Where the Darius Love at?

This is the main shmups forum. Chat about shmups in here - keep it on-topic please!
Post Reply
User avatar
Sengoku Strider
Posts: 2647
Joined: Wed Aug 05, 2020 6:21 am

Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by Sengoku Strider »

I went at MD Darius II for a different route clear last night, and the controls hit me more than ever. Why do you move more quickly diagonally than straight? I know they do this throughout the series, there a practical design reason?
User avatar
Rastan78
Posts: 2066
Joined: Wed Jan 26, 2005 2:08 am

Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by Rastan78 »

Pretty sure the 4 main arcade games don't do that. 100% sure Gaiden doesn't. So maybe a quirk of the way the MD version was programmed? They didn't bother to "normalize" the diagonal movement similar to Garegga and Batrider.
User avatar
Samildanach
Posts: 226
Joined: Thu Feb 28, 2019 2:41 pm

Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by Samildanach »

Sengoku Strider wrote: Mon Jun 03, 2024 9:39 pm I went at MD Darius II for a different route clear last night, and the controls hit me more than ever. Why do you move more quickly diagonally than straight? I know they do this throughout the series, there a practical design reason?
This is a personal bugbear of mine in a surprising number of console shmups and I don't think it is ever a design choice rather something indicating inexperience of the devs. Almost no arcade shmups have this problem, including all the Darius games, but most of the console Darius ports do unfortunately. The exception is the wonderful recent Darius MD in which the Silver Hawk moves perfectly.

Unfortunately once you start looking for it you start to see this problem in more and more games, even highly regarded ones like Air Zonk. But then the control always felt a little slippery to me in that game until I worked out why.
User avatar
Sengoku Strider
Posts: 2647
Joined: Wed Aug 05, 2020 6:21 am

Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by Sengoku Strider »

Rastan78 wrote: Mon Jun 03, 2024 10:26 pm Pretty sure the 4 main arcade games don't do that. 100% sure Gaiden doesn't. So maybe a quirk of the way the MD version was programmed? They didn't bother to "normalize" the diagonal movement similar to Garegga and Batrider.
IIRC Darius Twin does this as well, I'd thought more also but I could be wrong on that front.
User avatar
caincan
Posts: 463
Joined: Tue Aug 16, 2005 4:59 pm
Location: your hope

Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by caincan »

User avatar
To Far Away Times
Posts: 2277
Joined: Tue Sep 11, 2012 12:42 am

Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by To Far Away Times »

I am convinced faster diagonal movement is just bad programming. Like how in GoldenEye 007 it just adds the speed of both directions to your total movement speed.
SavagePencil
Posts: 854
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2013 4:06 pm

Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by SavagePencil »

Link is either broken or Elon has account-walled it. What’s the gist?
User avatar
TransatlanticFoe
Posts: 1981
Joined: Mon Jan 24, 2011 11:06 pm
Location: UK

Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by TransatlanticFoe »

Switch Dariusburst CS Core finally shipped and this thing is great! It's pretty nuts they separated out Chronicle Saviours into two releases for the Switch and left this one until last - it's basically like a curated training mode for the Dariusburst arcade game. Stages/bosses repeat and/or evolve so that it eases you into tackling different things - and the varying default ship setup and stage rules force you to adapt to different situations. It's like practicing but also playing a full game at the same time.

Still can't get the timing down for the counter bursts though, it feels very stringent and it's one area the game's actual tutorial fails. It just gives you a stage with nothing but enemies that use a beam - but if you mess up the timing you either die or have to slowly refill the beam charge. You have to restart the stage to get anything out of it but still it's not massively helpful at getting the timing down, you just repeat until it clicks - either that or my ageing reflexes simply aren't good enough for the timing window!
User avatar
caincan
Posts: 463
Joined: Tue Aug 16, 2005 4:59 pm
Location: your hope

Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by caincan »

User avatar
caincan
Posts: 463
Joined: Tue Aug 16, 2005 4:59 pm
Location: your hope

Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by caincan »

User avatar
Samildanach
Posts: 226
Joined: Thu Feb 28, 2019 2:41 pm

Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by Samildanach »

That looks awesome, other than the player making a terrible job of fighting Fatty Glutton. (Always line up with, and take down the little fish, never Glutton itself; he'll get eventually killed by your stray shots regardless.)
User avatar
caincan
Posts: 463
Joined: Tue Aug 16, 2005 4:59 pm
Location: your hope

Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by caincan »

User avatar
caincan
Posts: 463
Joined: Tue Aug 16, 2005 4:59 pm
Location: your hope

Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by caincan »

User avatar
caincan
Posts: 463
Joined: Tue Aug 16, 2005 4:59 pm
Location: your hope

Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by caincan »

User avatar
davyK
Posts: 787
Joined: Fri Jul 24, 2009 9:48 pm
Location: Belfast, Northern Ireland

Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by davyK »

Returned to the Saturn port of Darius 2 after many years.

