Darius Gaiden
I think the Darius series has been more memorable for is visual and aural style rather than any gameplay innovations it may have made over the years. Weaponwise, the series has followed only a basic template, with add-ons like side lasers, capture balls and black hole bombs appearing in various sequels and then maybe being left out of the next. None of this matters though, as the simple dodge/shoot/bomb mechanics are what make the series great rather than the complex weapons management of, say, the R-Type games - and you can always bring along a second player for twice the firepower!
Great big fish mecha, a techno space-opera soundtrack and your ship, the Silver Hawk are the mainstays of the series as well as the branching level tree. Darius Gaiden has a helluvalotof levels, 28 in total - and you can only play them in succession under special conditions. Normally, upon completing a level you will be shown the level tree diagram and asked to select your route as illustrated below:
Each of the seven final stages has a different final boss and a different ending - some good, some bad, some baffling and some just silly. Out of the other levels, some repeat themselves and a lot of the bosses repeat themselves also - but they are coloured differently and have new attack patterns so whichever way you chose to play through the game, the experience is always different. Because of the ultra-high difficulty level, I am working on plotting the easiest route through the game.
The story involves a colony of survivors from the doomed planet Darius, supposedly ransacked by the evil Belser forces - or whatever they're called this time. Many years have passed since the great wars and the colonists, now living on the planet Vadis, look to return to their world. However as the colonists prepare to leave, the space port on Vadis is destroyed by their old enemy. As the fleet of Silver Hawks is shot down, it falls to heroic pilots Proco and Tiat to destroy the enemy forces and reclaim planet Darius!
Or at least thats what I could make out from the garbled english.
Zone A
Zone A A typical futuristic city for you to fly through. The boss, Golden Ogre, has a big fat pink laser beam but he wont give you too much trouble.
Zone B
Zone B takes you over a forest and then across the ocean. Theres a chance to power your forward weapon up to the green "wave" level here. The boss, Ancient Dozer is also a pushover.
Zone C
This level takes you down under the water where the enemies are considerably more aggressive. This one's a real toughie. King Fossil returns as the boss and he can be a real pain in the arse unless you're playing the new 'Taito Legends' version of the game, which seems to play in slow-motion.
Zone D
We're done now on planet Vadis, so it's off into space on our way back to Darius. It seems the Belser forces have occupied what remains of Vadis' orbital defenses though. Here we must make our way through an asteroid field includind one big hollow asteroid to fly through. Theres a chance to grab an extra life here. Folding Fan attacks at the end of the stage, his attacks are easy to predict and he doesnt take too much punishment before he goes down.
Zone E
This time we make our way through an abandonned orbital city. Quick! Grab the extra life! The concept of cities such as this were actually proposed by scientists in the 70's I think - giant hollow space tubes or wheels with a city built on the inside surface. I think it's fun that the designers are taking cues from actual scientific proposals. R-Type Final featured a city like this that had crashed into the ocean.
Another recurring villian, Electric Fan bounces onto the scene to threaten us. He fires about a billion bullets all over the place but a mid-tier player should be able to deal with him easily.
Zone F
Here we skim the underside of a large asteroid or moon or something. There's another extra life up for grabs so if your playing the 'campaign mode' then you could have easily racked up quite a few lives by now. Folding Fan returns at the end of the stage but he's more difficult. His lightning attacks now zig-zag all over the place and are harder to dodge.
Zone G
Once clear of the Vadis system, we can take a short cut to Darius by warping through another dimension. Unfortunately, as any Warhammer 40,000 player or Ninja Turtle will tell you, other dimensions are generally full of horrible things that want you to die and I can guarantee that it's no different here. The first warp stage is a weird techno-organic landscape (something unusual for the Darius series). Enemies cause problems by attacking from behind and the boss, Prickly Angler has some confusing attacks that are pretty hard to dodge.
Zone H
The second warp stage seems to be just a run-of-the-mill wibbly-wobbly space-type level. The boss, Neon Light Illusion is pretty evil. You will probably have to start bombing here.
