Where the Darius Love at?

[Despatche]

Again, it isn't "avoiding powerups", it's rushing to and hanging around the right power levels (Missile combos, because Wave combos do poor damage) and not picking up powerups beyond max.

[MathU]

Darius Gaiden was designed well around its default firing rate and you lose a fair bit of its depth using that particular cheat.

Not at all. Darius Gaiden has a lot of balance problems regardless of autofire, but not having it makes the game almost impossible to take seriously; it's a bit like trying to no miss Garegga. This is why Extra Version has it programmed in and enabled by default (allowing the stage 2 captain to be used with it properly), and why the Saturn version has that code.

I really suggest you go back and actually read everything I've written about this in this thread before you try to rehash this debate again. The mega autofire featured as a cheat in the console versions completely trivializes major aspects of the game. Why the Extra Version hack has it programmed in and enabled at 30 Hz by default is purely speculative, but I would argue it has more to do with the all-stage mode where the adaptive difficulty maxes out by the time you've completed half the stages than anything else. The ironic thing is that, outside of that all-stage mode, the rapidfire default in the hack trivializes the game even more than it would otherwise because holding the shot button down does not increase the adaptive difficulty. Normally, to achieve a higher firing rate in the game you need to mash the button, and every time you press the shot button it adds a small amount to the adaptive difficulty modifier.

Also find the comparison to no-missing Garegga quite humorous. If you would just give the game a real chance without the cheat, without letting preconceptions cloud your perception, I think you'll find that even one-life clearing Darius Gaiden isn't as hard as single-credit clearing Battle Garegga. Remember to use those rockets!

[Despatche]

Look, I really don't want to have to say the same thing again and again and again until people finally bother to read it and understand it.

It's not a debate, and never was. You really need to sit down and study this game, because you will not like what you find. The whole game is a broken mess, so you may as well use autofire to make it tolerable. I actually like the idea of playing certain games without autofire because of exactly what you're saying, but the problem is that Gaiden is not one of those games. It has nothing to do with difficulty, and it sure as hell has nothing to do with preconceptions (which you're obviously full of, seeing as you keep ignoring half of what I'm trying to say); it has to do with how awful-feeling the game is to play to begin with.

Doing a boring normal Garegga clear isn't really hard; scoring is. Doing the one life clear is both hard and really annoying, but I think it's pretty clear that I meant the latter by the comparison.

[trap15]

Gun Frontier has autofire too, but it's also too slow to be useful in most cases (a VERY similar situation to Darius Gaiden, actually). Are you trying to imply, MathU, that Gun Frontier was meant to be played without auto? Because I can almost guarantee you that it's impossible to clear without autofire (or being able to manually mash at 15hz for a good 30 minutes).

[ACSeraph]

Everyone should use autofire because I don't like Darius Gaiden isn't a very compelling argument...

Are you trying to imply, MathU, that Gun Frontier was meant to be played without auto?

Look I don't really care how anyone on here plays Gaiden, and I'd rather not drag this topic up again, but that is not at all what he's saying.

What he's saying is that the game is actually relatively well balanced around its autofire. Without autofire you have the ability to control the rank in Gaiden and there are many strategies that can be utilized (such as smart missile usage) that can be used to kill the bosses in a timely manner. If it takes you a year to kill the bosses without autofire, I hate to tell ya, but you are simply doing it wrong.

Also calling the default rate utterly useless is just wrong. It's not the even comparable to the default rate in games from the 80's. Basically it's a middle ground where for the most part the autofire is sufficient and you can rest, but mashing can give you an extra edge at certain times when you need it.

Again, I don't even care how you play Gaiden, but the game was definitely well balanced for the default rate. I beat the game auto-off within like 2 weeks of buying it, only playing a couple of credits per day. "It's impossible and finger breaking on default" is simply a myth. You just have to learn more complex strategies than "hold A" in order to beat it.

[MathU]

You really need to sit down and study this game, because you will not like what you find.

Considering I am in the middle of putting together a comprehensive guide describing stage-specific and boss-specific strategies as well as a very technical adaptive difficulty and weapon damage breakdown, already having compiled some 20 pages of notes, I think I've studied this game plenty now. And I very much like what I find.

