Where the Darius Love at?

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ACSeraph
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by ACSeraph »

I've been convinced by this thread that learning Gaiden sans rapid fire bs is something worth doing. Can anyone point me to some resources on rank control? I don't really understand how the rank even works in it...
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MathU
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by MathU »

The most basic thing you should really concern yourself about with Gaiden's adaptive difficulty is that blowing up boss body parts increases it the most. Picking up power-ups when you're already maxed on something (you get 5000 points when this happens) can also make a difference. Doing this twice amounts to about the same increase as one destroyed boss body part. There are some other things that alter the adaptive difficulty too but those two are by far the most significant. There's a slight drop when you die as well but it's not really as significant or important in keeping things easy like in Battle Garegga for instance.
Last edited by MathU on Wed Nov 13, 2013 1:12 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by Kollision »

hmmm
I didn't know about the body parts bit. Tks for sharing.
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by MathU »

I've been meaning to get a guide put together for the game for some time now but I think I may have overloaded myself with work due to the amount of detail I plan on having in it.
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by ACSeraph »

Ooooh I'll look forward to that one. Any chance of putting out a work in progress guide? Like just a system explanation for starters? I've also been working on an overly detailed Cladrius guide to replace the GD, but I intend to put it out piece by piece.
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

MathU wrote:All that's ever done for me is pause the game. Is there something else to it?
No, literally nothing. Insert a credit, start a game, press button 3 and a big list of menu options should pop up at the top left that you select with shot 1. It could be you're using an older version of MAME that doesn't emulate this (???) or an older version of the hack?

Personally I think the default autofire does feel a tad weak at times. There's a big difference in how strong you are when you're powered up, and some of the stage enemies can take some serious punishment. Autofire at 30+hz definitely makes bosses a silly affair, except in the extra version where they seem to have their health or something adjusted to make up for this? I dunno, but the first boss in the extra version, Crusty Hammer, takes an absurd amount of punishment, even using the rapid auto.
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by MathU »

Just tried it again in MAME 0.148 with a 0.149 ROMset and still the only thing I'm seeing is the green [ Pause ] logo at the bottom of the screen. No menu of any sort. I notice your bomb display is at the top instead of the bottom as well.

Also none of the bosses or enemies are actually altered in the Extra version, they're just placed in different locations so their intended strength and the effects of adaptive difficulty are more apparent. One reason Crusty Hammer might take noticeable longer to beat is because you usually have homing rockets by that point in the game.
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

The bomb indicator is at the bottom left during gameplay. It only moves to the top of the screen because the way the menu appears makes it fly up from the bottom of the screen, pushing the bombs to the top when the menu's open (just a fancy graphical effect).

Actually wait, I figured it out. It's not a rom issue - I normally have my button sets mapped to both P1 and P2 side so I can play either one in a shmup, so it was registering both P1 and P2 button 3 at once and opening the menu instead of pausing. Okay, yeah, just tested it, mapped P1 button 3 and P2 button 3 to separate buttons. P1 button 3 is the ingame pause, to open the options menu you need to press BOTH P1 and P2 button 3 at the same time when the game is UNPAUSED. Mystery solved. 8)
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by MathU »

Aha, thanks. I've always wondered what a full-stage playthrough with original firing rate might play like. Time to find out...
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by DocHauser »

ACSeraph wrote: I mean, it's an actual code for a cheat that is unavailable in the arcade version (I assume). What's the logic for allowing its use?
I've played Gaiden in an arcade in Kyoto and it had auto-fire enabled. In fact, there was no 'normal' fire button, just one button with auto-fire and a bomb button.

I've seen people complaining about auto-fire on the forum before, but I've found that a lot of games in Japanese arcades that originally don't have auto-fire are often set-up with an extra button with auto-fire enabled (e.g. Giga Wing, Strikers 1945 II, Raiden Fighters Jet).
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by dunpeal2064 »

Doc, have you tried comparing this to the Saturn port's cheat? Gaiden always has autofire, but the Saturn cheat enables a much higher rate of auto fire.
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by DocHauser »

Well, the one I played in the arcade was definitely the super-fast auto-fire. I've played it in MAME with and without so it's easy to tell the difference.
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by dunpeal2064 »

Which version are you playing in mame that has the high-rate auto-fire? Or, are you using mame's auto-fire settings?

