guy-Are-Us"
You might not have been around at the time, but that’s what the magazines were saying, before it came out.
@@jnnx I think I speak for both Parish and myself when I say we do recall that.
When Sega were poking fun at SNES games in their advertising campaign, it seems weird they never mentioned this game whilst talking about blast processing, they could've compared it to the Thunder Force games or something!
My guess is that they focused on first-party SNES games so as not to alienate potential third-party licensees. Konami equalled money in the early ’90s, and no good would have come from spitting in their faces.
You have to walk before you can crawl. Konami definitely fell short with Gradius 3, but they would absolutely knock it out of the park a couple years later with Axelay.
Looooove this game. My dad bought an SNES pretty soon after it came out, and there weren't a ton of games, so he got this game so we wouldn't just have Mario. Was a good choice. Brings back such good memories.
Sorry to be "that guy", but Solar Assault came out in 1997. Your videos are truly awesome, though!
One of my favorite SNES games
I still have my original SimCity cart from when I was kid. This and SC3000 are my two favorites. Also I really feel like SimCity 3k takes a lot more from the SNES SimCity than 2k does. From the tranquil music and the use of special rewards, etc., It just feels more SNESy than the earlier PC versions.
It's amazing how Nintendo's most prolific third-party publishers both stumbled in their 16-bit debuts. Despite the issues Gradius III had, it's not as outright disappointing as Capcom's first SNES offering.
you know, it is rumored that samus from metroid was piloting the gradius wing when she blew the effing crap out of the final boss... there is a hidden ending where she sucesfully discards her broken ship and uses the bacterian tech to assemble a new ship and suit
The Compile Test is prove that SNES never had much potential for shooters. Compile made at least one Blazingly fast shooter for just about every system at the time, including Game Gear. Their SNES game Space Megaforce is the slowest one out of all of them.
It's a good game, probably runs the best of any shooter on the SNES (R-Type III could make an argument). Speed matters, but is not the be-all-end all.
Good time for me. I was in a used game shop the other day and saw SNES Gradius III for $10. I hadn't previously ever owned it. The slowdown is noticeable, but isn't game breaking. Sometimes slowdown can ruin games - but that isn't the case here in my opinion.
Picked it up for 8 USD over the winter, but I guess with the conversion, that'd be the same as 10 CAD.
Satoshi Matrix the game was also ported to gba
No it wasn't. Gradius Advance (Galaxies in the US) is a totally different game. the GBA never got a port of Gradius III.
I'd like to weigh in on those two stages that were cut from the SNES version of Gradius III. My guess is that the High-Speed, StarFox-esque level from the AC version was taken and retweaked to become Stage 7, also known as Accident Road/"The Greased Lightning Round". Or as user @BloodReign1 said, that stage could've come from the Maximum Speed level on Gradius II. As for the Crystal Labyrinth stage, I want to say that it was cut from the game because of the high difficulty level; the arcade version of G3 was some nasty work in terms of playability (game being a bullet hell from the start), but the SNES version still gave players a challenge while being a tad more lenient.
Lastly, I see the slowdown of the game as more of a benefit than a letdown, especially when clearing the Bubble stage. A trick I use is spreading out my Multiples in Formation Option mode to get my enemies out the paint. Just my thoughts on a classic shooter I've been playing since 30 years ago 😊
Excellent video as always. Keep up the good work, Jeremy! As for me, I am so looking forward to the Legend of the Mystical Ninja Episodes :)
Great video! I have a lot of nostalgia for this port. I bought it at launch. The slowdown is bothersome, but it does make the game easier. For a launch window title, you could do a lot worse.
Gradius 3 was a head scratcher. The SNES was a powerful system. How did the programmers not shave down some of the game to avoid the slowdown? It was very slow. I will say that the slowdown did help a ton during the intense parts haha
That speed maze always kills any playthrough I have of this game dead, it rings true just how helpful the slowdown is
Great video Jeremy, I really enjoy this SNES series. It was a fair overview of Gradius III, for me even though it's flawed it's one of my favourite games on the system, probably because I really enjoy shooters and it was one of the first games I got back in the day.