Are you trying to imply, MathU, that Gun Frontier was meant to be played without auto?

Evaluation of a game's balance with and without some rapidfire hack should come on a case-by-case basis. I'm afraid I do not have enough experience with Gun & Frontier to say one way or the other. I've played it a few times before and it didn't seem very fun due to the constant mashing, but I'm not about to prejudge the game's balance without it and be wrong as I have been in the past with other shooters. Having come to love Image Fight recently, I no longer think that game is unfair without autofire either, even though I once did.

But no, I wouldn't say Gun & Frontier is "very similar" to Darius Gaiden's situation at all. It's a one button press = one shot type of game, while Gaiden has its very own balanced automatic fire built right in.

[CStarFlare]

That's some research.

There's a comment in the GD thread that stood out:

There's an extra version which has shuffled zones (instead of A, you get R as the first zone), and an official hack (i.e. Taito didn't sue the hackers or something like that) of the extra version: it has full autofire and,if you start a single player game on 2p side,you will do all zones in alphabetical order!

Is this accurate? There are two versions of Extra, and the fanmade-ish(?) version is the one I know and love? I only see one Extra in MAME, but I'm curious.

[trap15]

The Extra in MAME is official, Taito made it. I doubt there is any other DG Extra.

[ACSeraph]

Does anyone know the story of how exactly Extra Version came to be?

[Squire Grooktook]

The entire game is playable, fun and far better in both regards without auto fire. Its also one of my favorite shmups. I 1 life cleared it and studied my route about as much as I could to do that, and I liked everything I found.

I also experimented extensively with how many items to pick up, and I finally settled on picking them all up until fully powered up, and it never made a substantial difference.

Again, I don't even care how you play Gaiden, but the game was definitely well balanced for the default rate. I beat the game auto-off within like 2 weeks of buying it, only playing a couple of credits per day. "It's impossible and finger breaking on default" is simply a myth. You just have to learn more complex strategies than "hold A" in order to beat it.

This.

[Skykid]

Does anyone have a hi-resolution scan of this King Fossil image?

[Sinful]

@Despatche

Darius 2 was supposed to be 2 screens from the start. Are you sure? How confident are you in your source one this? Because I got the vibe it was better balanced for 3 screen if I recall correctly? Main evidence is the Yamato boss. He's pink bullets are much easier to dodge with 3 screens. And a total nightmare with only 2 screens. Game overall seemed easier too, but that boss stuck out the most in my mind to the point that I wished I played the 3 screen version first instead of over 50hrs of the 2 screen version that lead to breaking me before the 1cc happened... I also don't know if I played the latest or oldest version, but think the latest of the 2 screen version? And if that's the case, they didn't balance Yamato enough for the 2 screen version, among other things.

Thanks for "rank" = "adaptive difficulty" answer. Now a feel dumb for not realizing it myself.

[Despatche]

Everyone should use autofire because I don't like Darius Gaiden isn't a very compelling argument...

"It's impossible and finger breaking on default" is simply a myth. You just have to learn more complex strategies than "hold A" in order to beat it.

And this is why this was never a debate. I'm really getting tired of people simply refusing to read what I say in their quest to push complete lies onto the world.

MathU, you and your little group have obviously never played this game even once, and all of your research may as well be completely void because of the faulty principles behind it. This is a recurring thing with you!

Darius 2 was supposed to be 2 screens from the start. Are you sure? How confident are you in your source one this? Because I got the vibe it was better balanced for 3 screen if I recall correctly?

Darius II was clearly designed for two-screens, because Taito and Japan as a whole treats has always treated it as a default, and because the three-screen version introduces a lot of strange bugs and changes that don't really work, never mind that even Sagaia is two-screen; I'm sorry, but that's a lot more trustworthy than "yay, I can easily beat Yamato now". The reason why Yamato is so terrifying is probably because of the last-minute difficulty increase... or maybe he's just a really stupid boss you just have to deal with, like Crusty Hammer. I always fight Leadain, so I wouldn't know.

[MathU]

MathU, you and your little group have obviously never played this game even once, and all of your research may as well be completely void because of the faulty principles behind it. This is a recurring thing with you!

If you had any real intention of being taken seriously before, ya blew it now.

