History Fridge / Gradius

* It's a staple of the series for the FinalBoss to [[ZeroEffortBoss put up little or no fight whatsoever]], but this is justfied on two fronts:

** Prior to reaching the Bacterian leader who's serving as the BigBad of the week, you often have to fight through a fortress full of the strongest enemies in the game, both of the {{Mook}} and MiniBoss varities. They ''are'' the game's final challenge, and blasting away at their leader is the reward.

** In real life, many commanders-in-chief of their countries' respective militaries are experienced with ''commanding'' but not necessarily ''fighting'', i.e. WeakBossStrongUnderlings. What's to say the Bacterian military is much different from real-life militaries?

** Not to mention the covers to versions of the game branded as "Salamander" feature the titular creature represented by a flaming snake. While it could refer to the SegmentedSerpent enemies featured in most of the games, they never factor in the plot.
*** the creature only factors into the plot for Lifeforce, ironically. Zelos is not treated as a planet-eater in Salamander's canon.
* ''Gradius V'' features an in-game and plot-relevant moment of fridge brilliance, but it's neither the only time this occurs in the series nor the troper's story...
** The obscure (even for this series) Nemesis II (also known as Gradius: The Interstellar Assault) for the original Game Boy begins with the series' protagonist spacecraft Vic Viper escorting a pair of friendly freighters, before they get shot down by a huge core, which chases the still quite helpless player (starting off with no powerups) into an asteroid. Said game ends with you speeding after the fleeing big bad, through a graveyard of large ships. This troper thought that something about the music here ("Pursuit") was unusually epic for the context, until he realized where he'd seen ships like this before: Your friends from the intro! They aren't the same ships, but he realized that the game was telling him "Hey remember how this game started? With you running for your life from a huge boss? Who's got the big guns now?"

** In Stage 7, why is your ship capable of flying through an area being sucked up by a black hole, the only signs of struggle being its shaking animation? Because, according to [[AllThereInTheManual the manual]], the player ships have a maximum speed of ''[[FasterThanLightTravel five times the speed of light]]''.

* A HUGE one for one of the basic mechanics of the entire series--why both the many Bacterian fighters, and thus by extension the Vic Viper, are [[OneHitPointWonder One-Hit Point Wonders]]. According to the intro to the PC-Engine port of ''Gradius II'', the caliber of the Double and Tail Gun weapons is 50mm, and since they both fire a second copy of the basic shot it can be inferred that the basic shot is also 50mm...meaning that the basic shot is a [[BigFuckingGun BFG]], as for comparison the [[GatlingGood GAU-8]], the poster boy for MoreDakka, is of the 30mm caliber. It's also likely that many Bacterian fighters also have similarly powerful armament, given the size of those diamond-shaped bullets they shoot, along with the high frequency of FrickinLaserBeams and [[WaveMotionGun Wave-Motion Guns]].

* The NES version of Lifeforce implies that Zelos is so incomprehensibly big, space and stars can be seen inside of its stomach. It is entirely possible that one would only even know they were inside of Zelos if they were being attacked by its forces. In other words... ''What if the entire Metallion star system is still inside it!?

* The background music for stage 3 of Salamander/Lifeforce is called "Planet Latis". Considering that Planet Latis appears to be the home planet of Lord British, it would seem to suggest that stage 3 is Planet Latis itself. You know, that stage that appears to be ''made of fire''. If this isn't the system's star, then what exactly happened to Latis??

* Why are most of the Gradius final bosses so easy? [[ILetYouWin Because they take a dive]]. [[CameBackStrong You see, every time the final bosses get defeated, the Bacterian come back stronger and more powerful]]. Eventually, there will be a point when the Bacterians are too powerful for the Vic Viper to fight, causing the Bacterians to win and take over the universe.

* Why are most of the Gradius final bosses so easy? [[ILetYouWin Because they take a dive]]. [[ICameBackStrong You see, every time the final bosses get defeated, the Bacterian come back stronger and more powerful]]. Eventually, there will be a point when the Bacterians are too powerful for the Vic Viper to fight, causing the Bacterians to win and take over the universe.

* In ''Gradius Gaiden'', on successive loops in [[BossBonanza Stage 8]], Heaven's Gate is the ''[[RuleOfSeven seventh]]'' boss you fight.

* Why are most of the Gradius final bosses so easy? Because they are taking a dive as part of their XanatosGambit. You see, every time the final bosses get defeated, the Bacterian come back stronger and more powerful. Eventually, there will be a point when the Bacterians are too powerful for the Vic Viper to fight, causing the Bacterians to win and take over the universe.

** The obscure (even for this series) Nemesis II (also known as Gradius: The Interstellar Assault) for the original Game Boy begins with the series' protagonist spacecraft Vic Viper escorting a pair of friendly freighters, before they get shot down by a huge core, which chases the still quite helpless player (starting off with no powerups) into an asteroid. Said game ends with you speeding after the fleeing big bad, through a graveyard of large ships. This troper thought that something about the music here ("Pursuit") was unusually epic for the context, until he realized where he'd seen ships like this before: Your friends from the intro! They aren't the same ships, but he realized that the game was telling him "Hey remember how this game started? With you running for your life from a huge boss? Who's got the big guns now?"

** The obscure (even for this series) Nemesis II (also known as Gradius: The Interstellar Assault) for the original Game Boy begins with the series' protagonist spacecraft Vic Viper escorting a pair of friendly freighters, before they get shot down by a huge core, which chases the still quite helpless player (starting off with no powerups) into an asteroid. Said game ends with you speeding after the fleeing big bad, through a graveyard of large ships. This troper thought that something about the music here ("Pursuit") was unusually epic for the context, until he realized where he'd seen ships like this before: Your friends from the intro! They aren't the same ships, but he realized that the game was telling him "Hey remember how this game started? With you running for your life from a huge boss? Who's got the big guns now?"