Where the Darius Love at?

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xxx1993

Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by xxx1993 »

Am I the only one who actually likes the "Freedom" music? It's been my theme song along with "Sekai wa Hitotsu no Butai" from Project X Zone 2. I've been considering making AMVs with that "Freedom" song anyway, no matter how bad it is.
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DoomsDave
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by DoomsDave »

No you're not the only one. I really like it and listen to it outside of the game every now and then.
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by M.Knight »

The vocal Freedom haters haven't realized the actual shitty track in the game is Dograce. I like Freedom myself but at least those who dislike it only have to hear it once in the very first CS mission's first stage and never listen to it again. Dograce is another story.
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by Klatrymadon »

I love Dariusburst CS for a lot of the reasons ACSeraph mentioned, and can easily recommend it if you have even a passing interest in the series, A Skeleton. It's a hugely customisable experience from which you can take or leave whatever you want, but at the heart of it is a rich, tactical gameplay system that rewards thoughtful experimentation with each ship's unique capabilities (which themselves explode what could otherwise be fairly pedestrian scoring mechanics), and it's capped off with one of the most satisfying and addictive methods of dispatching bosses there's ever been - the Burst Counter! I wrote a little about getting into the game here (with a link to an official guide) if you do decide to go for it. :)

If I were to make one criticism of it, and I am loath to, it's that its art direction isn't up to all that much. This is forgivable, especially considering the material conditions of its production (it's essentially souped up from a PSP game), and the boss designs are all incredible, but its 'world' is for the most part a whole lotta nothing, in fairly stark contrast with the other main entries in the series*, which are often bizarre and thrilling visual experiences with a strong sense of place. Thankfully, the soundtrack does a lot of the heavy lifting for it on this front.

*Actually, the strongest scenes come when it's directly calling back to the original Darius, IMO.
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by ACSeraph »

Klatrymadon wrote:If I were to make one criticism of it, and I am loath to, it's that its art direction isn't up to all that much.
This x100

If Burst had more mysterious planetary stages like the earlier games it would probably lift it into the best in series position for me. The backgrounds just don't feel like Darius, they have more of a poor man's Gradius vibe. I really loved the new stage that opens CS mode as it's much more "Darius", but unfortunately it wasn't really a sign of things to come in the mode.Could you imagine Burst with G Darius level art direction? That would be some god tier gaming.

Also... I'm really feeling the Darius love right now with 3 different Darius topics on the front page :)
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xxx1993

Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by xxx1993 »

They've made it impossible to pull off Burst Counters for me when I use the Legend for some reason...
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by M.Knight »

ACSeraph wrote:Could you imagine Burst with G Darius level art direction? That would be some god tier gaming.
Man, that would be the perfect Darius game. Burst really shows how it was originally a much less ambitious than its predecessors PSP game with copy-pastable and cheap space-themed environments made with mission/challenge design in mind rather than the very specific setpieces from G-Darius that you can't reuse forever. Man, if only Burst had the same kind of attention to detail to the way the boss fights were framed and introduced.

And speaking of G-Darius bosses, here's some love from me in the form of a few fanarts I've done in the past few months:
Queen Fossil : https://i.imgur.com/i2zBrby.png
Eclipse Eye : https://i.imgur.com/DJqhJ1z.png
Dimension Diver : https://i.imgur.com/xDgy4uE.png
Great Thing : https://i.imgur.com/eaSKZ7P.png

-----

xxx1993 : have you tried the Side Counter? It's triggered by entering in an already active Burst beam while toggling yours as well. The timing still needs to be nailed correctly but you have a lot more control over when you get in rather than having to use the audiovisual cues from the boss even if you're not ready yet.
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xxx1993

Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by xxx1993 »

I don’t think I tried it...
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ACSeraph
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by ACSeraph »

@xxx1993

I just posted a quick explanation of the side counter in the main DBCS thread you can check out.

---

Since it came up let's talk about G Darius. It is my most shameful confession that this is the only game in the series I've never cleared. It looks and sounds like Darius, but doesn't really feel like Darius, so it's like my general series skill level just doesn't transfer over.

That said I really like it and I want to clear it. Give me tips. What's the easiest baby course? I don't want to worry about score yet, I want the path of least resistance.
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by MathU »

I'm not much of a fan of G-Darius either. I think it was a massive downgrade in just about every way from everything the series had been improving towards with Gaiden. The reason it doesn't feel like Darius is because, in a series known for satisfying game-long power-up systems, the ship weaponry in G-Darius are underpowered and leave you feeling like you're using a peashooter throughout nearly the entire game. They really, really wanted you to rely on the firepower from captured enemies and memorizing all the right moments to launch a laser attack.

