Play Nemesis Online

Summary

Nemesis, the Game Boy entry that quietly carries the Gradius legacy, feels like a love letter to classic side‑scroll shooters. The power‑up meter is familiar, but Konami added multi‑level missiles that give each weapon slot a fresh tactical twist. With only five stages, the game packs a surprising amount of variety—each level ends with a distinct core boss, and hidden bonus stages sprinkle extra 1‑ups and score cells for the diligent explorer. The stage‑selection screen before you launch adds a strategic layer, letting you choose the order of your assault, a rarity on handhelds of the era. Even after its 1990 debut, reviewers like Steve Jarratt praised it as a "superb version of a classic coin‑op," and its later re‑releases under the Gradius name in the Konami GB Collection keep the experience alive for new handheld fans.

Storyline

Nemesis, known in Japan as ネメシス, is a 1990 shoot‑em‑up developed and published by Konami for the Game Boy. It belongs to the Gradius series and was released under the international title Nemesis, even though it is largely an original project rather than a direct port.

The game’s design echoes Taito’s Sagaia, and it spawned a sequel, Nemesis II, in 1991 for the same handheld. Both titles were later bundled in the Konami GB Collection, where they were renamed Gradius and Gradius II.