Life Force - All Bosses (No Death)

Salamander, released as Life Force in North America and in the Japanese arcade re-release, is a 1986 scrolling shooter video game developed and published by Konami for arcades. A spin-off of the Gradius series, Salamander introduced a simplified power-up system, two-player cooperative gameplay and both horizontally and vertically scrolling stages. Some of these later became normal for future Gradius games. In Japanese, the title is written using ateji, which are kanji used for spelling foreign words that has been supplanted in everyday use by katakana. Contra, another game by Konami was also given this treatment, with its title written in Japanese as 魂斗羅 (kontora). Salamander was followed with a sequel in 1996 titled Salamander 2 , with M2 developing another sequel, Salamander III, for Konami's Gradius Origins collection on August 7, 2025. The first player controls Vic Viper and the second player takes the reins of debuting spacecraft Lord British, which is sometimes referred to as "Road British" due to the ambiguity of Japanese-to-English romanization. The game features six stages which alter between horizontal and vertical scrolling. Players are allowed to continue from where they leave upon death instead of being returned to a predefined checkpoint as per Gradius tradition. There are no continues in single player mode, and two in the two-player mode. The number of continues can be changed through DIP switches. The player gains power-ups by picking up capsules left behind by certain enemies, as opposed to the selection bar used in other Gradius games. However, the Japanese version of Life Force keeps the selection bar. Many of the power-ups can be combined. For example, an option fires a second (or third) salvo of missiles or ripple/plutonic lasers if these power-ups have been attained. The ripple and laser, however, are mutually exclusive. The only power-up that can survive the ship's destruction is the options (called "multiples" in the English release), they followed the exact flight path of the player's ship and fired when they did, but were otherwise invulnerable. Upon the ship's destruction, the options float in space for a brief time before disappearing; the new ship can grab and retain them. Salamander was ported to the Family Computer in Japan in 1987. Instead of being a direct port of Salamander, elements were taken from the original Salamander and the Japanese Life Force re-release, and some elements, such as levels and bosses, were removed to make way for new content. Most of the background graphics and enemy sprites from Salamander are used in favor of those used in Life Force, though the Gradius-style power bar is used in place of the original instant pick-up system. In 1988, North America received a port as well for the Nintendo Entertainment System. The NES version is practically identical to its Famicom equivalent, other than not having the multiple endings, having two option power ups instead of three, and being titled Life Force. The North America version was later re-released for the Virtual Console on February 16, 2009 for the Wii, on January 23, 2014 for the Nintendo 3DS and August 21, 2014 for the Wii U. The European version is titled Life Force: Salamander on its cover and was released on November 22, 1989. The NES version makes use of the Konami Code, which increases the number of lives from three to 30. The first two levels of Life Force were profiled in the second issue of Nintendo Power, issued in 1988. Several issues later the entire game was re-profiled. NES/FC/FDS (L) Playlist:    • NES/FC/FDS (L)   00:00 - 01.Golem 00:44 - 02.Cruiser Tetron 01:05 - 03.Intruder 01:23 - 04.Giga 01:39 - 05.Tutankhamon 02:37 - 06.Salamander & Zelos Force