[Squire Grooktook]

obviously never played this game even once

Oh

[BIL]

Hey dat ain't you playin! You stole my lil cousin patchy-kun's tape, FALSIFICARE

[Sinful]

Darius II was clearly designed for two-screens, because Taito and Japan as a whole treats has always treated it as a default, and because the three-screen version introduces a lot of strange bugs and changes that don't really work, never mind that even Sagaia is two-screen; I'm sorry, but that's a lot more trustworthy than "yay, I can easily beat Yamato now". The reason why Yamato is so terrifying is probably because of the last-minute difficulty increase... or maybe he's just a really stupid boss you just have to deal with, like Crusty Hammer. I always fight Leadain, so I wouldn't know.

No, it wasn't just the crab boss fight. Just what I remember the most clear by a long shot. You see. At first I only played the 2 screen for an insane amount of time trying to 1cc it. Then I finally decided to try the 3 screen for a bit at one point. And I recall it being easier and things making more sense difficulty wise. Yamato crab boss was probably where this idea hit me full force, like "So this is why he's such a pain?!" In the 2 screen version you barely have enough room to react to the pink projectile balls. The dodge reaction time was quite insane with 2 screens (especially if he stops near or in the middle of the screen), which is what makes the boss very hard and the only way I can beat him is by point blanking the heck out of him (with no more then 5 delay MAME autofire, otherwise no boss is a challenge) before the pink balls show up then hope I have enough shield and miracle dodge enough times the pink balls or hope he spazes out and not do anything. Hence to me it seems like sound enough evidence.

Other then this I can't say more on the matter or be more certain until I get back into the game again. As this is just what I recall for now.


Besides. Isn't the first revision the 3 screen one? And maybe the other revisions balanced it more for 2 screens?

[Despatche]

Other way around, because MAME is stupid. Again, it really doesn't make more sense just because it's easier on you. Everything else about the game suggests that the three-screen version is a dirty hack for operators who already had an expensive Darius or The Ninja Warriors setup and wanted a conversion.

Again, this is before we get into difficulty B as a sensible design choice. You should try playing the two-screen version on difficulty A and even consider disabling autofire for it, and see if you like either.

Oh

You knew damn well what I meant by that, and I've said it to many people many times. You could get a fucking world record and it would mean absolutely nothing, because you see a need to warp the reality of a game over a basic fact that five minutes of actually looking at the game would tell you about.

The fact is that it doesn't matter whether autofire is broken or not, because Gaiden as a whole is broken; you may as well make it a slightly less (and I do mean slightly) miserable experience. The game really needs a proper Extra Version, like Darius or Daioujou.

[Squire Grooktook]

You knew damn well what I meant by that, and I've said it to many people many times.

No I don't know what you meant or what you mean. All I've seen you do in this thread is continuously claim its "broken" its "a miserable experience" etc. without offering one example or piece of evidence to back up what you're saying. You keep acting as if there's some underlying mechanic that's completely messed up in DG and that it would take 5 seconds to see it (because apparently the "whole game" is "broken". But how much is there to the game that we can possibly miss?

Survival - Completely fine as evidenced by people here.

Scoring - Kinda shit, but suffers from the same issues a lot of old games do. Maybe this is your problem with it if you think not milking bosses is as bad as credit feeding?

Rank - Makes the game a bit harder if you pick up all the score items and break all the boss parts. Its not garegga - rank control though so I don't see a problem

Shooting - You press the button to fire, and press the other button to bomb, not a whole lot wrong here. Unless you have auto fire on, than survival above becomes shit.

Dodging - Pretty varied and fun boss and enemy patterns IMO


So I have no idea what you mean when you say there's just so much wrong with the game on a fundamental level. And from the looks of it, nobody else does either. So if you want to have a conversation please actually communicate instead of expecting people to know what you mean when you have been nothing but vague and indulge in hyperbole. I mean, just a few posts ago you said "we obviously never played this game" but you really meant that we did play this game and we're just supposed to know what the hell that means? Come on.

[trap15]

The problems with Darius Gaiden are mostly down to bosses being really dumb. Some of them are retardedly difficult to the point of being basically impossible even with autofire and sometimes don't even particularly make sense in their placement within routes.

