Salamander | Code Like It's 198x

In the summer of 1986 Computer Gamer sent a reviewer to the demo room of Konami’s office in north-west London to play the follow-up to Gradius, known in Britain as Nemesis. His first reaction was “anti-climax”: it looked like “a Nemesis look-alike”. Then he played it, and “had to eat my words”. Salamander kept Gradius’s ship, its trailing Options and many of its enemies, but it let two players fly together, handed out weapons as soon as they were shot free, and turned the screen on its side every other stage, so that the ship flew up as well as along. The caverns it flew through looked alive.

Two ships and no gauge

In Gradius each capsule moves a highlight along a gauge at the foot of the screen, and the player decides when to spend it. Salamander dropped the gauge. Destroy a whole formation of enemies and it leaves a pick-up, and, as ZZAP!64 put it, each feature has “its own token”: speed-up, missiles that hug the ground, a laser that cuts through almost anything, the ripple laser, which throws out widening rings, a force field, and the Options, called multiples here. A voice announces each one as it appears. Only one main weapon works at a time, whichever was collected last. Up to four multiples can follow the ship, which Computer Gamer worked out gave “five times the fire power you started with”.

The second ship changed how the game was balanced. Looking back in 2008, Retro Gamer thought it was “geared towards two players being on-screen”, throwing “high volumes of homicidal sprites at you”, and so harder than Nemesis for a player alone. A lost life no longer sent the ship back to a checkpoint; it carried on where it was, and could pick up some of the weapons it had dropped. Computer Gamer noticed another way the machine made money: extra coins fed in during play were stored, up to 27 lives, for later games.

Through the creature

Computer Gamer’s reviewer described the first stage as “a trip through some alien landscape, or is it the body of some gigantic creature”: walls that grow back behind the ship, fangs that gnash across the screen, groping arms, and at the end a brain with a single eye that is its only weak point. A voice warns that “an intruder has penetrated our force field”. The vertical second stage is a field of meteorites with a spinning, many-armed mechanical guardian. The third flies between two stars, through solar flares and rising phoenixes, to a fire dragon that coils round the ship and can be killed only by hits to its head. Retro Gamer called that dragon a “distinctive snake-like beastie” that “would become an iconic feature of many a Konami shooter”, along with the ripple laser. Later come caverns of volcanoes and stone heads, and a final battle with a huge red orb.

Computer Gamer praised the “stereo voice synthesis and spot effects”, and gave one warning: “this game could seriously damage your wealth.”

Life Force

In North America the coin-op was called Life Force, with little else changed, according to Retro Gamer. Konami used the name twice more: for a reworked Japanese coin-op of 1987 that brought back the Gradius power-up gauge, and for the NES conversion of 1988, which came out in Japan as Salamander on the Famicom in 1987. The Life Force entry tells both stories.

Home versions

The MSX version of 1987 went its own way, with a story, different weapons and the “Option Eater”, an enemy that swallowed the player’s Options; Wireframe later counted it as the forerunner of Gradius II’s Option Hunter. The Games Machine reviewed it in Britain in June 1988.

Konami published the Spectrum version under its own name. Andrew Glaister wrote it, and Sinclair User reviewed it in January 1988. Its reviewer admitted she was “in the camp that says Salamander is just Nemesis with knobs on”, but called it “a well programmed conversion that should go down a treat with all shoot ’em up fans”. The Commodore 64 version came out under Imagine, the label Ocean used for its Konami conversions, in September 1988. It was programmed by Peter Baron with graphics by Bob Stevenson, and ZZAP!64 could “barely believe that such an accurate conversion can be made”, right down to the Japanese writing on the title screen. Retro Gamer was still fond of Baron’s “exquisitely adapted” version twenty years later. Imagine advertised the game to Amstrad and Spectrum owners in the summer of 1988.

A PC Engine version followed in 1991. The Sega Saturn and PlayStation finally had an arcade-perfect version in Salamander Deluxe Pack Plus (1997), which included both Salamander and the Japanese Life Force, and was re-released for the PSP. Like many of Konami’s shooter collections, it stayed in Japan.

Later games

Konami brought out Salamander 2 in the arcades in 1996, ten years after the first; Retro Gamer liked its “almost anime-style” look and its Options, which could be fired off as homing lasers. The developer M2 made a new game, Salamander III, for Konami’s Gradius Origins collection, released in August 2025 with the arcade Salamander, Life Force and Salamander 2. Konami set its story after the earlier war, when “the seemingly defeated Salamander Force regained its strength”.

Sources

Computer Gamer issue 18, September 1986, p. 90: arcade report on Salamander in Konami’s London demo room (the weapons, the multiples and “five times the fire power”, the voices, the first stage and its brain, the four-armed creature, the fire stage and dragon, the final red orb, 27 stored lives, “stereo voice synthesis”).
ZZAP!64 issue 41, September 1988, pp. 24–25: Commodore 64 review (Imagine; each weapon “its own token”; the meteor shower and spinning-armed guardian in level two; volcanic fire, prominences and phoenixes in level three; “barely believe”).
Zzap! (Italy) issue 38, October 1989, p. 50: Bob Stevenson and Peter Baron as the authors of Salamander.
Sinclair User issue 70, January 1988, p. 46: Spectrum review (Konami label; Andrew Glaister; £8.95; “Nemesis with knobs on”).
The Games Machine issue 7, June 1988, p. 38: MSX review.
Retro Gamer issue 54, 2008, pp. 58–59: Salamander Deluxe Pack Plus (the arcade game in Weymouth; the fire dragon and the ripple laser; the pick-up system and two-player balance; the Japanese Life Force and the North American one; Peter Baron’s Commodore 64 version and the PC Engine conversion; Salamander 2; the PSP re-release).
Wireframe issue 51, May 2021, pp. 112–113: “Killer Feature: Gradius II” (Salamander and Life Force; the MSX version’s Option Eater).
Nintendo Power issue 1, July/August 1988: Life Force among Konami’s forthcoming NES games.
Amstrad Action issue 35, August 1988, p. 76, and Your Sinclair issue 32, August 1988, p. 45: Imagine’s Salamander advertisement.
Konami, Gradius Origins official site (web, secondary): release on 7 August 2025; Salamander III by M2 and its story. https://www.konami.com/games/gradius/us/en/
Wikipedia, “Salamander (video game)” (web, secondary): the arcade release dates; the North American and Japanese Life Force; the Famicom (1987), NES (1988) and PC Engine (1991) versions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salamander_(video_game)