Zone I
The third warp stage looks like some sort of trans-dimensional coral reef. Some sections are impenetrable so you will have to wait for some drilling machines to come on and clear a path for you. You don't want to accidentally destroy the drills before they clear the way, so watch your fire. Prickly Angler returns at the end (shown here in his weaker state). His attacks are easier to deal with but he likes to sweep the screen with a big beam weapon more often now.
Zone J
The final warp stage is another wibbly-wobbly space variant except that the enemies can 'warp in' and surprise you. Neon Light Illusion returns at the end of the stage except now he has those horrible 'go round corners' lasers. NLI takes up alot of the screen and also has big wavy arms. There isnt a lot of room to maneuver here and his attacks can be especially tricky.
Zone K
Yay, we've successfully made it through warp space and are now entering the Darius system. However, it seems that in the many years since we left the evil robot fish have ravaged it thoroughly. This might have been an orbital defense platform at one point but it looks as if it has been messed up pretty bad now. There is a whole lot of junk floating around. The Boss, Fatty Glutton, must spend his time eating space junk, so he's pretty annoyed that you're blowing it all up. Fatty has a devastating spread attack that seems almost impossible to dodge unless you're playing with slowdown.
Zone L
Let's take a detour to a small moon, the surface of which is littered with the wreckages of old craft and a few cities, it looks like. The boss is Double Dealer but he aint too tough, provided you quickly take down the little satellites he launches.
Zone M
A quick fly-by past a volcanic moon and you are faced with Titanic Lance, the horrible, horrible Stripy Metallic Space Penis Of Death. I kind of got lost in the moment of fighting this thing, this was the only shot I could get. Most players avoid this thing altogether if possible.
Zone N
Here we take a trip through the rings of a Saturn-like planet. Double dealer returns at the end.
Zone O
This is a repeat of the Zone K. Fatty comes back at the end only he's been painted green and is a little friendlier.
Zone P
Hooray! We're at Darius. A brief sequence showing the Silver Hawk plunge through the atmosphere and we're down under the waves. Large enemies such as the one that threatens us here have a metal control sphere implanted in them. If you shoot this sphere off and catch it, you can actually turn the enemy onto your side! You can also use their special abilities that are activated with Street Fighter-style button combinations. Large targets like this usually take a heavy beating though and are never on screen for long. The statue of the guy with the sword hides an extra life.
The boss is the green Crusty Hammer. He's slightly easier with the slowdown but I really have no effective strategy against this guy.
Zone Q
Alternatively we can zip over the beautiful glaciers of Darius. Penetrating deep into the frozen caves we face Deadly Crescent who really is a pushover, surprising to say how far we are into the game now.
Zone R
The next zone takes us through the desert rocks and then up through the clouds. A white version of Crusty Hammer dives down and he's just as annoying as before.
Zone S
Zone S takes place over some greek ruins that look like they've been scanned rather than hand-drawn. Here you can see that I've captured a large enemy who is now helping me. Also, the night sky reveals that a rather large gas giant is very close to Darius, which is weird. Either they let the work-experience guy design this level or its just a bit of filler. There's an extra life to be found too.
Deadly Crescent is back at the end and once again, he dosn't live up to his name.
Zone T
A destroyed futuristic city. The alien architecture is quite eye-catching. After a quick detour underground, Crusty Hammer mashes through some buildings and attacks you.
Zone U
Zone U is a straight repeat of Zone P (even the placement of the extra life is the same) except Deadly Crescent is at the end. This time he's got a curving purple spread laser thats very hard to weave through if playing at full speed.
Zone Z'
The levels start going out of order now. Here we are high above what may be the Darius' capital city. Once we penetrate the mechanical fortress and deal with the traps inside, we are faced with the Great Thing, a large mechanical whale who takes a hell of a beating.
Zone V
Zone V takes us deep underwater. Here you can see that I've got the mechanical octopus on my side. The boss is Risk Storage, perhaps the easiest of the final bosses but one who still has some nasty tricks. Once he is defeated, the Silver Hawk is shown to get crushed by water pressure. Bah! All that for nothing!
