The youngest of King Triton’s daughters and the most defiant, Ariel longs to find out more about the world beyond the sea and, while visiting the surface, falls for the dashing Prince Eric. While mermaids are forbidden to interact with humans, Ariel must follow her heart. “The Little Mermaid” is the beloved story of Ariel, a beautiful and spirited young mermaid with a thirst for adventure. If you love old school shoot 'em ups, like me, it may not bother you all that much. I think it comes down to whether or not you are a fan of the genre. True, the argument can certainly be made that a game like this shouldn't be suffering slowdown on the Wii.

But slowdown kind of comes with the territory when you're playing a 2D shooter. If you're a grumpy old man named Craig Harris, that might be a problem for you. There is quite a bit of slowdown apparent when things get chaotic onscreen. That means if a particular level is giving you trouble on normal you can bump the difficulty down to easy, beat the boss, then continue on normal with your manhood (mostly) intact. The good news is once you've reached a checkpoint you can always begin a new game from that point, and there are five levels of difficulty you can choose from that all use the same save data. It's particularly bad when you've reached a boss but rather than starting you right from the encounter the game sends you way back to the middle of the level. If you are shot down, though, you lose everything you've gained and the ship is basically useless. It is possible to power-up the Viper so that it is near indestructible. When you lose a life you are sent back to a checkpoint, which means a lot of replaying the same sequences. ReBirth might be too hard for its own good. Those looking for a challenge will find one here.

On the contrary, I find the slower pace to be more difficult and unforgiving. Once you grab a few power-ups you can increase your speed, but even then the levels scroll by slowly and most enemy fire lazes across the screen. When you start a new game the Vic Viper will feel incredibly sluggish. Gradius is one of the slower shooters out there, having more in common with R-type than Raiden or Ikaruga. The only communal aspect of the game is the online leaderboard for the score attack mode.

Gradius let two players alternate turns, and Lifeforce had glorious co-op. One thing that is missing is multiplayer, though.

The bosses are one of the highlights of Gradius ReBirth. At the beginning of your game you can choose from three ship types that will determine what sorts of power-ups you have at your disposal: multipurpose, wide area attack, or high attack power (but limited range). The better weapons require more capsules, so there is always give and take between powering up early and saving up for the big guns. Certain enemies will drop capsules that can be spent to buy missiles, lasers, and the famous 'option,' which flies alongside your ship and doubles your firepower. As always, you can customize your ship, the Vic Viper, by choosing your power-ups. The bosses are new, and there are some pretty interesting ones waiting for you at the end of each level. There are also similarities to Lifeforce, which was the sequel to the original Gradius. ReBirth features very similar level design to the classic games on arcade, NES, and SNES, and you'll find many of the same enemies like the Easter Island heads.

Gradius rebirth epitaph