I was actually surprised by how much love for the fans whent into this game; constant references to the MSX2 games, the return of James burton, the echo-y sound of the announcer's voice, all this stuff just helps the game feel more than a "best of" complation of Gradius games, plus the easier defualt difficulty helps out for longterm enjoyment.

"ZOMFGJTDC!!!!! Gradius rebirth isn't ball-breakingly hard in it's initial difficulty, the cazualls have won, NOOOOOOOOO111111111111one" *sarcasm meter: 9.6*

Yeah, I was never a fan of Nemesis, but I guess if they're looking into making a reboot of the series, they need to include more story elements by adding characters in the game. I wonder what the green guy meant to say at the end of the game...

The game is indeed way too easy. They even made an easy ship option with lasers that can go through walls. I mean, seriously? o_O

The green guy was Dr. Venom from Gradius 2. He was saying that the player needs to go through the game again, and that he's finished working on a new ship called the "metalion".

Nah, there was something else before that... I can't remember exactly what it was. o_O

Do you mean the ending or that little snippit about using the wii remote as a NES controller?

Gradius has never been the standard in SHMUPs difficulty. R-Type holds that metric.

That's pretty subjective, but most Gradius games are still very difficult.

Difficult as games or difficult as SHMUPs?

I regard Gradius as one of the easiest SHMUP franchises around yet I'd say it's harder than games of a lot of other genres.

Hard as games as a whole, but there are still easier SHMUPs out there. You must play a lot of Touhou games :P

I love Touhou games.  Imperishable Night is my favorite.