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what's ABSOLUTE EASIEST route for this game?

A cursory look at the scoreboard shows that most people take route ABDHLQV. I assume there is a reason for that!

Thought people took the harder routes for higher scoring opportunities. Should know by now I don't look at scoreboards. I'll try that though. So far I can go as far as Stage 4 before I lose all four lives ( assuming I grab the one extend I know of in Stage 3 ) in a very embarrassing manner that at the moment I just don't have the energy to recollect.

You understand my frustrations? Right?

Seeing as it took me roughly three years (on and off) to 1CC the game, yes I do.

The route mentioned above avoids a lot of the dangerous bosses and levels (King Fossil, Electric Fan, Titanic Lance, etc), and as far as final bosses go, Risk Storage is far more manageable than some of the others.

I'll second EmperorIng on this, ABDHLQV is the easiest. I tried out a lot of different courses when I went for my Auto-off clear a month or two ago and this was definitely the way to go.

Main thing is to decide on it and stick with it. it's better not to practice lots of different courses, just focus on the one specific route.

I suggest using your first bomb (and second bomb also if you get in trouble) on Neon Light Illusion. When you bomb you are totally invincible so set your ship directly on the boss' weak point to point blank with all your missiles for mass damage. Pull away when the lightning flashes and the black hole closes.

There are also points in some of the final stages where you may have to panic bomb (bombing is WAY preferable to dying in this game). Also I usually bomb to safely grab the stage 6 extend in the jell-o field.

Next to last boss and the final boss Risk Storage are also good bomb candidates, particularly the attacks where risk storage vomits out items as you can point blank his open mouth during the bomb. All the other bosses should be learned bomb free imo.

Hopefully that gives you some strategies to work with. Also learn to do it auto-off if you want to grow an extra curly mustache.

I'll stick with holding the fire button down.

Did not know the ship still fires weapons during bombs. Thanks for that tip

Status Update: So here's my current situation. I'm finally able to tackle the stage 2 boss without bombing, albeit a bit nerve wrecking with the thick lasers and thin beams. Losing my first life to the stage 3 captain that comes in early. Can't seem to position myself for a capture. So until I do so, I can't continue on with the run.

I usually get wasted if I try to capture the stage 3 midboss too. Stick with survival strategies for now and just kill him straight out.

As for the stage two boss, it took me a bit of practice too. Usually for the last attack I stay under his head and hit him with missiles. It's a bit easier auto-on though, since you can pretty much ignore the missiles he shoots at you and just focus on dodging the beams. Might be better to just shoot him in the face normally in that case while dodging. Good luck with it!

This game is still pretty fresh in my mind since I just learned it, so if you get stuck on parts just ask and I'll throw tips your way.

I'm getting to stage 3 now with a good stock of about 4 bombs. Is it okay to burn one on the midboss there to avoid any hassle? This way, I'm able to upgrade to my lv. 3 wave tackle most of the tight spaced area. Going by the rank guide in this thread, The Small wave with two blue orbs is the safe way to go for Folding Fan, yea?

I wouldn't use one on the midboss if I were you. He's fairly easy to tackle without it if you aren't worried about capturing him. You'll really need the bombs late game in order to avoid dying and powering down.

As for rank and weapon levels I suggest ignoring it completely. I had a much easier time when I put rank control out of my mind and just took all the powerups. Once you max out completely just avoid picking up any more of them. Only thing I suggest is that when you get the the very next to last upgrade you avoid powering up to the final one for as long as you can. That would be big red wave and two small white shots. The final upgrade changes the white shots to small red waves which do less damage. It's not to control rank, just to keep damage high. Generally though you'll end up powering to max before the end by accident. Don't worry much about it as its still easy to clear.

There appears to be a rank increase for every time to press shot. When you play auto-off you can actually keep the rank low by being careful about certain things, but with auto-on the rank always maxes out for me regardless so there's really no point in worrying about it.