It's better than I remembered.
OldSkoolShmuper
Posts: 211
Joined: Sat May 29, 2021 4:29 pm

Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by OldSkoolShmuper »

Saturn Darius II review - Intelligent GAMER, August 1996

Image

Image

https://archive.org/details/intelligent ... 8/mode/2up
User avatar
copy-paster
Posts: 1809
Joined: Thu Apr 30, 2015 7:33 pm
Location: Indonesia

Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by copy-paster »

Image

Did the run weeks ago, played on the recent Shmupmame 5 it felt amazing really.

It was meant to be an random arcade labbing during the stream but after I got to beat my PB back in 2017 it tempted me to go for the full clear, been on the wishlist since 4-5 years ago but didn't do it till now. Took me almost a month but it was worth the journey, having to dodge the red capsules for the whole game is quite an experience I had some luck on the dodges (see the one just before Hysteric Empress). Pretty grateful with this clear as I'm finally be able to do a big breakthrough on the genre again since my community record in Salamander last year, and I'm currently on the shmup break now, who knows when I'll be back ;)
User avatar
Klatrymadon
Posts: 2305
Joined: Sun Aug 21, 2005 2:39 pm
Location: Liverpool
Contact:

Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by Klatrymadon »

Huge clear. Can't wait to watch this. Well done!
User avatar
R79
Posts: 270
Joined: Thu Feb 02, 2012 5:10 pm
Location: England, East Coast.

Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by R79 »

I have Darius Twin for SFC (dirt cheap cart), fairly basic blaster, but was wondering if Darius Force on the same system is worth ponying up the extra cash? Quite a leap in price that one. Thinking about the PCE CD version as well, seen that about pretty reasonably. One of the few playable games I can see on that (along with Valis), before you need the add-on card for the Super stuff.
Image
User avatar
Klatrymadon
Posts: 2305
Joined: Sun Aug 21, 2005 2:39 pm
Location: Liverpool
Contact:

Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by Klatrymadon »

Force isn't great. It's the only one I don't like playing at all, tbh. Between the plodding, stop-start pacing and checkpointing, the dull soundtrack and the awkward weapon system, which splits the difference in shot power between your main weapon and sub-weapon when you use both, it all feels a bit off-brand and lacking in cohesion, and there isn't much else that recommends it. It's not a complete failure, but it's uncharacteristically middle-of-the-road, as if the devs were looking to all sorts of other console shmups for inspiration rather than any previous Darius game. Check it out via whatever means you can, but definitely don't go on eBay and drop £200 on it.

Super Darius (the PCE CD one I assume you're looking at?) is a pretty solid conversion of the original game, although it suffers from overlong, repetitious stages. I find its simple Scramble-like dynamic of precision bombing of ground-based targets interspersed with sniping the flying ones compelling enough that its issues don't bother me, though!
PC Engine Fan X!
Posts: 9761
Joined: Wed Jan 26, 2005 10:32 pm

Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by PC Engine Fan X! »

R79 wrote: Sat Mar 14, 2026 9:48 am I have Darius Twin for SFC (dirt cheap cart), fairly basic blaster, but was wondering if Darius Force on the same system is worth ponying up the extra cash? Quite a leap in price that one. Thinking about the PCE CD version as well, seen that about pretty reasonably. One of the few playable games I can see on that (along with Valis), before you need the add-on card for the Super stuff.

For R79,

Just pick up a KriKzz Turbo Everdrive Pro flash cart + EDFX add-on setup and you won't need either a Super CD-Rom2 System Card nor an Arcade Card Pro/Duo Arcade Pro System Card as the TE-Pro already doubles as a dedicated Arcade Card Pro setup -- meaning that you can play all the CD-Rom2, Super CD-Rom2 & Arcade CD-Rom2 + Japanese Hu-Card & American Turbo Chip (including the uber-rare USA region TTI variant stg of "Magical Chase") based games without the need for a dedicated CD-Rom2 or Super CD-Rom2 Interface Unit. How cool is that?

