YMMV / Darius

WARNING! A HUGE BATTLESHIP "YMMV TROPES" IS APPROACHING FAST.

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• Anti-Climax Boss: The final boss of Darius Twin, Great Tusk, is one of the easiest final bosses in the entire series, since all he does is slowly walk towards the player and shoot some projectiles that can be cancelled with your shots. The final stage poses more of a challenge than him.
• Awesome Art: The new HD model for the Silver Hawk in G-Darius HD looks fantastic, being updated with better details but without looking out of place.
• Breather Boss:
  • In Another Chronicle (including EX) and Chronicle Saviours, Lightning Prison seems to be intended as an upgraded variant of Lightning Flamberge and Lightning Claw, featuring a unique attack where it tries to trap you with parallel laser beams while firing targeted beams at you. However, during this attack, if you park your ship right in front of its "nose" the targeting lasers cannot hit you, giving you about 10 seconds to do free damage to the boss (and if you're using Second, you'll likely kill it during this phase). Beyond that, it's no worse than its cousins.
  • Most bosses in ACEX's Original EX mode are basically much harder versions of the bosses found in the Original Course (you can fight Dark Flame, a more powerful version of Dark Helios, as your first boss). Then there's the boss for Zone R, which is...the aforementioned Lightning Flamberge. Even Knight Fossil, the boss of Zone O (the easiest starting stage in Original EX and which you have to choose in order to get to Zone R), is more difficult, featuring nasty Recursive Ammo that fires aimed bullets at you if shot; Lightning Flamberge does no such trickery and is basically just Lightning Claw with one less attack pattern.
• Broken Base: Is it fair to play Darius Gaiden with externally-assisted autofire that outpaces the default rate? Should high score threads for the game on Shoot 'Em Up forums allow or disallow it? Does the fact that Arcadia magazine accept turbo autofire scores change anything? A few questions that are often followed up with responses comparable to discussions on how to play Super Smash Bros. "correctly".
• Common Knowledge: A much-cited Darius Gaiden discussion thread on Shmups Forum claims that the game's rank system is influenced by picking up a shot powerup item for the first time on each stage. However, this is incorrect. While picking up shot powerups does increase the rank, it only has a significant influence if shot power is already maxed out. There are other elements that contribute just as much, if not more, to the rank, such as destroying optional-to-destroy boss parts and rapidly tapping the fire button (including using external autofire and the rapid-fire configurations in Cozmic Collection). This was outright debunked with the Cozmic Collection release, which has an optional rank widget.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome:
  • The most common routes in Darius Gaiden appear to be A-B-D-G-L-Q-V and A-B-D-H-L-Q-V due to the relative ease of 1CC'ing those routes as well as being common high-scoring routes.
  • In Another Chronicle EX, Genesis seems to be the ship of choice due to being able to crank out high multipliers by using its options to finish enemy formations and bosses as well as its Alpha Beam awarding higher multipliers than most other Burst weapons. As of Another Chronicle EX+, Murakumo has joined the fray due to basically being a Master of All-type ship. For time attack courses, expect to see Second in top times due to being able to having higher overall damage than the other ships especially when point-blanking, albeit at the cost of defense, rendering it a ship for advanced players.
• Condemned by History: Darius Twin was the entry point for the series for many American players growing up due to the scarcity of Darius series arcade cabinets outside of Japan, and as such became the game where players became acquainted with the series' fish-themed bosses and bore nostalgia factor as a result. However, as the arcade games gained more accessibility thanks to emulation and home ports like the Taito Legends 2 compilation and Darius Cozmic Collection (the latter of which is available on no less than three different platforms, including Steam), Twin has come to be seen in a negative light due to what players now view as uninteresting rehashes of environments and bosses from the first two games and for not really making use of the SNES's unique-for-its-time graphical capabilities and, by nature of being a game made for consoles, lacking the multi-screen gimmick of Darius and Darius II, especially when compared to the slightly later Gaiden with its refined game mechanics, surreal Hisayoshi Ogura soundtrack, and absolutely dazzling visuals that make it one of the best-looking sprite-based shmups in existence.
• Covered Up: "Captain Neo" is known more as the Zone A theme from the original Darius than for its original apperance in Metal Soldier Isaac II.
