Salamander (1986)

Konami

Arcade · Sharp X68000

3.58 from 125 ratings

356 members have it in their collection · 5 playing now · 66 backlogged · 38 wish listed

How long? Main story 1h · with extras 1h (from 3 logged playthroughs)

Salamander is a scrolling shooter arcade game released by Konami as a spin-off to Gradius. It introduced a simplified power-up system, two-player cooperative gameplay and both horizontally and vertically scrolling stages. Some of these would later become the norm for future Gradius games.
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Details

Developers
Konami
Publishers
Konami
Genres
Arcade, Shooter
Themes
Action, Science fiction
Franchises
Gradius
Series
Gradius, Salamander

Release dates

  • Jul 04, 1986 (Full Release) (Japan) Arcade
  • 1986 (Full Release) (Europe) Arcade
  • Oct 1988 (Full Release) (Japan) Sharp X68000

Also available on

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Bundled in

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Rating distribution

5 stars
14
4 stars
52
3 stars
52
2 stars
6
1 star
1
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Community All Reviews Statuses

Chovus

Status Chovus Jul 6, 2025

Beat in slow motion mode. Pretty standard shoot em up that alternated between horizontal and vertical stages. I've seen this cycling upgrade system before, and maxed out everything with the laser while keeping the selection on force to replace the shield. Unfortunately that shield did not help at all against environmental deaths. This was one of those annoying shoot em …

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Beat in slow motion mode. Pretty standard shoot em up that alternated between horizontal and vertical stages. I've seen this cycling upgrade system before, and maxed out everything with the laser while keeping the selection on force to replace the shield. Unfortunately that shield did not help at all against environmental deaths. This was one of those annoying shoot em ups that crammed in nonsense like closing barriers, ridiculously fast and deadly environmental hazards, flying through tight spaces, mining and invulnerable enemies. Even on the 1st stage there were so many times where I died and thought; how the fuck would you ever get past this without knowing beforehand what will happen? Impassable barriers that the only way to survive was to fly far to the right before it closed. And those damn fire arcs, once you seen it coming it was already too late to move. This stuff was not what I want in a shoot em up, especially in a vehicle with mandatory forward momentum. Why not bring a ship that can hover in place and land/attach to walls? Something actually capable of handling the tight spaces without crashing constantly? The worst part was right at the end after beating the final boss where the auto scrolling sped up way too fast and there were only narrow paths through. I managed to make most of them well enough but the few that were just big enough to fit the ship? Crash, crash, crash. Probably should have slowed it to 20 frames per second or less. Other than all the platforming nonsense, the fighting and bosses were pretty good.

6.5/10

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