You can buy it through KriKzz's site here: https://krikzz.com/our-products/cartrid ... e-pro.html

----------
You can even play the sole Arcade CD-Rom2 stg title of "Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire" on the PC Engine/Core Grafx /Core Grafx II/Super Grafx/Shuttle Grafx/Turbo Grafx-16 consoles with it as well.
----------

The Super CD-Rom2 stg titles of Gate of Thunder & Winds of Thunder/Lords of Thunder are must haves in your PCE stg stash also, R79.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~
User avatar
R79
Posts: 270
Joined: Thu Feb 02, 2012 5:10 pm
Location: England, East Coast.

Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by R79 »

Klatrymadon wrote: Sat Mar 14, 2026 12:27 pm Force isn't great. It's the only one I don't like playing at all, tbh. Between the plodding, stop-start pacing and checkpointing, the dull soundtrack and the awkward weapon system, which splits the difference in shot power between your main weapon and sub-weapon when you use both, it all feels a bit off-brand and lacking in cohesion, and there isn't much else that recommends it. It's not a complete failure, but it's uncharacteristically middle-of-the-road, as if the devs were looking to all sorts of other console shmups for inspiration rather than any previous Darius game. Check it out via whatever means you can, but definitely don't go on eBay and drop £200 on it.

Super Darius (the PCE CD one I assume you're looking at?) is a pretty solid conversion of the original game, although it suffers from overlong, repetitious stages. I find its simple Scramble-like dynamic of precision bombing of ground-based targets interspersed with sniping the flying ones compelling enough that its issues don't bother me, though!
Cheers. No, I won't be paying 200 on that, no way. I mostly just pick off loose carts over the years now, with all the price rises, and eventually get round to playing them. Darius CD is still often priced complete on eBay UK for a very reasonable 30 quid. I just remembered Spriggan and Avenger are CD only shooters as well, before you then get the leap up to the Super software like Dracula X.
Image
User avatar
R79
Posts: 270
Joined: Thu Feb 02, 2012 5:10 pm
Location: England, East Coast.

Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by R79 »

PC Engine Fan X! wrote: Sat Mar 14, 2026 5:02 pm
R79 wrote: Sat Mar 14, 2026 9:48 am I have Darius Twin for SFC (dirt cheap cart), fairly basic blaster, but was wondering if Darius Force on the same system is worth ponying up the extra cash? Quite a leap in price that one. Thinking about the PCE CD version as well, seen that about pretty reasonably. One of the few playable games I can see on that (along with Valis), before you need the add-on card for the Super stuff.

For R79,

Just pick up a KriKzz Turbo Everdrive Pro flash cart + EDFX add-on setup and you won't need either a Super CD-Rom2 System Card nor an Arcade Card Pro/Duo Arcade Pro System Card as the TE-Pro already doubles as a dedicated Arcade Card Pro setup -- meaning that you can play all the CD-Rom2, Super CD-Rom2 & Arcade CD-Rom2 + Japanese Hu-Card & American Turbo Chip (including the uber-rare USA region TTI variant stg of "Magical Chase") based games without the need for a dedicated CD-Rom2 or Super CD-Rom2 Interface Unit. How cool is that?

You can buy it through KriKzz's site here: https://krikzz.com/our-products/cartrid ... e-pro.html

----------
You can even play the sole Arcade CD-Rom2 stg title of "Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire" on the PC Engine/Core Grafx /Core Grafx II/Super Grafx/Shuttle Grafx/Turbo Grafx-16 consoles with it as well.
----------

The Super CD-Rom2 stg titles of Gate of Thunder & Winds of Thunder/Lords of Thunder are must haves in your PCE stg stash also, R79.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~
Heh, the NEC signal was given, and you came, so to speak ;) I have much of the hardware stashed away, just a waiting game these days getting a lower price on the odd game or too, while trying not to get reamed with add-on handling costs. It's wild they did the Arcade card with barely any games (few SNK conversions), and even had a whole separate beefy console with another few games on it like Aldynes and 1941, yeah, real collector territory there now, ichiwawa!
Image
User avatar
R79
Posts: 270
Joined: Thu Feb 02, 2012 5:10 pm
Location: England, East Coast.

Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by R79 »

Just had about an hour on Darius Twin, it's not too bad once you manage to break past the first mid boss who just launches at you. Game seems to really come alive stage 3, and the stage 2 double bosses bit different. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JM6MXLdizOI great music on the 3rd stage! I take it you just grab every power up, no sequence or anything. Managed to get just shy of a million on normal, stage G I think. Bit frustrating no bomb, although the shield upgrades kinda feel like the main thing here. Quite tiring on thumb holding down both buttons, real back to basics menu on this. Gotta hand it to 'em with an on-screen 2 player mode for 1991, fair play Taito.
Image
User avatar
To Far Away Times
Posts: 2277
Joined: Tue Sep 11, 2012 12:42 am

Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by To Far Away Times »

Darius Twin gets easier as you go. Once you're at full power it's a lot more manageable.
Hyperspace
Posts: 25
Joined: Sun Dec 29, 2024 1:27 pm

Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by Hyperspace »

I’ve really enjoyed the darius series. But I think Darius Gaiden is my favorite. I love the zentata music. G darius is a close second. And I really like the sega mega drive version of the first darius.
TerminalInternet
Posts: 90
Joined: Tue Sep 03, 2024 2:50 pm
Contact:

Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by TerminalInternet »

G-Darius is one of my favorite 3D space shooter, Services as an prequel of Darius series, I'd like to gameplay mechanism capture enemies ship and mid-boss encounters, Blasting with the laser cannon beams like Dragon Ball Z for anime reference, The big red fish robotic machines can usually firing laser cannon beams reference of Dragon Ball Z anime episode.
Shmups DEV Studios Personal Project > Gunner Blade Media Series (Gunner Blade 1: Tales of Landscape) | 3 Action-Pack of Short Animation Film: RayForce 1.5 R-Gear Project, Who Framed Miku Gacha Life Series and Platypus Colonel Alliance
PC Engine Fan X!
Posts: 9761
Joined: Wed Jan 26, 2005 10:32 pm

Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by PC Engine Fan X! »

TerminalInternet wrote: Wed May 13, 2026 3:43 am G-Darius is one of my favorite 3D space shooter, Services as an prequel of Darius series, I'd like to gameplay mechanism capture enemies ship and mid-boss encounters, Blasting with the laser cannon beams like Dragon Ball Z for anime reference, The big red fish robotic machines can usually firing laser cannon beams reference of Dragon Ball Z anime episode.

The G-Darius Ver.2 arcade jamma pcb running on the venerable Taito FX-1B arcade motherboard platform is ace -- I have it in my arcade pcb stash alrighty. You can easily upgrade a plain-vanilla G-Darius Ver. 1 jamma pcb into a Ver. 2 one with a simple single eprom swap. Easy as pie.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~
TerminalInternet
Posts: 90
Joined: Tue Sep 03, 2024 2:50 pm
Contact:

Re: Where the Darius Love at?

Post by TerminalInternet »

PC Engine Fan X! wrote: Wed May 13, 2026 3:56 am
TerminalInternet wrote: Wed May 13, 2026 3:43 am G-Darius is one of my favorite 3D space shooter, Services as an prequel of Darius series, I'd like to gameplay mechanism capture enemies ship and mid-boss encounters, Blasting with the laser cannon beams like Dragon Ball Z for anime reference, The big red fish robotic machines can usually firing laser cannon beams reference of Dragon Ball Z anime episode.

The G-Darius Ver.2 arcade jamma pcb running on the venerable Taito FX-1B arcade motherboard platform is ace -- I have it in my arcade pcb stash alrighty. You can easily upgrade a plain-vanilla G-Darius Ver. 1 jamma pcb into a Ver. 2 one with a simple single eprom swap. Easy as pie.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~
Good to hear, 3D Polygon graphics based sprites and textures is really amazing, I usually watched all of them replay for players, I replaying some classic emulator arcade and consoles, Like the 3D space shooter RayStorm is pretty mediocre than G-Darius.
Shmups DEV Studios Personal Project > Gunner Blade Media Series (Gunner Blade 1: Tales of Landscape) | 3 Action-Pack of Short Animation Film: RayForce 1.5 R-Gear Project, Who Framed Miku Gacha Life Series and Platypus Colonel Alliance
Post Reply