This one's for the mothers, alongside the brothers: can't count myself amongst the lovers of Dariusburst CS. On the surface it seems like there's a lot of content here with all the various arcade and story and EX and hyper burst limit reverse and whatever modes, but all these actually mean is that you're going to be spending a lot of time replaying the same stages with the same enemy patterns, fighting the same bosses, over and over again. The whole thing just feels kind of shallow and listless - not helped by the somewhat sterile visuals of it all. Look, maybe it's unfair to compare everything to Darius Gaiden, maybe it's unfair to say that a game isn't particularly good because it doesn't match a crowning achievement of the human race, but this isn't as good as Darius Gaiden, is it?
I do think it's cool how there are ships from other famous shooters as DLC. I of course think it's cool that you can fight a giant Darius fish as Opa-Opa from Fantasy Zone and collect coins from its stinkin' carcass. Obviously the music is still good, even if it doesn't weave in with the gameplay the way Gaiden's does (sorry). Love that boss track that sounds like Yakuza 2 battle music! Overall, though, this is just Okay, which is sometimes more disappointing than being Bad. At the very least, it's reinforced how much I would like to sit in a big wide Darius cabinet, so that's something!