I didn't think the pcb had the faster auto-fire, aside that one special pcb version.
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by DocHauser »

dunpeal2064 wrote:Which version are you playing in mame that has the high-rate auto-fire? Or, are you using mame's auto-fire settings?

I didn't think the pcb had the faster auto-fire, aside that one special pcb version.
Shmupmame autofire. The PCB doesn't normally have it, that's what I'm saying; some arcades rig the cabinets up so that they have auto-fire or a custom button with auto-fire.
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by dunpeal2064 »

Yeah for sure, that is very common. One version of the pcb does have it though, which is why I asked.

I don't take a blanket stance on auto-fire, as it affects games differently. I do think the 30hz breaks Darius Gaiden though, so I play without it.
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by undamned »

Hasn't been updated for some time, but here's a pretty sweet Darius site that was run by a forum member:

http://whatistheexcel.com/eri/hugedb/index.html

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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by Mortificator »

DocHauser wrote:I've played Gaiden in an arcade in Kyoto and it had auto-fire enabled. In fact, there was no 'normal' fire button, just one button with auto-fire and a bomb button.

I've seen people complaining about auto-fire on the forum before, but I've found that a lot of games in Japanese arcades that originally don't have auto-fire are often set-up with an extra button with auto-fire enabled (e.g. Giga Wing, Strikers 1945 II, Raiden Fighters Jet).
That corroborates what emph and trap mentioned in the Nostradamus thread.

I use an autofire delay of 5 for Darius Gaiden in MAME. With that speed, the first boss will live just long enough to do all its attacks if you've grabbed every red power-up.
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by MathU »

You can blow away Golden Ogre before it finishes all its attacks even without any extra tapping or rapidfire assistance. It's all about getting in there and putting your rockets to use.
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If you skip a red power-up you can kill it before it even finishes the gust move with its tail too. It's a bit counter-intuitive since white bullets won't pierce its body to get at the mouth when it's not facing directly at you, but they really do that much more damage.
Last edited by MathU on Thu Nov 14, 2013 2:50 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by Mortificator »

Indeed, and I like how that presents a choice between killing the first boss sooner or being a little further along in your shot progression for the second stage. As for this being possible without autofire, well, that's the idea. The rate of fire in the official hack is beyond what I've been able to do with my own digits, so using the equivalent of that speed changes the game. I can tap as fast as delay 5, though, so I just use MAME to automate the process. The slight nerd cred from doing it manually isn't worth joint problems in later years.
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by MathU »

The only boss you really even need to mash the shot button on in Gaiden is Great Thing (sans bombing). Everything else can be handled comfortably with smart rocket use and power-up management.

I'm hesitant to believe you can actually develop joint problems from button mashing (does this ever even happen to pianists?) but to each his own.
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by ACSeraph »

Mortificator wrote: I can tap as fast as delay 5, though, so I just use MAME to automate the process. The slight nerd cred from doing it manually isn't worth joint problems in later years.
This just gave me an interesting idea. What if someone created a simple program to determine how fast you can mash buttons. Like press as fast as you can and the programs will determine your maximum shot speed. You could then use that information in Mame to choose an autofire rate that actually matches your ability to mash.
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

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ACSeraph wrote:This just gave me an interesting idea. What if someone created a simple program to determine how fast you can mash buttons. Like press as fast as you can and the programs will determine your maximum shot speed. You could then use that information in Mame to choose an autofire rate that actually matches your ability to mash.
Already exists. Takahashi Meijin's "shooting watch:"

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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by drauch »

I've mainly just played a bunch of Gaiden and snippets of the originals. What would ya'll consider the hardest title?
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by Master O »

MathU wrote:You can blow away Golden Ogre before it finishes all its attacks even without any extra tapping or rapidfire assistance. It's all about getting in there and putting your rockets to use.
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That's kinda like how in one of Gradius 2's arcade revisions in Mame, you can just sit in front of the Crystal Core and all of its laser shots will miss you.
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by Jonst »

sorry! late to the thread...plenty of love for darius,i have a fair few games across a couple of systems,unfortunately,i'm crap at all of them. :oops:
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by ACSeraph »

Ugh Mirage Castle is really kicking the shit out of me in Burst... were it not for that I could probably get the clear : /

Any tips?
drauch wrote:I've mainly just played a bunch of Gaiden and snippets of the originals. What would ya'll consider the hardest title?
I'm wondering about this too. Of the few I've played Darius 1 arcade seemed like the hardest to me, but I had very little time to get the hang of it.
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by Pretas »

Darius 1 Arcade is the hardest, no question. Your ship is very slow and underpowered, and you lose all weapon upgrades upon death. The massive playfield coupled with small sprites makes aiming and dodging disorienting.

