A nice shmup that faulters on the final stage. They just throw everything at you and if you die, back to the beginning of the game. There's no need for that kind of difficulty spike. Ruins the enjoyment.
Meant to replay Axelay tonight alongside D-Force, but l slept a lot and then started thinking about this game instead, which also needed a replay. Competing with the other 1991 shmups on SNES, it just might win. Gradius III is the only other one coming close from what I remember (though I guess technically that SNES port is a 1990 game, but it was still competing in the launch window in all regions whenever said time arrived).
This was kind of a weird introduction to the Darius series for me years ago, but a welcome one nonetheless. It's not on par with Darius Gaiden nor the Genesis port of Darius II, but it still plays very nicely and is even a bit more generous, notably allowing you to keep all your powerups upon dying. This would allow for an easier 1cc in theory, but the game is still quite tough towards the end so I wouldn't hold my breath.
I've really grown to appreciate how pretty this game looks as well. Darius in general has a very unique aesthetic compared to its contemporaries in the shmup genre, and Twin is perhaps the first to lean this far into it. I especially love the ocean backgrounds in levels A and H. On the other hand, though, it does make me wish the alternate routes were more varied. Twin dials back the different paths a bit in comparison to Darius II, only featuring one final level for example. I can't say for sure, but limitations at the time would be my guess. In the console's debut everyone was pretty much still finding their footing - Final Fight's port is heavily compromised, Gradius III is plagued by slowdown, and D-Force is shrouded in pure ineptitude and awful performance even on an 8 megabit cartridge.
Whatever the case, even without as many ways to replay it as Darius II or Gaiden, Darius Twin is thoroughly solid and seemingly very impressive for the console's infancy. I don't think I noticed any slowdown while playing, the big bad slowdown plaguing the SNES shmup library for decades to come, etc. If it's even there in this game, it's too subtle to really affect gameplay, much unlike peers at the time such as Super R-Type, Gradius III & D-Force. It's nothing too crazy for the Darius series' later standards, but for its release date and circumstances I've learned to appreciate it quite a bit more than I previously had. Certainly a much stronger effort than Darius Force, at a minimum.
This was kind of a weird introduction to the Darius series for me years ago, but a welcome one nonetheless. It's not on par with Darius Gaiden nor the Genesis port of Darius II, but it still plays very nicely and is even a bit more generous, notably allowing you to keep all your powerups upon dying. This would allow for an easier 1cc in theory, but the game is still quite tough towards the end so I wouldn't hold my breath.
I've really grown to appreciate how pretty this game looks as well. Darius in general has a very unique aesthetic compared to its contemporaries in the shmup genre, and Twin is perhaps the first to lean this far into it. I especially love the ocean backgrounds in levels A and H. On the other hand, though, it does make me wish the alternate routes were more varied. Twin dials back the different paths a bit in comparison to Darius II, only featuring one final level for example. I can't say for sure, but limitations at the time would be my guess. In the console's debut everyone was pretty much still finding their footing - Final Fight's port is heavily compromised, Gradius III is plagued by slowdown, and D-Force is shrouded in pure ineptitude and awful performance even on an 8 megabit cartridge.
Whatever the case, even without as many ways to replay it as Darius II or Gaiden, Darius Twin is thoroughly solid and seemingly very impressive for the console's infancy. I don't think I noticed any slowdown while playing, the big bad slowdown plaguing the SNES shmup library for decades to come, etc. If it's even there in this game, it's too subtle to really affect gameplay, much unlike peers at the time such as Super R-Type, Gradius III & D-Force. It's nothing too crazy for the Darius series' later standards, but for its release date and circumstances I've learned to appreciate it quite a bit more than I previously had. Certainly a much stronger effort than Darius Force, at a minimum.
It's...basically discount Darius II. This game made sense for its time, but ultimately it feels like a rehash of Darius I and II.
The one good thing that can be said is that its difficulty curve is somewhat more reasonable, but that's kinda offset by the lack of extra lives or continues. You can set your starting lives to 8 but that's about it; there is a 50 lives cheat code but sadly it's not available in the Darius Cosmic Collection version since you cannot map the SNES L or R buttons.