Darius Gaiden's default autofire is too slow to actually be usable in almost any route other than the easiest one. I'd like to see anybody even try All-Stages with the non-extra default autofire. I bet it'd actually be literally impossible.

That said, I'd like to know what Despatche thinks is fundamentally broken in DG, as I don't really think the bosses (aside from a handful) are that terrible if you use proper autofire.

[Squire Grooktook]

The problems with Darius Gaiden are mostly down to bosses being really dumb. Some of them are retardedly difficult to the point of being basically impossible even with autofire and sometimes don't even particularly make sense in their placement within routes.

Darius Gaiden's default autofire is too slow to actually be usable in almost any route other than the easiest one... I bet it'd actually be literally impossible.

There was just a playlist posted a few posts ago with every route + no bombs + no autofire 1cc or 1lc. I'm guessing I'm missing something???

While I haven't 1cc'd every route (I've seen every route 1cc'd without autofire though, only haven't done so myself due to other games distracting me), I've experimented a lot and I don't think I've found anything remotely close to "impossible" in any of my play sessions either. Some of the final boss patterns are bullshit if you don't bomb/tank with shields/safe spot, but that's far from what your describing.

[trap15]

Just watching that video you posted for "Oh." should be proof enough, to be honest. Zone H gets WICKED retarded, to the point where you end up tanking bullets, Titanic Lance eats bullets for ages, Hysteric Empress lives so long that you get the timeout cubes, enemies take forever to die all the time, etc. I don't see how you can play that and say "Yes, this is a well designed game for no-auto. They clearly intended this one section of Titanic Lance to last almost a minute with the same pattern, they clearly wanted Hysteric Empress to nearly timeout even if you're going apeshit on it."

I will watch through that playlist with every route, but I doubt that'll improve my view on the matter. Especially whenever I get around to seeing the routes with Crusty Hammer and Storm Causer.

[Squire Grooktook]

Zone H gets WICKED retarded, to the point where you end up tanking bullets,

Zone H is fine, it's just a matter of macro dodging. If you go in the first time blind, you can be forced to pull some crazy dodges, but for the most part its pretty doable (though difficult) to no damage the whole thing, you just have to have the execution down which I slightly screwed up in the video. The positioning you have to use to macro is telegraphed fairly well so its not nearly as infuriating as some other games I've played, too.

Also an important note is that your hitbox without a shield is actually considerably smaller than your shielded hitbox. You have to consider it like a Gradius shield in that getting your shield reduced =/= getting "hit".

Titanic Lance eats bullets for ages

I think most of his phases are well paced, except the very last one and that's only because you can't really hit him with bullets at all (you have to rely on on missiles, and even than you have to take it slow and destroy his tentacles and position yourself for the bendy lasers), so autofire doesn't really help in that regard.

Hysteric Empress lives so long that you get the timeout cubes,

As far as I can remember, She's actually nowhere near timing out in that video, and the cubes have no relation to time outs (I'm pretty sure I've seen them as early as the second or even first phase). The final boss fights in the game are indeed very long, but that's completely intentional (they all have about 3 phases or so, and enough attacks to fill up all of them). The same thing carries over into G-Darius where the final bosses can survive for just as long IIRC even if you do alpha beam them properly.

\I don't see how you can play that and say "Yes, this is a well designed game for no-auto. They clearly intended this one section of Titanic Lance to last almost a minute with the same pattern, they clearly wanted Hysteric Empress to nearly timeout even if you're going apeshit on it."\

Well let's see, Hysteric Empress is roughly 3-4 minutes. Now believe it or not, I actually like that. I prefer the final battle to be particularly lengthy. Not necessarily drawn out, but those 3-4 phases can be split up into 3 seperate phases each with very tense and difficult attacks that change over the course of the fight (ie second phases jump being repeated several times forces you to deal with it from several positions on the stage, third phases bubble attack forces you to dodge at least two rng patterns). Similarly with Titanic Lance, the only patterns that goes on for longer than a minute are the second one (aka one of the best patterns in the game, which I'm glad goes on long enough to truly test you) and the last one (which I admit could be better).