Darius II is more forgiving with its bigger sprites, faster ship speed and more powerful starting weapons. You still lose everything on death, but it's not as crippling as in the original.
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by EmperorIng »

Finally, a thread worth reading! :P Just up my alley, too.

Question: Is Darius Odyssey just a guidebook for Burst? Or is it some sort of art compilation for the Darius series? Because that would be rad to own.

I try to make it fairly-common knowledge that the Darius series is what got me hooked on shmups. As the opening post said, it really is an experience. It's interesting to read posts on this forum from 6-8 years ago, where I feel that opinions on the series were much more hostile. Maybe a bunch of neophytes came in, learned to stop worrying, and love the rank.
Pretas wrote:Darius 1 Arcade is the hardest, no question. Your ship is very slow and underpowered, and you lose all weapon upgrades upon death. The massive playfield coupled with small sprites makes aiming and dodging disorienting.

Darius II is more forgiving with its bigger sprites, faster ship speed and more powerful starting weapons. You still lose everything on death, but it's not as crippling as in the original.
I actually hold the opposite opinion regarding Darius 1 and Darius 2. I think Darius 2's larger ship makes it harder to avoid stray bullets. But the biggest difference is this: In Darius 1, if you've upgraded your power-up to the next level, the game won't take that away, barring a continue. In Darius 2, death resets everything except for the shield. This alone, for me, makes death an essential reset in D2. Especially with the "get back on your feet" power-up orbs being random in their drop, so you either can jump back in after a painful death (usually in the Earth or Mars stages - fuck Grand Octopus), or get stuck with no shot power and a piddly missile power-up. Un. Fair.

Maybe I played way too much of Darius 1, but I think, for the most part, it's fairly simple until the last three stages. The levels all follow the same archetypes (e.g. Cave, Mountain, Space, Sea, Factory), and due to the repetition, you sort of play each permutation the same way. If you managed to get a hyper shield and wave beam, you're fairly set.

I've been messing around with the Darius 1 Extra version on MAME, and I like how it is essentially rebalanced in terms of difficulty. Mainly stages and bosses have their aggressiveness and difficulty tweaked to make for a much more smoother playing experience. Biggest change: Fatty Glutton is actually beatable with the laser weapon! That's huge! I repeat: LASER WEAPON! That's fucking impossible to do in the regular Darius game, where you have to sacrifice powering yourself up in order to pass through that chokepoint (I still managed to 1CC Darius, my first-ever 1CC).

I think the hardest might be Gaiden or G-Darius, actually. Their complexity means the same sort of strategies you develop in D1 and D2 don't quite work, and the bosses are such extreme threats that they usually end your runs more than the stages.

D1 and D2: hard stages, easy bosses
Gaiden and G-D.: easy stages (sorta) and hard bosses.
MathU wrote:Everything else can be handled comfortably with smart rocket use and power-up management.
My experience has been that the later zones in Gaiden are far more comfortable if you are mashing those buttons down at a clipping pace. They are very hectic. And the last bosses? C'mon man. Brutal.
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by Pretas »

I think the hardest might be Gaiden or G-Darius, actually. Their complexity means the same sort of strategies you develop in D1 and D2 don't quite work, and the bosses are such extreme threats that they usually end your runs more than the stages.
I can't agree with this. Playing Gaiden with autofire lets you cut through most normal enemies like butter, and significantly reduces the time spent fighting bosses. You also get three black hole bombs per life, while D1 and D2 have no such "saving throws." G-Darius is rougher, especially with the arcade version's lack of slowdown, but the bosses are less daunting when you figure out how to win beam duels.

Not that all of these games aren't difficult, mind you.
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by EmperorIng »

To be fair, I wasn't including Gaiden's autofire-cheat into the argument, and the blackhole bombs can be a game-changer. My older brother likes to give me shit with Gaiden, saying the bombs are basically "game reset" and "press B to win" buttons. He's fucking wrong, of course. :wink:

I just think the sparser nature of Darius makes for a slightly easier clear once you get a route down. Darius 2 is a bit more iffy, because the death penalty is so high. But it feels a lot harder in Gaiden and G-Darius to me!
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