Darius Burst: Another Chronicle EX +

If I were to ask you to list some of the horizontal shoot ’em up greats, what would you say? You might say Gradius, R Type, or Defender, all great picks. And Darius has earned its spot as one of the Horizontal Shoot ’em up greats. With this game, DariusBurst Another Chronicle EX+ (gotta love word avalanche titles) you can sink your teeth into yet more side-scrolling shoot em up goodness.

Publisher: United Games Entertainment GmbH

Genre: Shooter Video Game

Developers: Pyramid, Taito

Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4

Review Code Provided

Written by: Danny K

The story...sorry but you lost me. If there is a story, I didn’t see anything beyond “Bad guys, kill ‘em.” But when was the last time you played a shoot ’em up for the story? Yes, I did recently review the Cotton Reboot, and while that one did have a story, it wasn’t exactly a complicated one. Shoot ’em ups tend to be light on story, usually having something to justify getting in the cockpit and blasting away, but nothing you’re gonna be flabbergasted by. But that’s fine because that means we can get into the gameplay.

Gameplay for DariusBurst Another Chronicle EX+ (referred to hereafter as Darius EX) is a side-scrolling shoot ’em up. Like Cotton, you dodge projectiles, grab power-ups, and fight bosses, all without getting shot down by one bullet. But this game ramps it up because the patterns on these shots will have you needle threading a ton, and get ready for a lot of near misses. This is what’s known as a Bullet Hell shooter, where bullets litter the screen and there are only small spaces where you can be without getting grazed, because one bullet is all it takes to send you to your doom.

There are four main game modes. Original Mode, Original EX Mode, Chronicle Mode, and Event mode. Each of the modes has something to offer. Original mode is the first half of the “story mode”. Pick your path, make it to the end. You’ll have to choose a new level when you finish, so you’ll have to play through multiple times. EX is the other half of Original Mode, where you pick even more levels.

Chronicle Mode gives you entire galaxy sections to shoot through and you don’t pick where to go next when you finish a stage. Each of these modes has an infinite ships option, allowing you to get shot down as many times as you want. The caveat being you cannot post your score. Basically if you want to be able to post a score, play default mode and expect to practice ad nauseum to get good enough to post a good score. But if you have nothing to prove and just want to blast through at your own pace, use Infinite Ships mode.

Event mode has you going through different stages with certain conditions, such as being able to play with friends or not or possibly being limited as to which ship you can use. But you have infinite credits here, at least I think you do, and it’s all about building a score.

Regardless of which mode you play, you will be bombarded from all sides and dying is very easy. Controls are responsive and there are different ships with different weapons. As you play, you will find power ups in the form of red, blue, and green spheres. Red spheres give you stronger attacks, green give you a shield so you can take additional hits, and blue...not sure, actually. My best guess is that they buff your secondary weapon. Oh yeah, secondary weapons. Each ship has one and they all act differently. But you have to wait between uses, as there is a cool down period. Oh, and in Chronicle mode, the power ups are greyed out so you don’t know which ones you’re grabbing. The power ups float through enemies and their shots, so it’s often a gamble trying to get them, so this is another layer of challenge on the already tall challenge cake.

You’re also able to turn the ship around and shoot behind because enemies come from all sides. You can zoom the camera in closer to you if you want a harder game, and you’ve also got this laser that you can plant and have it fire a concentrated beam, the longer you hold the button, the longer it shoots. Handy for piling the damage on the bosses.

The sections are fairly short and each ends with a boss. Not sure why all are undersea-related (shellfish, sea turtles, sharks, etc) but they’re well designed and look cool. These bosses take a lot of hits to destroy, and their attacks are even crazier than the grunt enemies’ attacks, so prepare to die a lot while fighting them. That’s...more or less it in terms of gameplay. Odds are, if you’re a diehard shoot-em-up fan with a taste for challenge, you’re salivating about now.

Presentation for this game rocks too. While mostly just depicting space or being inside some huge ship, the backgrounds look great...if you take time to look at them, which you probably won't, given you’ll be trying not to die. The music pumps up the action on screen and sounds great, while the ships, both player, grunt, and boss ships, also look great.

Conclusion

Long story short, DariusBurst Another Chronicle EX+ is an awesome shooter. Whether you thrive off the challenge of bullet hell shooters, or you’re just looking to blast away bad guys without worry of being blasted away yourself (or at least not get penalized and not post a score for getting blasted away) this is one to consider. One thing I noticed in the Switch version is that the buttons do not respond in handheld mode. Not sure why that is, whether it was a glitch or by design, but keep that in mind when choosing a version. But if you’re hungry for a bullet hell buffet, pick this up and chow down!

Author: Danny K