MAME Club [3/8/04] - Darius Gaiden

[Flack]

Greetings and salutations fellow MAME'ers!

I hope you all have been doing your finger exercises, as this week's choice is definitely going to push your thumbs (and reflexes) to the limit. Christianscott27 has chosen Darius Gaiden (Taito, 1994) as the MAME Club game of the week! SHMUP fans, rejoice! ECWSandmanECW was unfortunately stuck in a headlock over the weekend and wasn't able to get his request in on time.

http://images.webmagic.com/klov.com/screens/D/xDarius_Gaiden.png http://images.webmagic.com/klov.com/screens/D/wDarius_Gaiden.png

Let us know what you thought about the game by responding to this topic with your review! Have you played the game before? Do you like the genre? How did it run on your computer? Did you beat it? If so, how long did it take? What was your high score?

When writing your review, post it right here in the sticky topic and include any thoughts you have about the game. It would also be nice to let us know other aspects of the emulation. Here are some things that would be good to know: Again, YOU are the reviewer. Let us know anything and everything you think about the game!

A download for this game will be posted shortly!

Club Members:

Gamereviewgod
Wisesalesman
scooterb23
ddockery
AlanD
digitalpress
IntvGene
NE146
jonjandran
Flack
IGotTheDot
zektor
buttasuperb
chadtower
Sotenga
Stark
ECWSandmanECW
* christianscott27
TripppsK
vespertillio
ghsqb
TheSmirk
anotherfluke
BHvrd
ManekiNeko
MarioAllStar2600
Ze_ro
slip81
Qbert
k8track
Hamsnibit
Lady Jaye
Sofa King Gud
jgenotte
Schenley
Kaine23

Next week's picker is TripppsK. Please PM me your MAME Club choice before the end of the weekend. Otherwise I'll be forced to pick again and you all will spend another week playing Yie-Ar Kung-Fu!

MAME On!

[Gamereviewgod]

Ugh...my computer is screaming at me right now. Talk about framerate issues! Damn Pentium II! Anyway, how does the Saturn version compare? Maybe I can talk about that instead. :D

[kainemaxwell]

Got a romset for us??

[Sotenga]

DARIUS RULES!!! And as far as games in the series go, this one is one of my favorites. Let's see... where to start...

Okay, in the early to mid-90's, Taito were ahead of their time in the graphical department. This game is proof. So is Rayforce. This is not Rayforce, so I will futher describe DG's graphics. It's almost like 2 1/2-D at some points. The backgrounds are beautiful, vibrant, and rich in color, and your Silver Hawk and the enemies all have a considerable amount of detail. Not as much as the bosses, of course. I will let you find out for yourself how much detail went into the bosses. :D

Great sound FX and music too. It's a shmup. There are lots of explosions. Coolness. Honestly, I don't pay too much attention to sound effects when reviewing games, but they're decent here. The music... dizamn, the music is weird, but excellent at the same time. I dig the female voice on the first stage. It's sort of like a blend of techno and new wave, and it sounds amazing. Hey, any good music I get to shmup to is fine by me.

The gameplay, I would say, is improved over the past Darius titles. Completing the game is made easy by the fact that you get to continue on the spot when you die. One-crediting the game is ****ing nigh impossible. I think the amount of bullets and enemies in this game almost makes DG a manic shmup. Fortunately, you get three Gravity Bombs to unleash when it becomes a bit too hectic. The black hole that appears will suck in most enemies, unless they're too big, in which case, the energy flowing into the black hole will destroy them or damage them seriously. You only get three per life, and you can find more bombs as power-ups.

Speaking of power-ups, Red improves your main weapon, Green upgrades your missles, and Blue strengthens your shields. I think there are other color power-ups... it's been a while since I played the game, at least two months. It rules to have a Silver Hawk on steroids. Unfortunately, unless you have superhuman reactions and independently controlled optic orbs, you aren't granted the privilege of a 100% armed ship. As I said, the difficulty is nuts, and when you run out of bombs, it's a challenge to survive, no matter how strong your shields are. Your bombs and shields have a meter at the top of the screen. The more power-ups you collect for them, the stronger they become. For some odd reason, in this game, your main weapon doesn't have a meter for it. Therefore, if you die, you lose most of your main weapon's power. That is very frustrating, but I never knew the Darius series to be easy, so I'll take it for granted. Still, I've never seen a fully-powered Silver Hawk... oh well.

