Japanese Gradius commercial. Back when you were a space child, did Gradius cause massive seizure/freakouts for you too? I guess I’d be pretty dang excited if a model spaceship came flying in while I was playing games in my Gravitron.

Buy: Gradius games

See also: Some kid losing his shit over Twinbee

tags / gradius / konami / jc

Some more Morning Music for you. As a bonus, it’s actually morning this time. For a while. The above video is the Keyboardmania remix of the song (thanks, Scott!)

And here’s the intro from the Japanese version of the Konami Arcade Classics collection on DS. I don’t know if it’s also on the US release.

Here’s Morning Music on a Yamaha MU2000, with the countdown included!

Because this is what happens when you search for game music on YouTube, I found a pretty good Hatsune Miku version, as well.

tags / konami / gradius / morning music / jc

Gradius arcade game bootup sequence, featuring “Morning Music.” The Konami “Bubble System” hardware on which some versions of Gradius ran used a type of magnetic “bubble memory” that required a warmup period (literally — it needed to warm up to around 40-50°C, according to Wikipedia) before becoming operational.

Because Konami is (was?) wonderful, the machine used this time to play a little tune while a countdown elapsed. I think it’s lovely, but how much do you think Japanese arcade operators hate “Morning Music?” I bet it’s a lot. I know how I feel about the DDR 3rd Mix intro music after working in an arcade for just a couple of months.

tags / arcade / konami / morning music / gradius

Konami Code minigame made with Made in Ore, played on the Asobu! Made in Ore WiiWare game. While the pointer-based Konami Code input game seems basically like a nightmare, I’m impressed with the fact that the NicoVideo user who made this was able to both draw the Vic Viper and compose the intro to the classic Gradius music in Made in Ore’s utilities. The music even automatically speeds up along with the game!

When I saw this video, it gave me the idea to make a Shooting Watch game with Made in Ore. I told Eric, and it took him about five seconds to find that someone already had. It’s even better than the one I would have made/will make, with a little Takahashi Meijin head that pops up after sixteen shots to tell you to “play one hour a day!”

[Konami Code video via GoNintendo]

tags / made in ore / konami code / gradius / shooting watch / jc