Vic Viper
The game play is almost identical to other titles in the series. The player takes control of the Vic Viper spacecraft tasked with destroying hordes of enemies. Various traditional elements of "Gradius" are present — the moai, an undefended final boss, and the upgrade power meter. The weapons system remained mostly unchanged as the configurations available are identical to "Gradius III", with the exception that the edit mode is missing. There are four different types of weapons configurations: Balanced, (traditional "Gradius") wide area ("Salamander") power, and air-to-ground. Each configuration is indicated by the color of Vic Viper. Unlike "Gradius III", there are only two shield options — shield and force field. In addition, the S. option ("snake option") is not present in this version; the player can however choose to have the computer assign weapon power-ups automatically or purchase upgrades manually.