• Franchise Original Sin: One of the criticisms of Another Chronicle (EX(+)) Chronicle Mode and Chronicle Saviours's CS Mode is that they reuse the same level designs over and over. However, level design reuse dates as far back as the very first Darius game, where many later Zones are just earlier zones with different colors,, and Darius II and Twin tend to use the same tilesets for zones of the same tier. That said, they didn't cause a lot of criticism since those games have a fewer number of Zones, and in II and Twin, Zones with the same environments can be thought of as easier/harder variants of one another. The problem with Another Chronicle and Chronicle Saviours is that they to give the impression of a galactic-scale quest for liberation by reusing the same levels many times, especially in AC where it looks like there are 3,000+ levels (i.e. "Hey, didn't I see these same underwater ruins in six other blocks of space?"). In fact, in AC some levels are exact copies of other levels, just with different loadout options.
• Fridge Brilliance: Darius Force's soundtrack sure gave odd names to the tracks, right? That is until you realize that the words correspond to the zones they play in: "A King", "B I O", "C H a N G e", "D E F end" (Zone J is not represented), "L a M e".
  • The Darius Burst boss Dark Helios (an oarfish) transforms into the dragon from Syvalion when defeated. Sounds strange, until you find out that the oarfish could have been the inspiration for the Eastern dragon.
• Fridge Horror: Titanic Lance is one of the hardest and largest bosses in the entire series and can take several minutes (and possibly credits) to defeat. The level picture for Zone M in Darius Gaiden shows multiple Titanic Lances. Beating one is hard enough, but the very idea that it was mass produced is terrifying.
• Game-Breaker:
  • In Dariusburst (including spinoffs) with ships that have Fixed Burst: Fixed Burst "shielding"; that is, deploying the Fixed Burst at the top or bottom of the screen and pointing it towards the opposite side, is a common tactic against bullet-heavy bosses such as the Great Thing and "Thousand _____" families. The beam will suck up the bullets and refill the Burst meter as a result, allowing the player to simply focus on shooting the boss. Any ship with a Fixed Burst can pull it off, but it's easiest with the Next and Next Zero ships, whose Fixed Bursts turn faster and move in the direction of the ship rather than away from it, making it easier to make beam walls of safety.
  • The Gaiden Ship has a rapid fire glitch which was applied in DariusBurst Another Chronicle and Chronicle Saviours. A max-out beam can shred many incoming mooks and filled your Blackhole Bomb bar extremely fast.
  • As far as ships go, the Murakumo in Chronicle Saviours combines the best parts of other ships. It has Attack Drones like the Genesis, but there's four of them, can have their firing angles adjusted when in rotation or formation modes, and act as temporary shields (especially in rotation mode). And as for its Burst, it's a Wave-Motion Gun (like the Legend's, Next's, and Formula's) that counters simply by touching an enemy Burst beam (like the Genesis's), and if fired long enough releases a massive explosion (like the Assault's).
  • Second is regarded as the easiest ship for scoring points on enemy waves, due to a combination of a powerful Spread Shot, omnidirectional piercing lasers, and a maximum base multiplier of x60.
  • Some of the DLC ships are no slouches, either.
    • The Inter Gray, from the Taito DLC pack. It has a weak main gun but compensates with mini homing shots when the ship is moving. That is just the half of it, though. Its burst is a Macross Missile Massacre, which rips through waves of popcorn enemies and charges fast with each kill. Also, when the burst is active, it generates a shield that is invulnerable to the majority of enemy fire. Said burst is also like the Genesis and Murakumo, in which it can execute a burst counter by touching enemy bursts rather than the timing based mechanic of the other ships. Even more, however, is that the Inter Gray during its burst can turn around while the counter burst is active, as opposed to other burst-based ships where they're stuck in a single direction. Although it does have a lower Burst Counter multiplier at only x1.25 instead of x1.5 like for most other Burst-equipped ships, for a maximum multiplier of x80^note x16 base multiplier from destroying enemies to raise it, x4 for using a Burst, x1.25 as mentioned, it's still one of the highest-scoring ships in DLC Mode.
    • The TRY-Z, from the SEGA DLC Pack. Its main shot and secondary shot are nothing to write home about, but what really sells this ship as being overpowered is its unconventional burst. When the TRY-Z's burst is used, not only does it gain a massive multiplier when rolling through enemy fire, it's also invincible and, when crossing enemy bursts, immediately recovers burst. This makes it great for taking on massive amounts of enemies and dealing with tough bosses.