Many of 90s Danmaku barrage shooters rely on slowdown as an easing mechanic, going as far as artificially creating slowdowns intentionally even on non-emulated, genuine PC ports and remakes.
I'm not sure if SNES Gradius 3 intentionally relies on it, but it surely helped circumvent notoriety of unfair difficulty of AC Gradius 3 (which, in the end of the day, the developer listened to hardcore gamers a bit too much).
I've only played the Arcade version on MAME, and the SNES port looks just okay. But Gradius 3 was a major step up from Vulcan Venture/Gradius II, which was just horribly frustrating and unfair.
You should try the PC Engine version of Gradius II (Gradius II Gofer) -- it's much, much easier and more enjoyable than the arcade version. And the PC Engine-exclusive opening sequence kicks ass. You can easily find the ISO file to download on retro game sites like EmuParadise.
Slowbeef has a playthrough of the arcade version which consists of him basically cursing every aspect of that game (he loves the SNES version). Apparently it was rushed out in 9 months.
Also as bad as the slowdown is, it's no R-Type Final.
Very good overview, but Gradius III in the arcade used twin 16-bit 68000 CPUs, not a 32-bit processor. Still, good work here.
Been playing since a kid. Finally beat it today using save states on an emulator
With recent romhacks that fix the slowdown, I can no longer beat this game even on easy. The slowdown is a must for me lol.
Still an awesome game I still play it pretty often I suck at it but it's fun
The stuff cut from the arcade version were by and large, no great loss. Especially that crystal stage - watching people play through the infamous "cube rush" makes me never want to try another Gradius game. I'm OK with the slowdown too - using it to your advantage sometimes almost feels like it's part of the difficulty curve. A friend of mine recommended I use the rotating options with the charging laser because of how badly that combo taxes the processor!
Love this game!
This game has got to be one of my favorite nostalgic trips.... so I'm really surprised to take the nostalgia goggles off and realize that the slowdown was because of underperformance... and that it was way easier than arcade. (HOW?! I still haven't beaten it even with constant cheat use) 😰
By the early 90s, it was just a given that some of the best games up to that point were going to get bogged down by sprites, so I barely ever noticed when they did.
Not me; I disliked the N64 when it came out. Now I own one and can appreciate it and like some of the games, but still don't like the general look of them.
+Poison Ivy - It was an experimental time in gaming. I can appreciate those games more now than I did back then (although I still keep trying to find enjoyment in Super Mario 64 to no avail).
It's a bit sad that you only take on stateside released SNES titles, because Parodius (which only came out in Japan and Europe) fares WAY better than Gradius III did. Way less slowdown at an equal amount of enemies, bullets and even more stages than the arcade version. If I remember correctly the PAL version runs even at the same speed as the JP version, not quite sure about that one, though.
Still, I love Gradius III. You mentioned it being easier because of all the slowdown which is exactly why I like it. The arcade version is next to impossible for me to beat. The slowdown of the SNES is an absolute godsend in that regard.
He's just at the beginning with SNES Works. I'd imagine Parodius would be in the running for a future Gaiden episode.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Super_NES_enhancement_chips#List_of_Super_NES_games_that_use_enhancement_chips
Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius - SA1
Not really sure what you're trying to say with this. Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius is not the same Parodius that came out in Europe (and Japan), but actually its second Japan-exclusive sequel. The SA1 chip was used for compression and decompression of all the voice lines that get thrown around in the game, to basically mimic a commentator commentating on all your actions.
Actually, Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius suffers almost the same fate as Gradius III on SNES. It can easily slow to a crawl once you're fully upgraded and have some enemies on screen. With some playable characters you don't even need some extra enemies. Play it with one of the cats for example, fully upgrade them, shoot around a bit and you get instant slowdown.
As far as I know Jikkyou Oshaberi even has 2-Player simultaneous play. Slowdown in that mode is guaranteed pretty much 80% of the time and to an even worse extent as in Gradius III.
