G-Darius HD
Review
If you're a fan of horizontal scrolling shoot em ups, odds are, that name rings a bell. And with good reason. It's a staple of the bullet-hell shooter genre. Bullet hell, for the uninitiated, means that there are bullets everywhere, with only small spaces that you will be scrambling to find and not get shot. Darius has enjoyed a long run, and today we're checking out a return engagement to the series. We're looking at G Darius. Should we get in the cockpit and blast some robot fishies (I'll explain later, don't worry) or should we hit the eject button? Let's fire it up and see. G Darius gives us a double whammy. We have the fourth entry in the series, both the arcade original and a spruced-up remake with a higher polygonal ship. Graphics aside, the two games are borderline identical (for better or worse) so we'll just talk about both games as one.
Publishers: Taito, CyberFront Corporation, United Games Entertainment GmbH, Square Enix, SourceNext, THQ, Media Kite
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2
Review Code Provided
Written by Danny K
Like many arcade titles, Darius is light on story. Just shut up and shoot down the bad guys. Okay, that works for me. Gameplay, as mentioned, is a side-scrolling shoot em up. Your ship can only take one hit before going boom, but you can get a shield for some extra hits. Most enemies take only one shot as well but the tougher ones can take more abuse. Don't worry, though, because you can upgrade your ship with orbs. Red orbs give you stronger guns, green orbs give you a shield, blue orbs...I think they power up your secondary attack but I could be wrong, and new to this iteration (at least I think it's new) are the pink orbs. These give you the ability to suck up an enemy ship and use its power for yourself. There's a ton of different enemies you can absorb (A pink ball that absorbs enemy attacks and uses them as its own. Now where have I seen that?), Both in offensive and defensive flavors. However, don't bother trying to take the boss' powers, that won't work.
Speaking of bosses, like a lot of shoot-em-ups, these guys are no joke. They take a ton of damage before going down and can absolutely wreck someone ill-prepared for them. As I said, this is an arcade port, and what are arcade machines made to do? Rob you of every cent you have, that's what. But the developers made sure to give you some new tools to give you an edge. You can pause the game, and you've got a few options, but the biggest options are the quick save and quick load. This is a godsend for those who are trying to do a legit arcade run without spamming the Insert Coin button to give themselves infinite tries. Yes, the game lets you put in as many coins as you want. While it would have been nicer to have an infinite credits option like we had in Darius EX+ Another Chronicle, this is good too.
I sadly didn't have time to play through the entire game, but I was able to see that there's multiple different routes to take. when you beat a boss you choose a level to go to, meaning you have to play through multiple times to see all of the levels, adding some replay value. The game also nets you achievements for doing things like finish a level, but I'm not sure if these serve a purpose. However, the controls are solid and the mechanics are straightforward, so dying always felt like my fault. With practice, you can take down even the toughest bosses without losing a single ship. While I doubt I'll ever have that bragging right, I've seen some skilled shoot em up players in my day. My hat goes off to anyone who can play bullet hells without a single lost life. The one drawback, and this applies to both versions, is the framerate. I'm not sure if that was in the arcade machine or just a problem in the porting process, but like a frat boy, this game likes to chug from time to time. It's never enough to ruin the game but it could lead to a cheap death now and then.
The backgrounds all look great, but they fly by very quickly so you might not have time to appreciate them. And they tend to change fast so they don't have time to get boring. The ship looks good, and the enemy ships are awesome. I'm not sure why they follow an undersea theme but kudos for picking a theme and sticking to it. The music is a total jam as well!
Conclusion
So that's G Darius. Even with my self-professed ineptitude with shoot-em-ups, I had fun with this one, despite my limited time to play it. If you're a fan of the series, you should definitely check this one out. Maybe you played the arcade original back in the day and want to have it in your home or on the go with the Switch port, I won't knock you for that. But I feel this one, while having tools to help newcomers, is ultimately more geared for seasoned pros. But don't let that stop you from picking it up if it sounds like your jam
Author: Danny K