    • Also from the SEGA DLC Pack, Opa-Opa. While his weapons rely on collecting coins for buying them, as well as weapons getting more expensive the more they're used, at the same time they're some of the most devastating in the whole game. The Seven Way weapon makes quick work of waves of enemies and large bosses, the Laser Beam rips apart mini-bosses in no time at all, and the smart bomb and the sixteen ton anvil bomb clears out waves of enemies and deals massive damage to bosses respectively. The smart bomb makes quick work of the Thousand series of bosses, which can destroy its fins that shoot weapons in one to two uses, and the sixteen ton anvil bomb will finish it off in no time at all.
    • The Delta Sword, from the Cave DLC pack. Its regular shot tears through popcorn enemies as well as erasing enemy bullets, and its laser is effective on waves of popcorn enemies and miniboss enemies. It has no burst, instead substituting it for the famed Hyper Mode. When its Hyper Mode is active, not only does it gain a firepower boost, but when enemies are killed with the shot they release medals adding to the score. The only issue is the lack of a burst, but it's strong enough by itself, and is arguably better for scoring than the Second Silver Hawk on DLC mode.
    • Miyamoto, from the Raizing DLC pack. His main shot is above average, but his options are what seal the deal. Being able to switch between a straight-firing piercing shot, a wide spread explosive shot and a search shot, Miyamoto is the most flexible of the pack. He lacks a burst, substituting it in favor of a smart bomb that also charges fast. With the piercing shot on the options, the bomb charges fast and can even destroy bosses and minibosses quickly enough.
    • The Saber, from the Capcom DLC pack. Perhaps the most overpowered DLC ship par excellence. It has access to three weapons, a machine gun, a laser, and a wide shot. The wide shot can wipe out waves of popcorn enemies, while the laser can tear up tougher enemies, minibosses and bosses in seconds. That's just part of what makes the Saber overpowered. If the Saber gets a green power up, it gets pods instead of missiles or bombs (or, with the DLC ships, a more powerful secondary attack or burst). These pods are indestructible all to but a few select enemy weapons, especially when you set the pods to 'napalm' mode, or with the pods fixed in front of you. This makes the pods into shields, and makes going up against bosses like Great Thing and Gigantic Bite utter cakewalks. Like the majority of other DLC ships, however, it lacks a burst. Instead, it uses smart bombs, but launched out straightforward rather than a big bomb. These smart bombs pierce enemies, and can even cancel out enemy projectiles. With all of these properties of the Saber, it is considered to be the best DLC ship, if not the best ship in Dariusburst period.
• Gameplay Derailment: G-Darius's Beam-O-War mechanic is meant to be played by rapidly mashing the fire button. In practice, players just use autofire buttons, defeating the whole point. This is why Dariusburst and Dariusburst: Second Prologue use simplified Burst Counter mechanics and why Dariusburst: Another Chronicle and Dariusburst: Chronicle Saviours turn Burst Counters into a timing-based mechanic.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • Darius Twin is one of the most popular games in the series for North Americans, due to it being the entry point for the series for many people in those countries and the relative scarity of Darius I and II/Sagaia cabinets.
  • Despite being unreleased outside Japan, Super Darius 2 is considered a great version of the game by western fans of the series, with praise going for its rocking CD soundtrack, substantial amount of new content and more forgiving gameplay. It thus often becomes a surprise for said fans to learn the games is widely hated in Japan and considered one of the nadir of the series due to complaints such as the Screen Crunch, T's Music arrangements not fitting the spirit of the original compositions, and the new bosses being considered goofy-looking and poorly drawn.
• Goddamned Bats:
  • Bencers, those missile launching blue car enemies, whose missiles launch diagonally but then change their trajectory mid-air when leveled with the player. Already an annoyance on their own, they become even worse when the screen is crowded with enemies.
  • Nokos, green bipedal robots that are similar to the Duckers from Gradius. They hop around and shoot in the player's direction, but their movement is completely unpredictable since they have a unique AI and don't follow a preset pattern.
  • Any fixed turret enemy has the potential to be a major annoyance, but special mention goes to the ones which can turn around and shoot all over the place (Nojitsus, Odehis, Rammais, Ramsinis and Tabokus).