That said, the easiest route depends on which version of the game you're playing. I think Lightning Coronatus is for sure the easiest boss on the console releases, but it's massively more difficult in arcade v2 where's it's probably more of a tossup between it and Accordian Hazard. Zone Eta is the easiest of stage 4 choices because Fire Fossil is essentially similar enough to Queen Fossil that most of your strategies work the same. The giant fish stages play out pretty much exactly the same every time once you figure out how to tackle them (i.e., memorize the right times to fire off lasers).
Of course, that's just an opinion.
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by Strider77 »

Does anyone have or know the list of issues there are with the port of Darius Gaiden on Switch without the patch applied?
Damn Tim, you know there are quite a few Americans out there who still lives in tents due to this shitty economy, and you're dropping loads on a single game which only last 20 min. Do you think it's fair? How much did you spend this time?
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by EmperorIng »

I know this is a late response, but from what I gathered piecing through old posts, pre-patch there were some minor graphical glitches. Rank rose a little faster (iirc there is a rank bug in the original arcade release that was 'fixed' in the Saturn port... and maybe with this patch?).* The big one that I saw a few post about was the controls were a little looser, meaning that the game didn't always read your input pressing the bomb button (maybe this had to do with using the autofire settings?).

I am not sure how accurate some of these are or if they are 'gut feelings.' My gut 'tells' me the game feels better post-patch.
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by Klatrymadon »

Get a load of this Jaws-poster t-shirt with metal fest logos on the back.

(I'd be all over it if it wasn't nearly a hundred quid.)
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Master O
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by Master O »

Ryuuichi Sakamoto's "Plastic Bamboo" from his debut album "Thousand Knives"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzLOLOEwsGY

I swear this literally sounds like something from Darius II, but the above song came first!
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DoomsDave
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by DoomsDave »

Master O wrote:but the above song came first!
I wouldn't be surprised if it was inspiration for Darius, a lot of shmup/early games just ripped off songs. For example most of Garegga is just remix's of really popular Detroit Techno - viewtopic.php?f=1&t=59343

Then there's the more obvious ones like Double Dragon 2 etc.
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by BIL »

Ryuichi Sakamoto's OG outfit Yellow Magic Orchestra is also a legendary influence on electronic music, inside and outside Japan. Check out Sega's Super Locomotive ripping off Rydeen wholesale, even the "space shootin" bit. :lol: (to beautiful effect!) Any Zuntata fan will love YMO's Solid State Survivor.

Shinji Hosoe and a few other JP game music luminaries have their own tribute band to YMO, Oriental Magic Yellow.

My personal favourite VGM riff is Ninja Gaiden (arcade), which famously copied Black Sabbath's Iron Man for its second boss theme... but much less famously, it seems, minorly retuned JP power metal veterans Anthem's Bound To Break for its st1 BGM. Tecmo stalwart METAL YUHKI plays it plausibly-deniably cool until the stadium chanting bridge, where he unequivocally blows his friggin load. Yo! Genius steals! :cool:

Out of bounds...

Bound to break!


Anthem themselves have a storied history with VGM, being the first band to release a promo videogame single (for Falcom's Xanadu), plus bassist/founder Naoto Shibata heading up the Battle ~ Perfect Selection arranged albums for Konami (with longtime guitarist Akio Shimizu playing on Dracula Battle 1).

See also the first GT Advance's adorable chiptune take on Judas Priest's white-hot Painkiller... coincidentally, Chris Tsangarides (RIP) produced that record and several of Anthem's.

It's a fun topic, should start a thread. I think there was one at some point, "VGM Sound-alikes" or something similar.
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by Master O »

BIL wrote: My personal favourite VGM riff is Ninja Gaiden (arcade), which famously copied Black Sabbath's Iron Man for its second boss theme... but much less famously, it seems, minorly retuned JP power metal veterans Anthem's Bound To Break for its st1 BGM. Tecmo stalwart METAL YUHKI plays it plausibly-deniably cool until the stadium chanting bridge, where he unequivocally blows his friggin load. Yo! Genius steals! :cool:


It's a fun topic, should start a thread. I think there was one at some point, "VGM Sound-alikes" or something similar.
If Sharon Osbourne ever finds out about that, whoever owns Tecmo will get sued into oblivion.
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by BIL »

Probably why it's been omitted from every official home console release of the game. :lol: (Xbox Ninja Gaiden Black, Wii VC, Arcade Archives) The bosses themselves are still blatant ripoffs of the Road Warriors, though!

I actually prefer the "new" boss BGM (which IIRC is just one of the others swapped in). It's catchy and dire-sounding like good action BGM should be. Then again I don't like Iron Man itself much, if I had to choose boss BGM off that record I'd go with Electric Funeral. Image
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by BrianC »

Oddly enough, the Lynx version has "I am Man" intact and it sounds somewhat closer to the original song.
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by BIL »

Indeed, that seems like a great little conversion! Odd, a portable hosting the closest thing to a home release of the arcade version for well over a decade.
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by XoPachi »

>.>
<.<

I really love SuperNova...
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by EmperorIng »

Darius Force is pretty good. The bosses are pretty cool and the stages have some nice design. The beginning of the game when you don't have power is rough, and check-point recovery might be a little too brutal, but overall I enjoy it.

Do you have a favorite boss? Mine might be either PEACE DESTROYER (one of the great Darius names), or Mudy Crystal (love the way he has his shell spin around).

