This is the third Taito game I'm playing in a row, and the second Darius game I'm playing as well. It's kind of funny that I didn't exactly plan my play order with that in mind, but I will say that play order has definitely impacted my view on this game.
This will be game number three from my Obscure Games List, recommended by none other than PKMudkipz, thanks you for recommending it to me.
Right off the bat I want to say that I didn't beat this game. It's very, very hard, and unlike its sequel, doesn't have a practice mode for beginners to the Shmup genre. It also lacks several gameplay features that G-Darius would later have like the Alpha Beam, Capture Ball, and keeping weapon and armor upgrades at the lowest level of their current upgrade cycle when you lose a life.
I know that I'm comparing a game to its sequel, but I can't help that I played G-Darius first and it impacted my perception of Darius Gaiden.
Gameplay wise it is has the standard 2D scrolling shmup design, with certain enemies dropping upgrades to your various weapons and your defenses, upgrading to a different type of weapon after a certain point.
The main gimmick of Darius Gaiden is the black hole bombs, which when used will suck in all of the enemies and projectiles on the screen and then explode to deal massive damage. It's a pretty decent screen nuke and works rather well on bosses.
You can also capture mini bosses by shooting a capture point on them, but this is incredibly difficult to pull off and borderline useless compared to the Black Hole Bombs.
My biggest issue with Darius Gaiden is that without the shield powerup, everything is a one hit kill. I do understand that this is a game from the 90's and an arcade game at that, but one hit kills have always been a gaming convention I have never liked as it always feels kind of cheap and overly punishing for simple mistakes. (The entire intent being that it is a mechanic meant to get more money out of players in the arcade).
Hands down though the true issue is... I don't have enough skill with the genre. The game itself is fine, and while I feel it lacks a lot of charm that its successor has, I would be lying if I said I think the game is bad. I will have to hone my skills and play more Shmups before I come back to Gaiden, but one day I will beat this game fair and square.
Also for whatever reason the BGM like, refused to work with my emulator so there was no backing music outside of the intro cutscene, which was really weird.
Anyways, this is a Shmup for Shmup fans. So if you're a hardcore Shmup player who hasn't played this... why haven't you played this?
This will be game number three from my Obscure Games List, recommended by none other than PKMudkipz, thanks you for recommending it to me.
Right off the bat I want to say that I didn't beat this game. It's very, very hard, and unlike its sequel, doesn't have a practice mode for beginners to the Shmup genre. It also lacks several gameplay features that G-Darius would later have like the Alpha Beam, Capture Ball, and keeping weapon and armor upgrades at the lowest level of their current upgrade cycle when you lose a life.
I know that I'm comparing a game to its sequel, but I can't help that I played G-Darius first and it impacted my perception of Darius Gaiden.
Gameplay wise it is has the standard 2D scrolling shmup design, with certain enemies dropping upgrades to your various weapons and your defenses, upgrading to a different type of weapon after a certain point.
The main gimmick of Darius Gaiden is the black hole bombs, which when used will suck in all of the enemies and projectiles on the screen and then explode to deal massive damage. It's a pretty decent screen nuke and works rather well on bosses.
You can also capture mini bosses by shooting a capture point on them, but this is incredibly difficult to pull off and borderline useless compared to the Black Hole Bombs.
My biggest issue with Darius Gaiden is that without the shield powerup, everything is a one hit kill. I do understand that this is a game from the 90's and an arcade game at that, but one hit kills have always been a gaming convention I have never liked as it always feels kind of cheap and overly punishing for simple mistakes. (The entire intent being that it is a mechanic meant to get more money out of players in the arcade).
Hands down though the true issue is... I don't have enough skill with the genre. The game itself is fine, and while I feel it lacks a lot of charm that its successor has, I would be lying if I said I think the game is bad. I will have to hone my skills and play more Shmups before I come back to Gaiden, but one day I will beat this game fair and square.
Also for whatever reason the BGM like, refused to work with my emulator so there was no backing music outside of the intro cutscene, which was really weird.
Anyways, this is a Shmup for Shmup fans. So if you're a hardcore Shmup player who hasn't played this... why haven't you played this?