ZUNTATA, Taito's in-house music group, did a fantastic job with the Darius soundtracks. Hisayoshi "OGR" Ogura provided many of the early games' soundtracks.
Note: Most links will point to official short (<1-minute) samples of the tracks from ZUNTATA's official YouTube channel
, as Taito has a habit of cracking down on full uploads of tracks from their games, especially their most recent ones. If you see a full-version link, enjoy it while you can, and replace with a sample version when it goes dead.
Darius
- "Captain Neo", the cave theme and Zone A theme, is equal parts eerie and blood-pumping. It's actually an arrangement of the attract theme from Metal Soldier Isaac II, a previous Taito game.
Darius II
- "Olga Breeze", the Zone A theme. Yes, the infamous conversation leading up to the "tuna sashimi" line is hard-coded into the track.
Darius Gaiden
- "FAKE", first played against Folding Fan (Zone D) and Electric Fan. It captures both their ferocity and yet their strange air of grace/beauty.
- "Reflection", also from Darius Gaiden, which plays in the opening as well as the battle against Titanic Lance.
- "S E L F", the theme for most Final Bosses, is a musical Tear Jerker, being a somber piece in contrast with the intense action of many of these battles.
G-Darius
G-Darius is perhaps best-known for its use of sampled opera and other vocal samples, resulting in a dramatic departure from past games' soundtracks.
- "B.T. Dutch" features the sounds of power drills.
- "Kimera II", used on several of the final stages.
- Adam, most notably used for several Final Bosses, gives you the feeling that what you're about to face is very big and very capable of making you drop bricks. Specially the remixed version used ingame.
Dariusburst
For the Dariusburst games, OGR only composed one new original track; for the most part, the torch was passed to Shohei Tsuchiya and Hirokazu "Cosio" Koshio. As a result, the "burst" games have a very different atmosphere from past games, but the soundtracks nonetheless have their fans.
- "Hinder Four", a frantic theme used for Mirage Castle and, in later games, some of the more difficult bosses.
- "The World of Spirit", used for two of the Final Bosses, starts off somber and mellow, before building up to a chorus as you reach the boss that continues until the boss is defeated.
- "Hello 31337", the sole original contribution of OGR to Dariusburst and the theme for Great Thing and its sibling G.T.V. Well-suited for a player taking on a great challenge, it features an Evil Laugh throughout the song.
Dariusburst Another Chronicle (including EX)
- The Zone A and Zone O theme, "Photoconductivity Suite Optical -No. 1: Iron Fossil-", a soothing piece with a One-Woman Wail...that drops right as Iron Fossil shows up.
- "Abyssal Dependence", which plays throughout Zone G and keeps playing even as you go into the boss battle with Brightly Stare.
Dariusburst Chronicle Saviours
- "Freedom", the theme for the very first Zone in CS Mode, with vocals from Omega Bone. Effectively the theme song for CS, it's there to get you ready to kick some serious mechanical fish butt.
- "Expecting You" is an epic and tense Final Boss theme which plays as you face off against Gigantic Bite. And it's filled with One-Woman Wail vocals.
- "Splendid Form", the Leitmotif for Azure Nightmare.
- "Dream Road", the Lonely Piano Piece that plays during the final mission. Gives the mission a very R-Type Final feel to it, which makes sense considering Chronicle Saviours is the Grand Finale of the Darius series.
Other/Unsorted
- Super Darius II took the original Darius II soundtrack and made it incredibly dramatic and awesome.
- The non-Zuntata performed soundtracks are also very good, Darius Twin and Darius Force.