The one good thing that can be said is that its difficulty curve is somewhat more reasonable, but that's kinda offset by the lack of extra lives or continues. You can set your starting lives to 8 but that's about it; there is a 50 lives cheat code but sadly it's not available in the Darius Cosmic Collection version since you cannot map the SNES L or R buttons.
I'm not much of a fan of this series in the first place, but I've played a few of them. This one isn't the worst but it's still overall disappointing.
This game does well for being a 1991 snes game. some of the backgrounds had really good parallax effects, other than that it's a barren often static looking game.
I really like the music too, though the guitar samples sound very aged.
Everything nice I have to say about it is more than negated by one the worst final levels I have seen in any game, I was actually having a great time with it until that point.
There's no real design to it, they just throw 3 mid-bosses at the player at once and have them respawn like 15 times.
They clearly weren't designed to be together and lead to extremely unfair situations. It also goes on for way too long then ends with a boring and forgettable final boss.
I don't think the end of the game was finished or tested, it seems like the devs ran out of time and just re-uesed assets.
The endings are boring, I questioned why I bothered to play through this. It's a decent playthrough with savestates but I shouldn't have to rely on that to enjoy a game.
It's like a 7/10 until the last level then it suddenly drops to a 2/10 game. Average at best, but overall mediocre.
Still better than Darius Force.
This game does well for being a 1991 snes game. some of the backgrounds had really good parallax effects, other than that it's a barren often static looking game.
I really like the music too, though the guitar samples sound very aged.
Everything nice I have to say about it is more than negated by one the worst final levels I have seen in any game, I was actually having a great time with it until that point.
There's no real design to it, they just throw 3 mid-bosses at the player at once and have them respawn like 15 times.
They clearly weren't designed to be together and lead to extremely unfair situations. It also goes on for way too long then ends with a boring and forgettable final boss.
I don't think the end of the game was finished or tested, it seems like the devs ran out of time and just re-uesed assets.
The endings are boring, I questioned why I bothered to play through this. It's a decent playthrough with savestates but I shouldn't have to rely on that to enjoy a game.
It's like a 7/10 until the last level then it suddenly drops to a 2/10 game. Average at best, but overall mediocre.
Still better than Darius Force.
Whenever I encounter a shmup on the SNES that isn't annoying me right out of the gate, a weird thing happens where I try to imagine it being in Super R-Type's place during my early childhood. I know comparisons to it have been getting as stale as the bread I had to throw out this morning, but it's my number one frame of reference for this system in particular.
Using my time machine to go backwards and play Darius Twin after turning my brain into sludge from gazing at Super Nova/Darius Force may have successfully drove up my appreciation for Twin. In a vacuum Twin is not that ferocious of a shmup, compared to Super R-Type it is like a paper tiger taking on a storm. On original hardware I was able to beat this in about four tries, and numerous times I found easy safe spots at the top and bottom parts of the screen. Twin lacks fangs, but because of this it flows much better than Super R-Type and doesn't feel like it's trying to turn into gravy due to hideous amounts of slowdown. In a way, it does feel like the developers feared the hardware chugging too much if they introduced more dangerous obstacles and patterns, and thus held themselves back especially towards a console market. If you had released Twin a few years later, you potentially would've had the difficulty inflated with the enemies tanking more shots and the cheat code for 50 ships completely taken out of the game, aka the "Streets of Rage 3" problem, except in a shmup and if Taito had gotten as sour as Sega or Konami did on the rental market.
Of course, it also helps when you're allowed to make mistakes. Twin does not let you continue, but will allow you to respawn on the spot with your full weapons intact. This is heavenly compared to Super Nova which punished you via getting lobotomized by it's use of fade outs and load screens, while Super R-Type may as well give you the electric chair for a single fuck up. I feel like I would've cleared Twin in about a week as a little one assuming I maintained focus on it, and wasn't distracted by Super Mario World or something. I'm not entirely sure how that would've affected my thoughts on it, because in a way Super R-Type feeling insurmountable kinda added to it's allure for me and made it more mysterious and imprint itself onto my mind.
I suppose it's all apples and oranges, because both Darius Twin and Super R-Type are 1991 SNES shmups that are often viewed as 6/10 at best probably. My only conclusion is that it was probably a nostalgia shmup for a few 90s kids growing up. I'm glad to have experienced their personal Super R-Type.
