The Vic Viper has often been referred to as a "temporal space fighter", although there has been little explanation as to why. After being deployed from the Vic Viper, the tubes unfurl side fairings and begin to rotate rapidly with orange energy, appearing as the familiar elliptical objects. In Gradius V, it is revealed that the Option units resemble small, dark gray tubes in inactive state. Interestingly enough, however, this ship is not the real Vic Viper, but its lookalike/successor ship known as the " Metalion". The ship of the MSX-exclusive Nemesis 2 (not to be confused with the original arcade game Gradius II: GOFER no Yabō) was also remarkable in the respect that it was able to add weaponry to itself after defeating some bosses, extending the power-up meter.
Gradius III was also where the Cyclone Laser received its official name, although it had been present in the series since Salamander. Gradius III for the Super NES also had a Weapon Edit mode, although the Spread Gun Double was removed and two Option formations added.
In Gradius III, the player was allowed to customize the Vic Viper's armaments to their own specifications via a Weapon Edit mode, which was retained in Gradius V and expanded in the PS2 release of Gradius III and IV by a feature known as "Extra Edit", available after completing the game. When not featured in the game, the weapons made famous by the Lord British (particularly the Ripple Laser) were also present, most often the second weapon array choice out of four. Gradius V also retained the classic weapons for all four arrays, although instead of the original Shield, it sported the Force Field introduced in Gradius II, along with varying ways to control the ship's Option phantoms.
The original weapons array from the first game is always present the only games the Vic Viper was forced to keep its original arcade weapons was Gradius Gaiden for the PlayStation the reason being that it featured three other ships, including Salamander's Lord British Space Destroyer and two entirely new ships -and, arguably, Gradius Galaxies for the Game Boy Advance- the other three weapon arrays featured in that game were differentiated in-game by a palette swap of the ship's color, making it look like the ships from Gradius Gaiden (although the Jade Knight and Falchion β's color and weapons were swapped backward, leading to the speculation that Galaxies's ships really are the Vic Viper itself). The three main characters all pilot their own individual Vic Viper craft.Ī more obvious tip-off would be the wide variation of weapon arrays available in each game, starting with Gradius II.
Additionally, Konami of America referred to the Vic Viper in Gradius III as "M.A.X." This is probably an example of KOA "Americanizing" the game.Īnother "more than one Vic Viper" example would be the Salamander anime, a late 1980s anime miniseries following the events of Gradius, Salamander and Gradius II. The weapons of the NES version of Gradius differed from its original arcade counterpart, namely a shorter, rapid-fire Laser and only two Option phantoms instead of the usual four.
In the North American release of Gradius for the NES, the Vic Viper was referred to as the "Warp Rattler" in the game's instruction manual and at the after the credits of the Nemesis Game Boy game.