Referred to in Lost Judgement as Sagia, this is another average momentum shmup (a term I ascribe to shmups that have you gain tremendous power-ups that carry between stages, but reset to nothing upon a death leaving you at a severe disadvantage) of its time. It looks pretty, has good sound, and even does some neat things with its sound that I admired, like removing sound effects entirely for a bit letting you take in the music and atmosphere.

Unfortunately the downsides are the aforementioned momentum based gameplay, enemies and projectiles appearing suddenly with no reasonable way to react to them without knowing they're there beforehand (as most enemies shooting don't make sounds here), and the frame rate dropping frequently. Extra shoutouts to Grand Octopus, who makes you play in single digit frames per second until you take out two of its tentacles. And this somehow made it to release.

I'm sure the arcade version is superior but I rank what I played, and what I played wasn't terrible, and likely tried its best to capture the feeling of its arcade counterpart.

Played A-C-D-F-G-I-L

Played as Darius II (Two-Screen Version) in Cozmic Collection Arcade (PC). Route was A-B-D-H-M-R-X.

Fun but somehow feels even more brutal than its predecessor at times with how quarter-munchy it is. As much as I like that the death penalty is less harsh for an already difficult game, it still seems unnecessarily heavy for how well-statted both bosses and midgame to lategame enemies are.

It looks and sounds quite a lot better, but a few of the gripes I had with how the first game felt to play do remain here. The movement is a bit too slow and the weapon upgrades sometimes threw me off by messing with my muscle memory, though they didn't feel quite as inconsistent as in the first game.

This game, while a solid upgrade, still doesn't quiiiite feel like the series has come into its own yet. In particular it feels as if the bosses and minibosses are somewhat inconsistent in difficulty once again while the levels are getting pretty close to feeling properly balanced, so I'm hoping the next entry will finally get to a point where they either nail both or come close to doing so.

played:
A -> B -> E -> H -> L -> Q -> V
A -> C -> F -> J -> N -> T -> Y

Second Darius I've tried, considerably better than Twin imo. There's twice as many paths, a few different final bosses, and weapons are very fun to use. You do lose them on death, though, which isn't the case in Twin. That's also pretty much standard in older shmups, though, so not really a big complaint. This is a very nice one, I like this a lot.

Um shmup que prioriza estilo sobre substância, e esbanja substância. Os branching paths não são só um truque para fazer game parecer ter mais conteúdo do que tem, com níveis com visuais, sessões e até chefes diferentes em cada caminho. É variedade, e variedade com qualidade. Eu rejoguei o game três vezes seguidas e não me senti nem um pouco cansado.

Na apresentação, então, o game é impecável. Ter um setup em que eu possa jogar Darius II em toda sua glória de três monitores se tornou um de meus sonhos burgueses.

Arcade: 6/10
Genesis: 9/10
Master System: 5/10
PC Engine CD: 4/10

Darius 2 is a really fantastic shmup with a great weapon system and a structure that really captures the feeling of traveling into the vastness of space. But it only has one version that's 'good' - which of course, has cut content cause it's a cartridge game, - and every other version does something fucked up with its difficulty and/or gamefeel.

Anyway I re-did this review because I finally played the arcade version. That was a mistake! You're slow as shit, the auto-fire is terrible and your hitbox is enormous. Turning on higher rapid fire in emulators helps, but doesn't fix it enough. Some mini-bosses are nigh impossible to beat before they fly off-screen because of that. I know the Cozmic Collection fixes this, but idk man I'm not paying 40 bucks for 3 roms - not until it goes on sale anyway.

The Genesis version is still the way to go - besides being so much more balanced difficulty-wise, the higher auto-fire rewards your ability to learn boss patterns cause you can go point-blank and do insane damage when they leave themselves open. Genesis version also has instruments that better complement the glassy space aesthetic. On the other hand, it's a really scaled-down port that's missing some aesthetic elements, and a couple enemy types & level themes. And no Tuna Sashimi! Sad!

Comments about the PC Engine CD version are in the Super Darius II review. tldr; it makes changes that are neat in hindsight but not actually good, and it just doesn't feel good to play. Only a curiosity.

Master System port is really fucking good by 8-bit shooter standards but really jittery and rough by any other standard. It's even more shrunken down than the Genesis version. Also only a curiosity.

Please look forward to 2022 when I have the free-time I need to re-make this as a fangame, with the genesis gameplay and arcade art

The problem I've with this game is the same problem I had with Darius I, in that you're not given enough defensive/offensive weapons to counteract the millions of shit flying all over the admittedly highly attractive backgrounds. The difficulty feels like it has ramped up over its predecessor especially with the bosses and the sub-bosses, as they've more ways to punish you now with your bigger hitbox(and they really look awesome doing it). The graphics and sound are the real stars of the show here, just like in the original with more levels to play through now as well.

Darius II arcade is probably the worst arcade game in the Darius series. It's still serviceable all things considered but the difficulty balancing is even worse than the first game. "Quarter muncher" is an overused term when describing arcade games but Darius II arcade definitely deserves the label.

Stages 5 and 6 are an absolute nightmare but the final stage and boss are a breeze in comparison, and this is all regardless of which route you take. The silver hawk feels dummy thicc and slow even for 80's shmup standards and the lack of shield drops makes some parts a complete crapshoot. By the way, if you die at all before the second half of the final stage, you can kiss your run goodbye. Recovering is impossible in this game and I have quite a bit of confidence in saying that. I've done quite a few old arcade 1ccs but this is one that I don't think I'd ever have the patience to finish without continues.

The visuals, while impressive for the time have less of the painterly artstyle of the first game and appear more generic. There's also copious use of the same earrape sound effect that's in the tank sections of Ninja Warriors. At least the ZUNTATA soundtrack is kino as usual.

Overall I'd recommend only checking the arcade version as a curiosity and play the Mega Drive version instead, which has much better gameplay and difficulty balance, if a bit too much on the easy side in contrast to the arcade version.

(Played on Darius Cozmic Collection Arcade)
I despise this game. At least the arcade version. This thing isn't a quarter muncher, it's a damn quarter gobbler. It mainly stems down to the fact that

1: Dying strips you of all your power-ups. Now this wouldn't have been so bad if the power-ups themselves appeared often. But they don't. You have to shoot down entire formations of a specific enemy to get one (and sometimes they drop nothing too). And there's only a few of them per zone. Death also barely reduces rank too.

2: The ship is enormous. And not only does it have a large hitbox, it's also slow. To make things even worse, enemies and enemy projectiles move just as fast, or faster than the player. Oh yeah and bullets are everywhere. Have fun!

While I do like the graphics, gameplay, and the soundtrack, the difficulty makes the game a miserable time. If you want to have an actually good Darius II/Sagaia experience, the Genesis and PC Engine ports fix one or both of these issues and actually make it fun.