I'm still partial to the original Darius for having the giga-wide three screen cabinet, which DG sadly does not have. Still, this is one of the greatest shmups out there, for its stunning graphics, its great music, (which is a bit of an acquired taste, but I like it) and all of the elements that made past Darius titles great. You think I wouldn't forget the giant mechanical sea creatures that make up the bosses and the multiple paths and endings? That's why the original Darius was so groundbreaking.

I guess the only complaint I have with DG is that its just plain unfair at some points. It almost seems like that after you've spent your Gravity Bombs, you only have about ten seconds to live. I'd even say that this game is more brutal than Dodonpachi at some times. I never knew the Darius series to be among the manic shmup sub-genre. However, it does make the game feel like an all-new title, but still... no, I don't suck, it's just unfair, so there. (kidding, it's not all hellish) :P

Darius rules. Shmups rule. Both put together means a game rules x2. Confused? I sure hope so. 4 1/2 Boots to the Head out of 5. :D

[christianscott27]

i sub credit this pick to mr.clubninja, he brought it to my attention for our gaming olympics, well actually he wanted darius twin but i pressed the saturn title instead. at any rate its a masterpiece and as much as i suck at it, i keep going back for more, which is the mark of a great game.

[ClubNinja]

i sub credit this pick to mr.clubninja, he brought it to my attention

*Bow*

Also, the Darius games are all fantastic in my book. While I prefer Darius Twin, Gaiden is a sexy looking game that plays just as well. Everyone should own seven copies.

[Hamsnibit]

I remember the first time I played a Darius game was on Super Nintendo. I loved it. I can't wait to give this one a run.

[Ze_ro]

D'oh! Looks like I'll have to sit this week out. My computer just doesn't have enough computrons to pull off this one. In fact, unless I specifically close other stuff, I get "out of memory" errors. When it does run, I'm stuck at a frameskip of 8, and it still runs terribly slow.

I did make it through the first level though, and it seems like a great shooter. Good enemies and artwork, and the first boss was quite cool. I really like how you can choose different paths through the game. That's probably about as far as I'll get until I upgrade my computer though.

--Zero

[scooterb23]

It runs mostly all right on my 1.6 GHz P4...

I really can't say much about this game, because my ass keeps getting handed to me by the first giant robotic fish thatr blows purple laser death out his mouth. Actually, I can get by him...but not much further..

I like side scrolling shmups just fine, but at first glance, other than really nice graphics, and some good music, I don't see what makes this much different than every other side scrolling shmup I've ever played, and sucked at.

3.5 calzones out of 5

What's the deal with all the fish?

[Flack]

Hey christianscott27 and ClubNinja, what do you guys like about this game? What makes it different than every other SHMUP?

[christianscott27]

i'm a sucker for looks and thats part of my motivation for trying to get further into the game, to see whats next. when we had it set up for the video game olympics i was amazed and bit jealous how some players were able to get to higher levels. things become really psychadelic and the screen just floods with projectiles. i had not been a big player of the genre since games like bio hazard battle and r-type were current and this was a great build out on that style. i also really enjoy the music, not at all typical and somehow fitting.

as a game player i'm usually playing atari era games or current titles, its nice to rediscover this middle era, so much of which i missed due to being involved in high school and college pursuits. theres a funny thing for me about games from this era and i dont know if other people feel it- the games had a high level of difficulty which sort of caters to players who like to be "the master". i'm a long way from being the master of this game and in the arcades i might have felt cheated out of a quarter, but on freeplay its great.

[Jorpho]

Interplay published the PC version of this game in the US. I picked it up at Radio Shack for $5 CDN a while back.

Unlike quite a few of the games I've bought in the past, I've actually tried to take a look at this one. I found it baffling. Everything just moves so fast it seems to be impossible to get anywhere.

[Ze_ro]

Hey christianscott27 and ClubNinja, what do you guys like about this game? What makes it different than every other SHMUP?

I think I'm starting to get a little burned out on shmups... aside from some of the much newer ones (like Ikaruga), I really haven't seen much innovation, even in the ones chosen by the MAME Club. Aside from the graphics, they all feel almost the same to me... they're all either Raiden or R-Type with some different bosses, and a different arc on the bullets... I'm sure there are those who feel the same way about 2D fighters though, so whatever.

After playing Battle Bakraid, ESP Ra.De., Guwange, and Strikers 1945, I have a hard time getting excited about other shmups. They're fun, but it just seems like so much "been there, done that".

--Zero