Summary
Gryzor (1987) strapped a machine gun to your thumbs and dared you to run right, shoot everything, and still look cool doing it. It was Contra with a European passport: jungle ambushes, base assaults, and bosses that treated your last life like a snack. Grab a Spread or Laser, crawl for dear life, then leap into a hail of bullets anyway. You learned enemy spawns the hard way - usually face-first. Survive a stage and you felt downright illegal. Insert coin, curse, repeat.
What it does well
Superb pace, satisfying weapons, great arcade co-op chaos, strong arcade structure, and a compulsive 'one more go' loop.
Where it falls short
Punishing difficulty, memorisation-heavy design, frequent cheap deaths, and home versions varied wildly in quality.
Verdict
A classic run-and-gun adrenaline rush - brutally fair only after you memorised everything that killed you.