• Goddamned Boss:
  • Midbosses in Dariusburst, due to them attacking you while enemies continue to pour in by the tens or even hundreds.
  • The "Gluttons" family of bosses in Dariusburst has swarms of little drones that surround the boss and will block your shots. Unless you have a piercing shot (most ships' maxed-out laser, Murakumo's laser option mode, wave shot for Gaiden or Origin), the boss can take a long time to whittle down, assuming they don't just self-destruct entirely.
• Growing the Beard: The first two Darius games are very contentious due to their use of multiple screens for an extra-wide layout, as well as Darius II piling on Fake Difficulty by completely erasing the player's upgrades upon death and giving the player ships extra-large sprites. The spinoff games Darius Twin and Darius Force on SNES, while considered classics, suffer from odd design decisions like Twin effectively recycling Darius II's graphical assets and having relatively "dry"/lifeless stages, while Darius Force is infamous for implementing R-Type-style checkpoints as well as weakening the player's attacks if they use their main shot and bomb at once. Darius Gaiden is widely regarded as when Taito started to take the series seriously, featuring a more arcade- and hardcore-friendly 4:3 single-screen setup, some of the best 2D visuals of the 90s, an immense variety of environments and bosses, and a fantastic soundtrack by Hisayoshi Ogura. Taito would keep up this momentum for G-Darius, with excellent 3D graphics, massive bosses, and the game's iconic Beam-O-War system.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Anna Steiner, the Player 2 character in Darius Gaiden, looks a lot like Saber.
• It's Hard, So It Sucks!: The Ver. 2 iteration of G-Darius isn't well-liked due to making the already-Nintendo Hard game more difficult (more enemies, more difficult patterns, detonating captured enemies no longer grant invincibility frames) without really doing anything to make the increased difficulty worth it from a player satisfaction standpoint. It does add boss timers and significant bonuses for killing bosses faster, but as this game has no "extra life every X points" system, anyone who isn't score-minded isn't going to care, plus the hefty time bonus de-emphasizes waiting for bosses to fire their Beta Beams so that the player can engage in the game's iconic Beam-O-War mechanic. Ver. 2 does have a "beginner" mode...that barely even reduces the difficulty (with the only notable difference being that you respawn with pre-captured enemies after dying) and cuts the number of stages down to three. Ver. 2 does feature difficulty settings, including the "Super Easy" setting, but it hardly makes a difference either (the same is true of "version 1" of the game). When this version was added to G-Darius HD patch, players were more interested in the beginner-friendly options in the PS1 port that was also included with the same update.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!:
  • A common complaint about the Chronicle Saviours DLC packs is that they don't add any unique stages or bosses, making the 5 USD price tag for each ship feel unjustified. In fact, if you were to buy the game and DLC bundle on steam, it costs 115.83 USD, or 230% the cost of the base game...and that's with a 15% discount that you would get as opposed to buying the game and all the packs separately!
  • Many fans see Another Chronicle EX+ as basically a "lite" version of Chronicle Saviours, not really offering many worthy extras in exchange for dropping CS Mode and being $10-20 cheaper (and for those who have the PS Vita / PS TV version of CS, being exactly the same price). And neither version of ACEX+ has dual monitor mode while CS does on PC, or even just an option to play Another Chronicle formatted for a 16:9 display, which is a sore point for Switch Lite owners as well as regular Switch owners who don't play in docked mode. Switch players in particular felt insulted, as CS was released on PS4 but not on Switch at the time, so the potential to port CS to a more successful handheld felt wasted; it would eventially get a Switch port, Dariusburst CS Core, but by then, the confusing way that Darius games were being released on Switch, PC, and PS4 had caused nearly all of the fanbase to lose interest, and nobody has anything positive to say about it. PS4 players are baffled as to why this exists as a standalone title when DBCS exists on the same platform. About the only real benefit people see is that it has physical versions that can be ordered in regular shops (as opposed to being limited editions).^note The shmup community is known for being very pro-physical.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Many people who get Cozmic Collection: Arcade just get it for Darius Gaiden, due to Darius I and II as being perceived as not very well-aged, although there are a minority of players who do enjoy them.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • The opening dialogue in "Olga Breeze", the stage 1 song of Darius II, which along with some Technobabble in Gratuitous English includes this infamous line:
    Tiat Young: "I always wanted a thing called TUNA SASHIMI!"