I just noticed my Cozmic Collection is all in English now. Sweet; it must have auto-detected my region.
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by Klatrymadon »

This is a long shot, but I don't suppose anyone has a high resolution image of the cover of the Darius Odyssey book included with the Cozmic Collection (the "Cozmic Archives" version with white-on-silver artwork)? I'm interested in seeing if I can do anything with it for an arcade stick mod. Alternatively, any higher-res images of this other cover? I doubt I'd end up with something workable if I tried to scan my own copy of the book, and don't know the first thing about graphic design, alas...

Thanks!

Edit: there's also the bottom half of this, of course, but it'd probably be a bit too busy/messy, no? I'd also love to use the original game's flyer in a mod project, but I don't have the skills to arrange the parts I'd want correctly. If scanning my own stuff is actually perfectly viable, do let me know. :)
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by Master O »

BIL wrote:Probably why it's been omitted from every official home console release of the game. :lol: (Xbox Ninja Gaiden Black, Wii VC, Arcade Archives) The bosses themselves are still blatant ripoffs of the Road Warriors, though!

I actually prefer the "new" boss BGM (which IIRC is just one of the others swapped in). It's catchy and dire-sounding like good action BGM should be. Then again I don't like Iron Man itself much, if I had to choose boss BGM off that record I'd go with Electric Funeral. Image
Oh, I thought the villains came from the original Mad Max movies (Mel Gibson).
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by BIL »

Master O wrote:Oh, I thought the villains came from the original Mad Max movies (Mel Gibson).
In a way they did, since Hawk and Animal were themselves unabashed Mad Max cosplayers, right down to their most famous tag team name being lifted from the second Mad Max film (The Road Warrior). :smile: The arcade game's st2 bosses are definitely based on Hawk, though. The tag team gimmick and more importantly the Norwood 9 hairline give it away. Image

Image

Image

However, only the last boss BLADEDAMUS ( Image ) is rocking the authentic, post-apocalyptic assless chaps!
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by copy-paster »

Image

Cleared MD mini port of Darius, this time I'm using Arcade boss mode with ABDGLRX route. I must say that this game is the closest you get of single screen version of original 3-screen game, from the gameplay and enemy placement. Super Darius might a bit better because your ship moves faster and bosses are generally easier (except last bossess have doubled the HP of original, as a trade-off).
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by TransatlanticFoe »

EmperorIng wrote:Darius Force is pretty good. The bosses are pretty cool and the stages have some nice design. The beginning of the game when you don't have power is rough, and check-point recovery might be a little too brutal, but overall I enjoy it.

Do you have a favorite boss? Mine might be either PEACE DESTROYER (one of the great Darius names), or Mudy Crystal (love the way he has his shell spin around).

I just noticed my Cozmic Collection is all in English now. Sweet; it must have auto-detected my region.
Yeah the opening is just dumb. You're underpowered and there's so much "memorise or die" that you've started the game several times over just to see the first batch of power ups. Once you do though, it's much more balanced and enjoyable - which just makes that opening section all the more baffling. I haven't spent too much time with it yet but it's proving to be a lot of fun... once you memorise the opening few waves.

I also found the bosses I encountered so far to be far more fair and interesting than Darius Twin. In Darius Twin bosses fire undodgably fast bullets but in simplistic alternating patterns that are easy to avoid once you know what's coming. Trivial if you have a shield, unfair if you do not. Here it's easier (and more fun) facing up against a boss for the first time, which surprised me given the game's reputation as a "not-Darius" rigid memoriser.

Cannot shake the "discount R-Type" feel though, especially with an early stage I played rotating the scenery around like it was R-Type III. It's graphically underwhelming too - static, it looks like SMS Sagaia (obviously it moves a lot better though). Said early rotation stage was very plain and reminded me of SMS Aerial Assault (when it wssn't rotating).

Regarding checkpoint recovery, I expect it gets too tough later on and some will be unfair (thst opening lends me to suspect there will be stsge design oversights) but then, try recovering after a death from stage 3 onwards in Darius II!
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by Klatrymadon »

Together at last.

Image

The best port ever is perhaps now the definitive version of the game, since it features the Old, New and Extra revisions from the arcade (the latter creating significantly different score-play), as well as the option to choose between having the standard 11 bosses from the arcade versions populating the stages, or the full 26 from Super Darius on the PCE CD (where every zone has a unique boss). The Boss Rush mode from the MD Mini version is still here, pretty much supplanting Alpha, and the options screen offers robust autofire options, allowing you to set the firing rate as in the Cozmic ports. It's an enormously generous game in multiple senses - I still can't believe it exists.

(It's also an absolute demon - by far the most aggressive and manic iteration, but refreshingly so.)
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by BIL »

That is fuckin beautiful Image Image
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Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by Special World »

Wish I hadnt slept on the console ver of Cozmic—i went with arcade for Darius Gaiden. But MD Darius looks pretty tight. And I love M2s training modes.

Is the cartridge Darius Extra Version the same game that’s on Cozmik Arcade, or is it exclusive to the MD mini otherwise?

Ed: Ah, I see they’re different. Between Darius Extra and Darius 2 MD, which is more fun? Trying to decide between a digital Darius Cosmic Console and the physical genesis Darius Extra. These collections make my head spin!
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