Come 1994, and in seven years' time, planet Darius was evacuated and planet Vadis colonised (cue:"Immigrant Song"). With time, the Darians decide to return home. Of course the Belser boys have to interfere with this and so Proco and Tiat fly out on another outing. But things don't start out very well, as a good portion of their fleet is torn to shreds in a few frames of animation by this tiger-striped fish in need of a dentist (more on him later). Sounds familiar? Welcome to Darius Gaiden, the last original Darius game in pure 2D.

In my opinion, Darius Gaiden is the most solid of the plain 2D Darius games, in terms of gameplay and graphics. This time around, Taito gave Proco and Tiat smart bombs, or, as the game calls it, black hole bombs, which made things easier. It was also possible for you to get hold of sub-bosses and use their firepower as well. This evolved into the very satisyfing capture ball/alpha beam system of G-Darius.They also combined the missile and fire key, which was a good thing since I've always found it a pain to bash both buttons together (ouch...). the old powerup was brought back too, so you didn't have to shoot all the enemies to get the powerup- just the coloured one at the end. Your firepower also gets knocked down one level when you get killed.

Graphically, the backgrounds have improved and diversified considerably, with some nice effects creating depth and an impression of 3D (I especially recommend the space levels). On the boss side, Darius Gaiden has a lot to offer. While most bosses still have one real weak spot or so, they continue the trend of unleashing newer attacks as they get more damaged, and pretty nasty ones at that. They do have a much stronger sense of drama. Look at Golden Ogre tailing you and then smashing a tower down, Prickly Angler's slow evolution(here and here.) after picking itself out of a fleet of larvae, and the intimidating flyby of Titanic Lance with the first chord of the boss music. And they were easily the toughest crop of bosses yet. Things would change three years later, though.

Darius Gaiden has recently been re-released as part of the Taito Memories Gekan (sic) Taito collection for the PS2. Fun! Get hold of it now (I own the PC version anyway), as there is much more on it which is worthwhile than this game.

Anyway. On to the bosses:



I should add a note on the continuity: the Help file for the PC version of this game mentions that this is the direct sequel to Darius, taking place immediately after Zone W of the same game. Damn, so when does Sagaia begin?

Arcade PCB pix: 1,2,3,4
Version 2: Arcade PCB pix: 1,2
Marquee/Topper:1
LD Replay:1




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