Conversely, playing with autofire destroys more than it fixes. Some bosses don't survive long enough to use half their attacks. I've seen Hysteric Empress die before she can even land the second attack of her third phase (random bubble circle) with autofire. I'd rather have a handful of patterns go on for a few seconds too long or a few enemy waves requiring a little bit too much macro than have a shit ton of bosses become complete jokes or enemy waves get obliterated before they can even get a few shots off.

Anyway, to respond to the original point, nothing in that video is remotely "impossible". The only exception that comes to mind is Hysteric Empresses's last phase, which I do think is kind of broken (than again, Mathu no miss - no bombed it so maybe I just suck). Everything up to that I can do relatively consistently. Darius Gaiden may not be a perfect game but it is an excellent one and autofire breaks far more than the minuscule things it fixes imo.

I will watch through that playlist with every route, but I doubt that'll improve my view on the matter. Especially whenever I get around to seeing the routes with Crusty Hammer and Storm Causer.

Basically those two bosses exemplify the worst of the games cheap memo bullshit. I'm not going to pretend some of their attacks are well telegraphed, but they are completely doable, autofire or not, once you learn them.

[Sinful]

I don't get. You can still use faster then default auto fire rate by tapping it yourself. And if you really hate tapping for extra fire rate even every now and then as Gaiden was setup. Why not set it to a fire rate that's humanly possible? I mean. It's really a simple solution. Why does everyone have to choose the fastest fire rate possible to begin with when the fastest inhuman fire rate usually break most other STGs? Why is everyone always making Gaiden as the only exception for superhuman fire rate? Especially with so many proving otherwise. Why can't everyone at least agree on a humanly possible fire rate for Darius Gaiden as a neutral to please everyone?

And I can't imagine Gaiden being anywhere near as hard as 2 screen Darius II anyways (DII is like the hardest STG I've ever played). So more fuel to my puzzlement.

[ACSeraph]

Everyone should use autofire because I don't like Darius Gaiden isn't a very compelling argument...

"It's impossible and finger breaking on default" is simply a myth. You just have to learn more complex strategies than "hold A" in order to beat it.

And this is why this was never a debate. I'm really getting tired of people simply refusing to read what I say in their quest to push complete lies onto the world.

I have no idea what you mean by this and I also have no idea why you are so salty about some Darius Gaiden. You just don't like the game, whatever that's fine. Why do you even care that we think the game has it's own charm and depth without zero delay autofire? It's not like I'm strapping you into a chair and forcing you to play it.

I don't get. You can still use faster then default auto fire rate by tapping it yourself. And if you really hate tapping for extra fire rate even every now and then as Gaiden was setup. Why not set it to a fire rate that's humanly possible? I mean. It's really a simple solution. Why does everyone have to choose the fastest fire rate possible to begin with when the fastest inhuman fire rate usually break most other STGs? Why is everyone always making Gaiden as the only exception for superhuman fire rate? Especially with so many proving otherwise. Why can't everyone at least agree on a humanly possible fire rate for Darius Gaiden as a neutral to please everyone?

And I can't imagine Gaiden being anywhere near as hard as 2 screen Darius II anyways (DII is like the hardest STG I've ever played). So more fuel to my puzzlement.

People should seriously just play however they want, but what your suggesting here would actually just make the game even harder than non-auto, since you would max the rank quickly and have a slower shot rate. It really kinda is all or nothing in Gaiden. To play auto-off you have to control the rank to a certain degree, but tapping increases the rank, so given that it will max out anyhow you need the extreme firepower to compensate.

Also with regards to 2-screen versus 3-screen DII, for sure Despatche is right, 2 is the standard. Every port Taito has done of it has been 2 screen, and the version they have pimped out on the big screen in their home base arcade in Akiba is also 2 screen. Yamato is just hard because he's a bitch, and he has random elements that can just fuck you over sometimes. It's not a well designed fight, which is why I usually go for the more consistent Leadain fight instead.

---

And in other Darius II news, I finally got the PS2 version and have been playing tonight. For sure this is the definitive version, pretty much exactly the same as the arcade. Definitely go for this over Saturn.

