Cue Brick is a sliding block puzzle game similar to Timeball/Blodia and Junction. The goal is to shift tiles so that a ball rolling along a path can roll across every tile that has a path drawn on it. The game consists of 101 stages.

The player returns as the role of the pilot of the Vic Viper spaceship to battle the second onslaughts of the Bacterion Empire, under the new leadership of Gofer, the giant head. Gradius II has kept the gameplay from the original game, but infused it with enhancements brought from the spin-off, Salamander (Life Force). This is primarily evident in two …