I've had plenty of epic moments with the Gradius series. The difficulty of the games is generally so well balanced against the Vic Viper's potential for becoming a one-ship armada of lasers and missiles that you're almost constantly faced with situations that are just tense enough to make you doubt yourself and then subsequently feel like goddamn Superman for actually surviving intact.
Quote Originally Posted by Tavrobel View Post
But those (needless) losses of life are quite sad to think about, especially failing to the Hammer brothers. You wait until one of the hammer brothers throws hammers, run under one, and you jump hit the block under him; this is the fastest way to dispose of the hammer brother. You just run from the other.
The Hammer Bros. in 8-3 and 8-4 are on level ground with Mario, not up on blocks, so if you don't have fireballs, it takes much more clever maneuvering than that to get past them.