While the first Parodius on SNES (otherwise known as "Parodius Da!" in Japan) and Gokujou Parodius do have some issues with slowdown too, but not nearly to the extent as Gradius III does.
Reminded the Super Famicom also got the sequel, "Fantastic Parodius", though I don't suppose that came to Europe. I see the PS1 in Europe did get a Parodius disc that featured the first two arcade titles. Too bad America missed out on this otherwise.
www.gamefaqs.com/ps/572946-gokujou-parodius-da-deluxe-pack/images/166499
It's definitely possible.
PAL version slowdown isn't caused by the hardware directly. It's caused by lazy porting that doesn't adjust speed parameters.
(on old consoles, game speed is tied directly to framerate. Because PAL systems run at 50hz instead of 60hz, the games run slower if you don't adjust it. Though conversely a title developed for PAL ported to NTSC runs faster than intended, though most people don't register this and still presume the 'faster' version is the intended speed even when it isn't.)
the speed of the game and the framerate are technically independent factors. And while 50 hz is a lower framerate, that's not as noticeable as the slowdown.
By the way, properly developed PAL games should have less slowdown in general, because they have more VBLANK time to work with - vblank is the only period you can mess with video ram from the CPU side, so more time here means more complex visual effects are possible.
Also since each frame is 6/5 times the length, and there are less of them in a second, you're again less likely to run out of CPU time, causing a frame stall, which is the reason slowdown happens - the details for the next frame aren't ready yet, so the PPU draws the existing frame a second time. That means that over-running the available cpu time for a single frame by even a tiny fraction stalls the game an entire frame, because you have to wait for the next vblank. (so if the calculations take even slightly more than 1 frame worth of time the game slows to half speed. If it takes over 2 frames, it slows to 1/3 speed etc.)
Borderline cases where the game is just SLIGHTLY too slow to update a frame in 1/60th of a second should be able to manage it in 1/50th of a second, so the result should be less frequent slowdown.
It's ironic how PAL hardware has a technical edge in a bunch of cases, yet often gets treated like a pariah. (then again developers rarely if ever exploited the technical advantages of PAL hardware.
I guess that's no surprise though NTSC games with lazy conversions run slowly on PAL hardware, but those with proper conversions run fine, albeit with black bars, and squished graphics. Games that push PAL hardware to it's limits though would be un-portable. You literally could not, EVER get an NTSC machine to play them. When you realise that the NTSC regions - Japan + the US (and Canada + a few others), represent about 60-80% of the market for most games, you realise why this is generally avoided.
A game that can literally only ever run on PAL hardware excludes 80% of the game's potential market....
There is a modded rom version that eliminates the slowdown and, at least for me, makes the game far more punishing in many spots. It's the only version I play now.
Channel is a hidden gem.
The missing two stages are actually the stains of the original version in my opinion
Great episode Jeremy.
Besides a few exceptions (Darius Twin, Axelay, UN Squadron, Super Megaforce), the SNES was just not a great console for shooters. Genesis and TG-16 were far superior machines for these kinds of games (and I say this as a huge Super Nintendo fan).
hmmm gradius 3 having slowdown is a feature not a bug, this game is more fun in slow motion for me
The only game with slowdown helps you to beat Gradius 😂
Still one of the best difficult game
Wait wasnt Super R-Type out before this in the US?, in the UK Super R-Type was one of the 6 launch titles
Gradius III was a U.S. launch title. Super R-Type was a couple of months later.
I always thought the slowdown was helpful
Another Nintendo only channel? How many more Ninty centric channels are we gonna get on youtube? But hey despite that, your productive value is top notch and your passion and knowledge is very respectable, which is really great. Cheers man, hopefully someday you'll do a Sega Genesis works series as well. All the great retro systems of the past deserve fair, balanced and passionate coverage.
The slowdown in this game is laughable honestly, the Snes comes out, 2 YEARS after the MD/Genesis and 3 years after the PC-Engine, with shameful performance in so many games. Nintendo was foolish to emphasize graphics and tricks and like mode 7 over pure gaming performance. Despite that, the game is still enjoyable but it obviously could have been much better.