  • On Pixiv, the whale-like boss Great Thing has been used in parodies of the Twitter Fail Whale. It's even been made into an actual, unwinnable flash game here by Babarageo (creator of Ginormo Sword).
  • The large amount of crossover DLC for Chronicle Saviours has led to some calling it the Super Smash Bros. or Project × Zone of shoot-em-ups.
• Most Wonderful Sound: The Boss Warning Siren sound effects, which are iconic enough to warrant their own tracks on their games' respective soundtracks. On Another Chronicle's cabinet in particular, there are warning lights on the ceiling of the cabinet to accompany the bass-shaking warning klaxon!
• Narm Charm: Tiat Young's line at the start of Darius II: "I always wanted a thing called tuna sashimi." Sounds silly on its own, but given that the series is known for bosses styled after various marine life, it makes sense as a Pre Ass Kicking One Liner.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • For a game series against deep sea creatures, there's surprisingly little of this with the setting itself, but some of the tracks for later game series can be...unsettling. Galst Vic from Darius Force and Dada from G-Darius.
  • Heck, Galst Vic himself. The one time we get a boss not based on marine wildlife, we get... a frickin' skeleton-like thing that resembles a Terminator. And just when you escape the base and think you're home free, its dismembered head comes back for one last stand!
  • "Bless You" from Dariusburst, the stage cleared theme, features a triumphant One-Woman Wail... but the rest of the 2-minute-53-second track consists of creepy ambiance. If you're playing the arcade versions, the timer forces you to the next zone so you won't hear the ambience, but if you're playing the consumer versions and stick around on the score screen, or are listening to the track through the OST, the sudden shift in mood is quite... spooky, to say the least. It's likely the shift is intended to subtly bug players to stop looking at the score screen and move to the next zone.
  • "Baptize Silver Hawk", one of the Dariusbrust stage themes, has the sounds of laughing children near the end of the track that can come off as creepy to some players. In the game version of the track, it lasts for a few seconds before reaching the loop point of the track. In the soundtrack version, it lasts for 15 seconds.
  • "Nangyoukugyou" from Dariusburst Second Prologue, used for some boss fights, has an eerie and ethereal sound to it, not helped by what sounds like footsteps starting at around 40 seconds.
  • "A d a m", used for several bosses in G-Darius, most notably the Final Bosses. It's a loud, booming piece evocative of a giant monster attack, painting the impression that the Thiima are not messing around.
  • Super Darius II features Mech. Bio Strong, one of the final bosses. Whereas most bosses in this series are fish, Mech. Bio Strong is instead a cyborg fetus... thing. If its looks◊ don't unnerve you, then the weird crying noises it makes before you fight it might do the trick instead.
  • That's not to entirely outdo the original Bio Strong from Darius II: a floating shrimp-baby-embryo-thing that hides among a mess of imitation embryos it throws at you before popping up to fill a near quarter of the entire playfield. Its infantile shrieks and globs of flesh and placenta that fly everywhere when it dies is the icing on the cake.
  • The interior Mars levels on the Arcade and Saturn versions of Darius II have unnervingly close copies of H.R. Giger's work on the Space Jockey ship. There are even facehugger eggs twice the size of the Silver Hawk! Thankfully, all the eggs are dormant.
• Nintendo Hard:
  • The entire series naturally, since it's a Shoot 'Em Up series for arcades. Bosses are bone-breakingly difficult and losing one life can seriously degrade your ship's weapons.
  • Chronicle Saviours has CS Mode, which like Chronicle Mode gives you a big chart of missions to complete, with each mission having a variable number of stages and bosses. Unlike in Chronicle Mode, you cannot use continues, making clearing each stage especially with Presets a hell of a challenge.
• Older Than They Think: The 2019 Genesis port of Darius isn't the first port of the original game to feature a unique boss for every zone. Super Darius, which precedes it by about 30 years, was the first to do that.
• Once Original, Now Common: Western enthusiasts often dismiss the original Darius as a lackluster also-ran to the likes of Gradius and R-Type only notable for its idiosyncratic "space robot fish" theme and fancy cabinet, but for 1987, the game was legitimately a huge leap for shooters in production values and content variety: it boasted 28 different stages (even if background graphics and tilesets are repeated a lot) and Multiple Endings that players had to discover for themselves through the branching path system was a huge selling point that gave the game a lot of replayability, as did the roster of 12 bosses with distinct attack pattern and huge, well-detailled sprites. In just few years, those things became the bare-bones minimum, making it hard to appreciate their presence.