Zone W
After fighting over the backdrop of a beautiful red sunset, we are taken inside this strange looking marble cave. After overcoming the enemy's defenses we are faced with Vermillion Coronatus, who fights fair for a while but then starts unleashing some real fearsome attacks. I find myself hiding behind his head a lot. When he is beaten, we are shown pilots Proco and Tiat sat at an arcade cabinet. What? It was just a game?? This is the silly "Golden Axe" ending.
Zone X
High above the clouds floats the enemy's mobile fortress. Inside we find many traps, including this strange octopus thing (who may be a recurring villain from the other games) and Hysteric Empress, an enormous mechanical crab.
Zone Y
The rain forests of Darius, perhaps one of the few remaining places that have yet to be ravaged by the enemy, is home to my favourite boss, Odious Trident. A rainbow forms and birds rise from the treetops as this boss launches from beneath the foliage. He has a lot of tricks including trying to fry you with his engine exhaust and when he finally goes down a bunch of furry Ewoks rush out to congratulate our pilots and commend them on their bravery. This is the best ending.
Zone Z
Flying through the planet's rocky interior we penetrate to it's molten core. Weaving between massive geysers of lava, we encounter Curious Chandelier, a nasty piece of work with a tracking laser and many arms that reach out for your ship. Unfortunately. When he finaly dies the explosion causes a chain reaction that destroys the entire planet. Those poor Ewoks!
Zone V'
We are taken to the center of a massive storm that kind of looks like the time-travel sequence from Flight Of The Navigator. When we eventually reach the eye of the hurricane, we are faced with Golden Ogre's evil twin: Storm Causer. He is sort of a 3D character, either that or he's done with some very clever 2D sprite work. Anyway, he spends most of his time in the background, out of your firing arc, where he tries to bomb you with all sorts of stuff. He is very difficult to beat.
Oh my, I 1CCed 'campaign mode' in it's entirety! Actually I cheated my ass off by buying in player 2 all the time. Whenever a player continues, a supply ship zooms past and drops off some power-ups, including a top-up for your shield. You can also abuse player 2's bombs.
We were blessed with a sequel to this game in 1997 - the near-legendary GDarius. There were many cool additions - the ability to capture almost any enemy unit and get them on your side, plus the alpha and beta beams that were sort of borrowed from Metal Black - another Taito shooter. I felt that the Silver Hawk's basic weapons were underpowered in this game though - but given that it was actually supposed to be a prequel, then that's understandable.
The graphics, while of the 'blocky PSX 3D' variety, were some of the most beautiful and imaginative ever seen in a shmup. A next-gen sequel is now way overdue.
Pro's And Cons Of Various Versions
I have 3 versions of Darius Gaiden and 2 of GDarius. Unfortunately, not one of them seems like a complete game - a cool feature in one may be missing in another version. Here I will list what I believe to be the pros and cons of each:
Darius Gaiden - MAME
Pros - Can set up a decent autofire in MAME, runs at correct speed?
Cons - Crappy video emulation in places, crappy sound emulation in places.
Darius Gaiden "Official Hack" - MAME
Pros - Built in autofire, 'campaign mode' accessed by starting with player 2, prettier colours! Correct speed again?
Cons - Same video and sound problems as above, levels in stupid order now.
Darius Gaiden - Taito Legends 2 (PS2)
Pros - Difficulty, lives and bomb stock adjust, video and sound better, slowdown helps rather than hinders.
Cons - No autofire, game runs too slow?
GDarius - PSX
Pros - Beginner mode - choose to level up your weapons at the begining, boss Rush mode, cinema mode, CGI intro, vibration - so there's no doubt when your shield takes a hit.
Cons - Black borders, slowdown, CD skipping.
GDarius - Taito Legends 2 (PS2)
Pros - 60hz, full screen, no slowdown.
Cons - Difficulty adjust isnt the same as PSX version, all other features from PSX version missing.
YAHOO WE HAVE WON