Looking forward to playing this. Wonder what the final boss fight is like... oh... never mind...
Gradius 3 is a good 2d shooter. 😀👍🎮
Jeremy, I love your content! Keep it up! Super Nintendo has some of my favorite video gaming memories! Do you plan on doing any videos on the Rpgs of the system aside from FFIV?
i guess u played with the konami code activated...i do that myself xD
I filmed some with and some without.
Some people might complain about the slowdown, I don't mind it. In fact, overall, I enjoyed this game quite a bit. But I'm not a hardcore shmup fan.
This game was also ported to gba
Are you referring to Gradius Generations? That was a new game, albeit one without many new ideas.
I rather enjoy this game. Slowdown and all.
And yeah, ironically the slowdown is useful enough to make the game easier that it almost feels like a deliberate feature to make the game more playable.
Almost.
It's quite funny observing what does and does not cause slowdown.
When you learn about how the SNES works, and particularly it's sprite handling limitations, you start to look at slowdown problems rather differently.
Consider the second stage of Gradius III and all it's bubbles.
Depending on situation you could have as many as 3 or 4 different size of bubble onscreen at once.
What's the problem with this? Well, the SNES only allows 2 sprite sizes to be onscreen at the same time.
This means that if you have more than 2 sizes of sprite, you're drawing smaller sprites as though they are larger ones, but with blank space (wastes VRAM and contributes to graphical glitching when you exceed the sprite limit on a line), or, you have to compose larger sprites of a bunch of smaller ones. (wastes CPU time since you have to coordinate anything movement of say 16 small sprites instead of one large one. If you think moving 16 sprites as if they're one bigger one is 16 times the work for the CPU, you'd be wrong. Because of the coordination required when moving the bits, it's MORE than 16 times the work, because you have to calculate offsets from a single sprite coordinate to 16 smaller ones, apply them, then write 16 sets of coordinates to sprite RAM. Nasty stuff.)
In other words, the SNES has an achilles heel when it comes to sprite handling, and when you see stuff like Gradius III or Super Ghouls & Goblins with their horrific slowdown, it's easy to argue that it's the CPU's fault...
But I'm just as likely to think it's the fault of sprite hardware limitations.
Have you ever noticed that Super Mario World throws 40+ sprites onscreen at times with NO slowdown? As does Contra 3 for that matter (that game has slowdown, but you can still observe some 40 onscreen sprites minimum with no slowdown), and a bunch of other games? That's well short of the 128 sprites the hardware can draw, but it's still a lot when you consider that Super Ghouls & Ghosts seems to hit slowdown already at 10-15 sprites.
My theory is not abiding by sprite size limitations is a major factor here.
SNES sprites can (officially) be 8x8, 16x16, 32x32, and 64x64 (some accounts suggest unofficial undocumented usage allows 8x16)
On the face of it that isn't so bad.
However,
By contrast, the Mega Drive supports any combination of up to 4x4 tiles. (each tile being 8x8). That's 8x8, 8x16, 8x24, 8x32, 16x8, 16x16, 16x24, 16x32, 24x8, 24x16,24x24, 24x32, 32x8, 32x16, 32x24 and 32x32 to be exhaustive.
That's a lot more, so already we see some cracks in the SNES's abilities.
It gets worse however. Of the 80 onscreen sprites the Mega Drive can draw, you can, if you feel like it draw ALL 16 sizes at once onscreen.
The system doesn't care. It will just do it.
The SNES though? Well it's drawing logic only understands the concept of 'small' and 'large' sprites. 2 sizes. 2! yes, you can configure, as a global setting for the sprite hardware, which of the 4 available sizes constitutes 'large' and 'small', and basically any combination is valid.
But nonetheless you still hit that 2 size limit.
Consider how likely it is that you'll need to compose sprites on Mega Drive from multiple smaller parts - the only reason to ever need to do this is if you want a sprite larger than the upper limit (32x32)
On SNES, you have to do it (or waste space with larger sprites) the second you try and have 3 different size of object onscreen at once.
Can you imagine how much of a limitation that is?