• Polished Port:
  • The Darius 1 port on the Genesis Mini, actually made by a fan, adapts very well to the smaller screen while remaining as faithful to the original as possible; in particular, it uses a more conventional aspect ratio like Super Darius and Darius Plus on PC Engine, but the graphics are actually formatted to not require the screen to wobble up and down with the player's movement. It also adds a few new features, like an option to reduce the hitbox when a shield is active, Tiat as an "easy mode" character that adds more modern conveniences like keeping powerups upon respawn and removing the checkpoint system, and a "26 bosses" option that gives every single zone (even ones in the same tier of zones) a unique boss, including bosses that were never in the original arcade version. The Darius Extra revision features additional options like support for 6-button controllers, rapid-fire settings, three versions of the game (Old, New, and Extra), and shield hitbox settings. The game would later get released on an actual Genesis cartridge, and for those not willing to Break Out the Museum Piece, it would later get a port to Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4, again by M2, with all the convenience features expected of their Taito ports like per-button rapid-fire settings, screen size and filter options, and savestates.
  • Darius II on Genesis / Mega Drive. While it does feature very different levels from the arcade version, and it still throws the F-U of taking away all upgrades upon death, it's a much more managable beast, and has the option to play as Tiat Young for an easier playthrough in which your weapons each have one upgrade by default. Sprites and terrain are redrawn to accommodate the Genesis's 320×224 resolution better, your ship moves faster and is a more reasonable size, and the game features as many Zones as the arcade original^note compare the two SNES Darius games, which only have 12 Zones each. Its arrangement of the soundtrack is pretty solid too, even getting its own soundtrack release like the arcade original. For those who missed out on this version and don't want to resort to emulation or expensive used copies, fret not: Darius Cozmic Collection Console on Switch and PS4 features this version, which is an example in and of itself thanks to fully remappable controls and savestates.
  • The Playstation 1 and PC ports of G-Darius are based on the Ver. 2 release, but it has none of its bullshit difficulty. There are several difficulty options, there a Beginner mode that doesn't kick you out after playing three stages, a mode where you can fight every boss in the game and a cutscene viewer. The only downside of this port is that the music cuts off abruptly at a certain point during stages due to the game's loading the stage's boss data.
  • Of the four ways to play Dariusburst Another Chronicle on a consumer platform (PC, PS4, Vita, PSTV), the PC version is perhaps the best one, being the only one with dual-monitor support (It helps that the arcade version uses PC-based architecture to begin with). Later updates added the option to quickly restart from the beginning of the chosen root stage in Original or EX mode, or the beginning of the mission in Chronicle Mode, so you don't have to go back to the title screen and navigate the menus all over again.
  • Darius Cozmic Collection Arcade by M2 may not carry the M2 ShotTriggers label, but it's effectively an M2STG release in spirit. It features many different options to configure each game, including rapid-fire functions (a must for many Darius Gaiden players), useful gameplay info gadgets, and multiple revisions of Darius and Darius II, the latter of which marks the first time the Sagaia build is available officially for Japan and which also has the exceedingly rare Sagaia Ver. 2 build available. The Windows version on Steam is even better, featuring multi-monitor support for Darius and Darius II.
  • Then M2 did it again with G-Darius HD, not only featuring the original version of the game but also an Updated Re-release with improved textures, a new and refined 3D model for the Silver Hawk, and overall upscaled visuals. It also features an Auto-Save feature, which is perfect for players trying to work on strategies or experiment with routes. A post-launch update adds the Ver.2 revision of the game and the PS1 port.
• Porting Disaster:
  • Darius+ (Not to be confused with Darius Plus) requires damaging the boss-vessel components in the correct order, some of which were near the back of the enemy. In this version, you also get stuck with a limited-range pea shooter if you get killed - even during a boss fight.
  • Darius Plus for the ZX Spectrum. Much Fake Difficulty (such as foes coming in from behind), too large collision boxes, extremely slow.
  • The Playstation port of Darius Gaiden. Instead of being developed in-house by Taito like the Saturn port, it was instead developed by Interbec, a company notorious for releasing subpar games around the 16-bit era. The result is a mess: the game is slow compared to the Arcade and Saturn ports, has choppy framerate and suffers from massive slowdown, even moreso than the Saturn version.