If only it didn't effect boss health =/.

Doesn't matter though because they still die faster with auto-on than they do with rank controlled auto-off. This whole thing about the bosses taking forever to kill is a bit of an exaggeration if you ask me. It just forces you to actually learn all of their patterns, as there is usually no way to kill the later bosses before they get through at least one full cycle of attacks.

Status Update: Made it to Deadly crecent!

Nice! You've got it in the bag. I usually bomb his second phase with all the fast bullets.

I bomb very early on him because of the odd angled lasers. Not sure how to dodge any of that.

Btw made it to Risk storage. Your advice has helped lots!

If you have the resources to do it I highly suggest bomb spamming Risk-Storage when he opens his mouth and point blanking him to seal the clear. Make sure you don't bomb when he has his mouth closed or it won't do any damage. If you get to him with only like 1 bomb and no lives to spare use the bomb when he vomits up those weird silver lasers that follow you around. Most of the other attacks are pretty reasonably dealt with.

Also very nice job making it that far in such a short time. Keep at it!

Hard work paying off

Nice job man, that took you no time at all. Congrats on the clear!

Can anyone point me to a replay without auto-fire for route ABDHLQV? All the replays I'm finding are using auto so I'm not seeing some of the bosses later patterns, I think. Thanks in advance!

While he does not have a specific ABDHLQV run, MathU's channel has a few runs wthout autofire and covers all stages. You should watch them, they sometimes have useful annotations.

thanks! His runs have been a big help to me, since my arcade has no autofire on the Darius cabinet.

edit:

Can someone tell me if your stock of bombs effects rank? I swear when I have 5 bombs the bullets are more plentiful...

Since I am here: does anyone want to open a new GD and ST for this game?
I can see that the GD is still linked to my handle, but if you guys want a new, fresh start, by all means do so.

Am I missing something, or is it actually better to let a damaged shield deplete entirely before picking up a shield powerup? If you get a green shield while you have no shield, it's set to absorb 3 hits, but if you have a shield that's been damaged twice, it'll only get upgraded by one hit...

Pretty sure it doesn't work that way. Every time you pick up a blue power up, your shield is updated to the maximum power of whatever shield level you're at. So ALWAYS grab them regardless. You need to max out your shield level ASAP.

I just tried grabbing a shield, getting hit twice (so one hit away from losing shield), then grabbing another shield powerup, then got hit twice again and lost the shield. It doesn't seem to always go to the max.

Maybe one of those attacks had stronger power or hit twice? Some things tend to reduce faster in my experience.

At any rate, you need all the items you can get so don't ever pass them by. One hit won't make much of a difference once you hit lvl 3 anyway (it can absorb like...9 bullets or some shit).

I believe you only get one hit worth of energy per shield powerup when you currently have a shield. I'd have to test the details to be certain, but this means when your sheild is small and only has one hit left, it is indeed better to take a hit before picking up the next powerup if possible. In this way you will get a 3 hit shield rather than a 2 hit one. I believe the silver and gold shields also only give 3 hits when picked up fresh, but have a higher maximum "stack" that can be reached by taking additional shields. As Squire says though, given no other alternative you should pick up the shield even if you have no way to suicide your own.

I got the ps2 version of darius gaiden with taito legends 2, and I'm noticing fairly obvious slowdown compared to MAME; is there supposed to be this much slowdown in the ps2 port?

I noticed a little slowdown as well... But I also feel a fair amount of input lag (I. E. Slower response to my inputs compared to pcb/mame). Anyone else notice this, or is it in my head?

I vaguely remember reading that the porting of some games on the Western version of Taito Memories has problems not present in the Japanese release. Metal black for example. Gaiden may be another one that has problems, but I can't tell you much more since I don't own that version myself.

Bump for game breaking question:

The Japanese Darius Wiki notes an invincibility glitch



It sounds like this can be purposely activated. Anyone know how?