pickhut's Darius R review

Good stuff, Pick. You need some pictures!

I do have some catches, though:

I can't say this is an error or anything, but the way I read the first paragraph, I thought you meant that Darius 1 in addition to this game, Darius R, was also ported to the GBA. Which is to say, I didn't realize they are the same game until a bit later. Could be I'm just slow, though.

Before you know it, your limited lives is wasted...

Should be "are wasted..."

Instead, have more familiar, plodding enemy formations.

I think something is missing from this sentence.

Anyway, I always love reading about shooters, especially ones I haven't played. I did play Darius Plus though, which is the PC Engine port of the arcade game. Have you tried that one? I didn't know about the three-screen arcade layout, so I have no idea how they compensated for the PC Engine version, but I seem to recall it getting pretty decent reviews.

Thanks for catching those mistakes. For that second error, I was trying to go for something like "Here, have more crappy food." I can understand why that wouldn't go over well for the reader, so I changed it. Never sounded right, either...

Never played Darius Plus, but I have watched gameplay video of it. I think that was the one thing I wanted to do in my Darius R review: compare other home ports of Darius to the GBA version. But I never played them, so I left that aspect out. From the look of it, though, Darius Plus seems to pull off the one-screen thing better than the GBA port did.

Thanks for reading! Sorry about the lack of images; I actually imported the game from Japan, since I wanted to experience this... thing... in all its tiny-screened glory.

Yes, I remember liking Darius Plus well enough. Have you ever heard of Darius Alpha? It's a super rare version of Darius Plus but only with the bosses. It cost a fortune on eBay last time I checked. But, of course, there are ways to play it. How many Darius games have you played and how would you rank them? I think my ranking goes something like this:

Darius Twin > Super Nova > G-Darius > Darius Plus > Sagaia

I haven't played enough Dariusburst CS to rate it, and I never got to play what most people think of as the best of the series, Darius Gaiden. One day.

Never heard of Darius Alpha, though it doesn't come as a surprise that its obscurity makes it very valuable.

As for games played, its mostly the mainline games. Though, I would like to play the "spin-offs" or variations some day. My current ranking from top (best) to worst (bottom) goes:

Darius Gaiden
Dariusburst AC Mode
Darius
Darius II
G-Darius
Darius R

The thing about Gaiden is that... it doesn't necessarily do anything special when compared to the other games in the series. It's the first to go single screen in the arcades, it's the first in the mainline to add manual, screen-clearing bombs, and it's the final 2D game before the series jumped into 3D with G-Darius. Some might even consider it the most casual experience out of all the Darius games. Even so, it's still entertaining in its "simplicity," and has some very catchy music.

Darius I is a very dated and flawed game when compared to the others, and for some time, I ranked Darius II/Sagaia over it. However, the more I played it, the more it won me over. Maybe I'm just weird? For some reason, I can't truly get into Darius II; it has a memorable opening stage, but a lot of what comes after feels kinda bleh.

Ranking G-Darius so low on that list hurts. It's the first game to go 3D, has some of the best music in the franchise, and the whole "capture enemy" concept is unique. But I can't enjoy the game. There's such a thing as being too difficult to the point of not being fun anymore, and G-Darius leaps into that territory.

Re G-Darius difficulty... I thought maybe I was alone in that, and I just didn't give it enough of a go (that may still be the case), but I thought the game was hard and... not fun.

You haven't played the SNES games??

I played Darius Twin briefly years ago, but not enough to form a solid opinion on it. Other than that, my only experience with the two SNES titles are with video clips and reading up on some of their features. I would like to give them a go some day, but that would have to be for another time. I fear Darius might be this year's "River City" if I try to review too many of them.

I tried to grab some screens, but that dumb green flame shield made every capture I tried for look like absolute arse.

I'll try a different way once my patience reestablishes.

If you haven't done screen grabs by now, I'll do them. Finally have some actual free time to get it done!

I don't mind skipping this because, I have to say, I wasn't enjoying this game very much.

It's a pain. And I forgot how much the squished screen was annoying until I had to get these screen grabs.

For comparison's sake, check out these videos, how Gradius Galaxies handles screen size compared to Darius R:

Gradius Galaxies

Darius R