  • While the CS mode of Chronicle Saviours is perfectly playable on a Vita, the same cannot be said for AC mode (aka the Dariusburst Another Chronicle port), due to squishing a 32:9 display onto the screen, making it nearly impossible to see anything. One wonders if this particular version was developed with the PS TV in mind instead.
  • The Darius Cozmic Collection Console ports of Darius Twin and Darius Force on Switch and PS4 are plagued with around 100-120 milliseconds of input delay, which is crippling in games where reflexes and responsibe controls are extremely important. This does not seem to apply to the other ports in the collection, which have relatively negligible input lag, but if you bought this port primarily for the SNES games, it's going to be an annoying experience.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • The first two games as well as Another Chronicle all use extra-wide multi-screen setups that, while impressive the first few times, can be irritating for more competitive-minded gamers who have to keep track of such a wide field of view, and which also creates headaches for people playing Arcade Perfect Ports (unless they have the PC version of Chronicle Saviours, which not only features DBACEX but even has the option to use two monitors for it) as the screen is scaled down drastically to accomodate a 4:3 or 16:9 screen; for this reason, some players prefer the Console version of Darius Cozmic Collection over the Arcade version because it features console versions of these games that were adjusted for 4:3 displays. It also creates problems for arcade operators too, who have less space to put the extra-big cabs. As a result, Darius Gaiden is regarded as a Surprisingly Improved Sequel by both players and operators, as the more conventional 4:3 display is easier for players to wrap their head around and operators can put the game in a conventional cabinet.
  • Most games are notorious for heavily reducing the player's equipment levels upon death (usually resetting to 0 points in each upgrade tier). While many say this is still better than what Gradius does, it doesn't take away the pain of losing two or three stages' worth of powerups, especially if it happens against That One Boss. Dariusburst notably drops this mechanic, as does the 2019 Genesis Mini port if playing as Tiat. Speaking of...
  • The way upgrades are handled in Darius II. Instead of colored enemies, the player must destroy a formation of enemies to get a power-up, much like Gradius. However, the enemies in question are pods, and while they don't fire at you, they move incredibly fast and missing one causes you to lose a power-up, which can happen a lot if you die or if they're in front of an obstacle. It's even worse in the arcade version of Sagaia and Super Darius II, since power-ups are very scarce and most of the formations gives you points instead of items. This would carry on to Darius Twin and Darius Force/Super Nova until Darius Gaiden brought the colored enemies back.
  • In G-Darius, if a huge battleship warning appears while there are powerup items on the screen, all of those powerups will disappear without letting you take them.
  • In Dariusburst Another Chronicle, some Chronicle sectors require multiple players participating at once. This is fine in an arcade establishment that's open to the public, but this is a problem in the Chronicle Saviours version due to multiplayer being local-only, if you don't have local friends or family willing to play with you. Vita version players have it even worse, as they cannot play multiplayer and thus cannot participate in these missions at all.
  • For that matter, Another Chronicle on the Vita and Another Chronicle EX+ on Switch make no effort to be readable on the system's portable screens, making it nigh-unplayable unless you have a magnifying glass or you have access to docked mode for your Switch.
  • Bosses don't have Life Meters; the only indication of damage is that they start to turn red and give off sparks. In Dariusburst, this can make whittling them down enough to finish them off with a Burst Counter—or worse, the Assault's and Murakumo's Burst finishes and the X-LAY's full lock-on finish—aggrevatingly difficult. Cozmic Collection Arcade does introduce boss health meters, but none of the games included in the collection require timing boss destruction to maximize point gain.
  • The point value of the grey (orange in Gaiden) orbs pick-up is semi-random in G-Darius and entirely random in all of the other games until Dariusburst, which is a bit of a bother for competitive score players as due to the variance in point distribution (anywhere from 100 to 128.000), the tiebreaker between two very close scores could be entirely down to luck. M2's collections even include a gadget that displays how much grey orbs were collected and exactly how much points were devided from them, presumably so people running private score competitions can substract them from the total score.
  • The Taito Legends 2 version of Gaiden on PS2 is heavily disliked for capping autofire to the rate for holding down the fire button (i.e. you cannot use a autofire controller to fire faster). Thankfully, not only does the Cozmic Collection version not have that same autofire cap, you can even set it to one of five specific frequencies.