And how much of a headache it is to work around that if you want to do it anyway?
Yeah... Honestly I really think the Sprite engine is where the SNES falls apart, NOT it's CPU.
Slowdown more often than not is caused by the interaction of the two, not just the CPU by itself...
The problem with sprite limitations is bad enough that I expect if the SNES and Mega Drive had identical processors running at identical clock speeds the SNES would STILL have ended up with games that have slowdown compared to the Mega Drive.
Because ultimately the CPU is not the primary cause, it just has to pick up the pieces...
Waiting for you to cover the Ranma 1/2 fighting games, and Strert Combat also.
Ah, difficulty.
I remember making it all the way through Gradius Advance, and deciding from that point on to play it with one life and no continues.
I could get to stage 4 or 5 that way while I was actively doing that a lot. (the worst stage for no death playthroughs is the high speed one, since you almost NEED maxed out speed powerups to survive it, and yet I find too many speed powerups to be unpleasant for most of the game)
Of course, Gradius 3 is far more brutal than Gradius Advance, even on hard difficulty Gradius Advance doesn't bombard you with crazy homing shots.
Also Gradius 3 has difficulty scaling, which I hadn't realised until recently.
Regardless of what difficulty you set it to, if you do consistently well enemies start firing WAY more shots at you, and if you do badly the game goes easy on you and pulls it's punches, with enemies firing little, if at all, and even bosses going down easier than they would if you had been doing better.
It's weird that way, in how it shifts difficulty around dynamically...
I wish someone would do a video like this about How and why Konami did Gradius/life force/salamander/nemesis they way they did. I mean, you look at Gradius for the nes, 2 options. Okay, chalk that up to the fact that its a early release game for the nes and they ran into graphical issues. But then you look at Gradius 2 for the famicom. Okay, they figured out how to do 4 options. But life force (nes) only has two, but its japanese counterpart Salamnder, (famicom) it has 3 options. I would declare that Salamander for the famicom is easier than life force for the nes. So why would they do that? Also, why wasn't salamander/life force called gradius 2? I want a mini doc. lol Life force/Slamander (at least as far as I can tell) flies in the face of this theory that games were mostly toned down in America. So i'd like to know why...in a very entertaining video. I know, im lazy.
Life Force for NES has two options because Konami wasn't able to use a custom mapper in Salamander that gave it three options.
Also, you're mixing up the release dates. Gradius 2 NES came out after Salamander, so it would make sense that they figured out how to get four options by the time they worked on Gradius 2.
Nick
No, I'm not saying that Gradius 2 came out after life force/salamander. I know Gradius 2 came out in 88 and Salamander in 86. I'm just saying that in life force, we got two options vs the three that salamander had on the famicom, same system, and release date. Thats what i'm questioning.
Nick
I dont understand why Life force and salamander would be that much differant other than title screens, the ending picture on subtitles etc. Something like the mapper, I would have thought a game that is coming out at the same time would be pretty much identical as far as gameplay. IMO, if you are trying to one credit both games, salamander is easier because of the additional option/multiple.
Nick
Why could they use the mapper on the famicom but not the nes?
Nick
Yea I know this is a bunch of comments but...
If you look at my original comment, I ponder why Life Force wasn't called Gradius 2 to begin with, which is me kind stating I know Gradius 2 came after Life Force/Salamander for the nes/famicom.
Rendering Ranger ahd some impressive shooter stages.
ruclips.net/video/Vqst5ruPm3M/видео.htmlm56s
gradius iii is hardly indicative of what the SNES was capable of in the shooter realm in the hands of more well-versed developers. while the genesis and TG16 may have had more shooters overall, the idea that they were more capable of running shooters i find more than a bit iffy. there isn't a single game on either the genesis or the TG16 that can hold a candle to stuff like axelay or r-type iii on the SNES in terms of graphical capability or otherwise. while the genesis and TG16 may have had more shooters overall, when the SNES did do shooters right, it did them better than any other console of that generation. i don't even think that's debatable. especially when you look at stuff like r-type iii. NOTHING on the genesis came close to that.