Using my time machine to go backwards and play Darius Twin after turning my brain into sludge from gazing at Super Nova/Darius Force may have successfully drove up my appreciation for Twin. In a vacuum Twin is not that ferocious of a shmup, compared to Super R-Type it is like a paper tiger taking on a storm. On original hardware I was able to beat this in about four tries, and numerous times I found easy safe spots at the top and bottom parts of the screen. Twin lacks fangs, but because of this it flows much better than Super R-Type and doesn't feel like it's trying to turn into gravy due to hideous amounts of slowdown. In a way, it does feel like the developers feared the hardware chugging too much if they introduced more dangerous obstacles and patterns, and thus held themselves back especially towards a console market. If you had released Twin a few years later, you potentially would've had the difficulty inflated with the enemies tanking more shots and the cheat code for 50 ships completely taken out of the game, aka the "Streets of Rage 3" problem, except in a shmup and if Taito had gotten as sour as Sega or Konami did on the rental market.
Of course, it also helps when you're allowed to make mistakes. Twin does not let you continue, but will allow you to respawn on the spot with your full weapons intact. This is heavenly compared to Super Nova which punished you via getting lobotomized by it's use of fade outs and load screens, while Super R-Type may as well give you the electric chair for a single fuck up. I feel like I would've cleared Twin in about a week as a little one assuming I maintained focus on it, and wasn't distracted by Super Mario World or something. I'm not entirely sure how that would've affected my thoughts on it, because in a way Super R-Type feeling insurmountable kinda added to it's allure for me and made it more mysterious and imprint itself onto my mind.
I suppose it's all apples and oranges, because both Darius Twin and Super R-Type are 1991 SNES shmups that are often viewed as 6/10 at best probably. My only conclusion is that it was probably a nostalgia shmup for a few 90s kids growing up. I'm glad to have experienced their personal Super R-Type.
It's neat, but doesn't quite stack up with R-Type III and Gradius III. I get the feeling that in my dive through the SNES library I've chosen a rather poor entry point into the Darius series. Remind me to try a couple other ones soon.
After playing this a bit more I kinda like it, and the fact that the devs made an SNES shooter with minimal slowdown is commendable, but it doesn't live up to what makes other Darius games great and you can definitely do a lot better when it comes to 16 bit console shooters.
Much in the way Mercs is a great game that makes me curse the name of tanks, Darius Twin is a mostly good beginner shmup that kneels at the mercy of Radiator, the hermit crab out to kick ass and take names. This asshole has 1,000,000,000 hit points, no animation pre-empting his attack, and shoots you with a giant 5-way radial spread of enormous hoop-like bullets. Are the bullet speeds generous enough to let you dodge out of the way? Nope. Is there a pattern to the angle the shots are fired at? Nope. Are all 5 shots uniformly aligned with each other? Nope nope nope. And the final stage has you fight THREE of them while suffering through an impenetrable wave of random minibosses.
I like the rest of the game a fair bit, especially for the music and parallax backgrounds, but damn what a way to ruin an otherwise fine game.
I like the rest of the game a fair bit, especially for the music and parallax backgrounds, but damn what a way to ruin an otherwise fine game.
2D Arcade Side Scroller game I used to play with my older Brother Anthony. The OST was so good, i ocassionally go back and listen to the theme on youtube.
“Ah, lemme be clear… if you like your powerups, you can keep ‘em”
Horizontal shoot em up. Upgrades to main attack, shield, and additional weapon that starts by dropping a bomb in front and below you and will later fire out beams in four directions in front and behind you. Stages can become repetitive, it becomes overly difficult with no continues and enemy attacks that just kind of appear out of nowhere for some enemy types while others can just rush in from off screen behind you.
A decent yet very basic schmup on the Snes. The music is average and the bosses are uh still fish. The Snes doesnt have very many good schmups and this one is take it or leave it. You wont be missing much. It does have 2 player co-op though which is cool.
Não tem nem metade do massaveísmo estético de seu antecessores, que é até compreensível dado o hardware inferior. Não compreensível é os branching paths terem virado um mero enfeite para escolher as mesmas fases com dificuldade só um pouco alterada e o sound design ruim que parece ter escolhido a guitarra mais estridente possível de algum álbum de rockabilly por puro desdém aos meus tímpanos.