  • Darius Cozmic Collection Console features remappable controls like its arcade collection counterpart, however the only functions you can assign to each button are buttons used for gameplay function such as your main shot, bombs, and weapon switching (in Darius Force). For Darius Twin in particular, its 50 lives cheat requires using the L and R buttons, which cannot be assigned, rendering the cheat unusable. It especially does not help that Twin is one of a handful of games in the series not to have a continues feature, with the player only able to set their starting lives to 8 without the cheat code as an alternative, which can give casual players (those not concerned with a 1-credit clear, in particular) and players who want to practice the game a hard time.
• Scrappy Weapon: Several of the third-tier weapons in Dariusburst (indicated by a Wave icon, regardless of whether that third tier actually has Wave-type shots or not) aren't worth it:
  • Legend, Next, Murakumo, and Assault all get a Wave shot that can pierce terrain but not enemies, which allows for much higher single-target damage than Laser, but which cannot cancel enemy shots like Missile and Laser can. It also gets nullified by certain kinds of enemies, such as the green spheres that will normally move of hit, but do nothing when hit by Wave, as well as Hungry Gluttons's drones, which take no damage and swarm the boss itself most of the time.
  • Formula has it even worse. Laser is actually a legitimate upgrade for it, as Formula's shots disappear after crossing 3/4 screen's distance, so not only can it pierce enemies, it also does great damage. Upgrading to Wave takes away the enemy-piercing property, effectively "Missile, but worse."
  • Gaiden does actually get a power boost when going into shot tier 3, and gets drones that fire targeted shots at enemies. However, you want to upgrade to the second-to-last level of that tier, as it gains Missile shots that do not penetrate, making that particular level the highest-damaging one for this ship. Upgrading one more time gives you a shot that's Wave only once more, reducing your damage.
• Self-Imposed Challenge: One player-imposed challenge is to use Low Tier Origin Ship with no Shields and only one life, against Gigantic Bite, making the fight even harder.
• Sequel Difficulty Drop:
  • Darius Twin came out after Darius II and is much, much easier than the previous game. There are no continues in this game, but you no longer lose any power-ups upon death. The Silver Hawk also upgrades faster than Darius 2, making early levels a complete joke. And since this is the first game of the series to include multiplayer, it makes the rest of the game even easier.
  • If only counting arcade releases, Gaiden is substantially easier than Darius II (including its Sagaia variants), despite some controversy and false rumors regarding its rank system. While dying still imposes a significant penalty on powerups collected and especially shot power, the addition of Smart Bombs as well as massive increases to the player's firepower makes it a much more tolerable beast than the first two games.
  • The original Dariusburst for the PSP, while lacking a lot of features introduced in G-Darius, drops the difficulty like a rock (unless you're playing as the Origin). There are less bullets here, the bosses are less aggressive than previous games, and thanks to the ability to place a fixed Burst laser anywhere on the screen, you can block enemy bullets with ease. The Updated Re-release Second Prologue for smartphones makes an easy game even easier by letting the player use Counter Bursts against bosses instantly, especially with the Assault.
• Sequel Difficulty Spike: G-Darius on the other hand cranks the difficulty back to absurd levels, to the point where the game becomes pure Bullet Hell due to the amount of enemies and bullets that fills the screen in mere seconds. Not only that, but upgrading your main shot takes a lot of power-ups compared to Gaiden, and if you die once, your main shot reverts back to its starter level. Even with the Capture system, this game is often regarded by fans as the hardest game in the series. The M2 release does include a "Super Easy" mode, but it barely helps, as all it does is increase the captured enemy's health and nothing else.
• Shocking Moments:
  • Zone M of Darius Gaiden. You waltz into a stage with some easy enemies and a conspicuous lack of music. A mere thirty seconds in, "WARNING! A HUGE BATTLESHIP TITANIC LANCE IS APPROACHING FAST." Titanic Lance then zooms past you so you can see just how big it is while "Reflection" starts up, making you feel like you're up against a Final Boss, even though it's only about halfway through the game.
  • Zone Gamma in G-Darius. Queen Fossil shows up, revealing herself to be larger than any prior boss in the series, even bigger than Titanic Lance! Notice how there was no stage split during the main body of the stage? That's because the split is used here to determine which side of her to attack!
• