Greetings, I´m a Gradius fan since of 1990 years.
I played every single Gradius games launched to date, except Gradius Galaxies for GBA.

Gradius ReBirth surprised me for your quality, because the developer was not Konami or Treasure (developer of Gradius V), but a unknown developer for me, named M2.

Below, my quick considerations of this WiiWare title:

Level design: Very cool - revival of great moments of classic Gradius and Salamander stages.
Gameplay: Very good, despite there are slowdowns
Music: Goog
Controls: Very good. You can use WiiRemote, Classic Controller or Game Cube Controller.
Graphics: Third more beautiful on Gradius series, being Gradius V the most beautiful , Gradius IV the second and then Gradius ReBirth.

Pros:
Classic Gradius feeling
Presence of nostalgic sounds.

Cons:
Can appears boring slowdowns in some areas.
A little short (just 5 stages, 6 if you count the alternative path on stage 1).

My score for Gradius ReBirth: 8.4/10

In my humble opinion, this is easily 8.4/10.0 and a must-have for Gradius fans or Shumps fans. This is personally my favorite title for WiiWare to date.

It was definitely the most accessible Gradius title. I've never got past level 2 on another Gradius game, but I managed to finish this one after only a few tries! I hate how some games have "Very Easy" mode but the difficulty is still insane; fortunately, this one isn't like that.

Hmmm... Sounds pretty good, I'm glad to hear the difficulty isn't a problem.

I never knew M2 made games, I thought they just made compilations and did emulation (They do the Genesis/MD games of VC).

Well, this is just a remake of old Gradius levels compiled together as one "new" game, so they are apparently taking baby steps.

Well. there are many difficulty level selections: of easiest to hardest.

@Kobayashi
Do you think it could`ve been better?

Yes, of course. The game has some problems that I exposed above.

No mention of Gradius Gaiden (graphics and other)? hm? The ultimate Gradius must be mentioned (gradius v and iv are secondary).
I agree with you about Rebirth even if I don't play it.
Also Salamander references? I would say Nemesis instead of salamanda but it's your point of view.
And Gradius Galaxies is the best gradius on a portable system, the best shmup on the gameboy advance, if you love Gradius you have to play it.

Hi. I already played Gradius Gaiden and I think the graphics are worse than Gradius ReBirth. Gradius Gaiden would be the forth better graphics on series.

I don´t play Gradius Galaxies yet because I don´t have a GBA (I don´t like portables).

Where are a couple of these guys saying that the game is easy? There are a couple of areas that took me awhile to get past them. I'd say the level three boss was the hardest one. The level five boss or end boss was surprisingly the easiest. Anyway, here is my review.
First off, I've been a huge fan of Gradius III, yes oldschool, since it first came out in the 90's. Secondly, I have been addicted to Gradius Rebirth for a few months now. I've been greatly enjoying the game but also pretty upset over certain parts that I couldn't get past. It took a long time and a lot of playing as well as trying out different weapons but the other day I finally beat the game! I think they graded this game poorly by comparing it to other recent shooter games when it was obviously designed to be comparitive to the older versions, hence "Rebirth." I would have given it an 8 out of 10 myself. Of course, like he said, if you like the older ones, then you'll probably like this one.
I don't know if the game creators read this or not, but I do like the fact that you have more powerups available in this game, esp. after you die. I also like being able to upgrade your weapons, but...most of the upgraded weapons don't look or work much differently anyway. In addition, I don't like the fact that you have to choose your weapons by row. In Gradius III if you went to the right then you could pick individual weapons. In that way you could take your lasers from the first line, shields from the second line and missles from the third line. Lastly, I don't like how all of the multiples follow you around everywhere. In Gradius III you could chose to have them stationarily placed above and below your fighter. In that way you didn't have to risk flying into a rock to shoot an enemy. They also provided a level of shielding in the manor as well. Oh, yes, also, is there any chance of coming out with a longer version in disc format? I'm tired of having such limited space and these great downloadable games taking up so much of it. Thanks!

Ed

Get an SD card! They've announced no plans for a disc version, and I wouldn't place any bets on it. SD cards aren't that expensive; in fact, they're cheaper than most disc-based games.

I thought the game was easy only because I played it on the easiest settings. I have played other Gradius games with similar settings, and it's as if the game played no different whatsoever from the normal difficulty, which always annoyed the heck out of me. That's why I like this one so much.