http://fly.to/gradius/

GRADIUS | GRADIUS 2 | SALAMANDER | GRADIUS 3

All secrets of MSX Gradius are provided and extracted directly from
Konami Man - AKA Nestor Soriano

GRADIUS

Hidden Bonus Stage

"There are hidden bonus stages in stage 2, 3, 4 and 7. You must place you ship in a fixed point of the screen, and you will be warped to a stage with yellow and gren capsules; these capsules will give you extra points and lifes respectively. But they are difficult stages due to a very complex layout..."

Keyword

"Once per stage, you can pause the game (F1) and type the name of a weapon: MISSILE, DOUBLE, LASER, OPTION followed by Enter: you will gain this weapon. One per game, you can type HYPER and you will gain all weapons. There is more keywords but I don't know them; serach for it in internet."

GRADIUS 2

Hidden Stage

"There are three hidden stages. One is in stage 3, the other in stage 6. And the third one? It is inside hidden stage of stage 6!! Applause for Konami!!" 8-)

Konami Cartridge Combination

"You know about Konami cartridge combinations? If you put the main game in MSX slot 1 and other konami game in slot 2, some extra tips are available! For Gradius 2, I remember the following:

* Maze of Galious: after you lose one life, you don't lose your weapons. Just press the weapon activation button when you start again and you will recover all your weapons.

* Penguin adventure: your ship turns into a penguin!! 8-)

* Q-BERT: turns some keywords available, like in Gradius 1. Now I can just remember NEMESIS and METALION, I think they are for gain inmunity and directly pass to following stage."

SALAMANDER

The Prediction

"There is some antique runes or something alike hidden in some stages, containing chpaters of "The prediction". These texts give you help in order to defeat the end-of-stage monsters (they indicate you the color of the nucleus to be destroyed, the other ones are dummy)."

Defeat Venom

"Also, for really defeat Venom (the bad guy of Gradius 2 and also of this game), you need something called "The Crystal Breeze". If you don't have it, even if you reach the end of the game, you will get a "You failed!" message.

Crystal Breeze is hidden somewhere in the game. But hey, it will only appear if you have Gradius 2 in slot 2! Also, if you have Gradius 2 in slot 2, an extra stage will appear!! This stage is the last stage of Gradius 2, with an extra final enemy."

GRADIUS 3

Keyword

"Some keywords for being typed at the beginning of the game (F1 + Keyword + Enter):

* FIND: From the beginning of the game you can see the hidden weapons and map portions, even if you don't have the detector (the V shaped machine) hidden in stage 9.

* HARD: The game turns more difficult.

* GOOD: The game turns more easy.

* EXPAND: Doubles hitstanding capacity of Shield or Force Field."

Access to Stage 10

"You need to have the three parts of the map (hidden in stages 5, 7 and 8) in order to access to stage 10. If you don't have any of these parts, you must turn back to the appropriate stages.

Well... this is all I can remember now. But you can find this and much more in internet, if you search well. You know about www.msx.org?" ;-)

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