[MathU]

Zone H gets WICKED retarded, to the point where you end up tanking bullets,

Zone H is fine, it's just a matter of macro dodging. If you go in the first time blind, you can be forced to pull some crazy dodges, but for the most part its pretty doable (though difficult) to no damage the whole thing, you just have to have the execution down which I slightly screwed up in the video. The positioning you have to use to macro is telegraphed fairly well so its not nearly as infuriating as some other games I've played, too.

It's probably helps that I've played H more than others at this point, but I personally find it to be one of the easier stage 4 zones. The others have some cheaper parts that require a bit more memorization in my opinion (such as dealing with hopping enemies safely or being careful not to destroy wall drillers or surviving that swarming part in Zone J without bombing).

As far as I can remember, She's actually nowhere near timing out in that video, and the cubes have no relation to time outs (I'm pretty sure I've seen them as early as the second or even first phase). The final boss fights in the game are indeed very long, but that's completely intentional (they all have about 3 phases or so, and enough attacks to fill up all of them).

The spinning cubes do have to do with timing out actually. They start appearing after three minutes of fighting for any boss, and an additional minute after that bosses will self-destruct. Whenever you lose a ship the timer gets somewhat reset for this. But I'd argue it's kind of the point with a couple of the final bosses, especially Great Thing.

Anyway, to respond to the original point, nothing in that video is remotely "impossible". The only exception that comes to mind is Hysteric Empresses's last phase, which I do think is kind of broken (than again, Mathu no miss - no bombed it so maybe I just suck).

Ahaha, are you referring to the random bubble explosion of doom? That's the only boss attack in the entire game I really have no strategy for how to deal with besides coming with a shield. It's way too fast to dodge on reflex and there aren't any guaranteed safe spots. Thankfully the rest of the boss isn't so tough and you can destroy it (without rapidfire!) before it has a chance to use it too many times.

I'd like to see anybody even try All-Stages with the non-extra default autofire. I bet it'd actually be literally impossible.

You do need to start using your bombs around the middle of the game when the adaptive difficulty unavoidably maxes out. However, that's not really a good comparison to the original game because the adaptive difficulty almost never gets so high so early in a standard 7-stage playthrough, and it's always completely preventable with smart management. You're also provided with far more extra bombs and extra lives in an all-stage playthrough than you would normally come across, so that really helps too. But the last time I tried playing through all-stage mode in the Extra Version with something approximating the original firing rate I got to the second Crusty Hammer fight before I blew it. I'm sure it can be done; it's just going to take some practice (and a lot of endurance).

[soprano1]

And in other Darius II news, I finally got the PS2 version and have been playing tonight. For sure this is the definitive version, pretty much exactly the same as the arcade. Definitely go for this over Saturn.

Japan only, right?

[Kollision]

And in other Darius II news, I finally got the PS2 version and have been playing tonight. For sure this is the definitive version, pretty much exactly the same as the arcade. Definitely go for this over Saturn.

Japan only, right?

Yes
And good going, Seraph.
Nice to know you think it's close to the arcade.

[pegboy]

I've been trying to find console ports (either USA or Japan, doesn't matter) for the Darius arcade games (MAME is not an option). Does anyone have a list of the "definitive" or "best" versions. Has anyone actually tested them all out? From my "research" these are the ones I've seen listed as the best, but I'd like some more opinions

Darius??? No even sure a good port exists.
Darius II: PS2?
Darius Gaiden: Saturn (USA or Japan?) (Runners up PS1 or PS2)
G Darius: PS2 (Runner up PS1)

[ACSeraph]

For the main series, there is no actual port of Darius 1 that is even remotely comparable to the arcade game. The closest you'll get is probably Super Darius on PCE, and it's a fun game, but it will teach you jack shit towards beating the pcb.

There are only two home versions of AC Darius II, Saturn and PS2, and the Saturn version is fucked. As I just said though, the PS2 version is exactly the same as arcade.

Darius Gaiden is best on Saturn, though I'm not sure if theres anything wrong with the PS2 version per se. I want to say a lot of people dislike it because the zero delay autofire cheat is not available. Gaiden PS1 is a bad port, with tons of slowdown.

G Darius PS2 is definitely best, as it runs very smoothly and looks beautiful.

And I'm sure you already know, but there is no home version of Burst AC, the PSP game is it's own thing. AC is really like Burst 2.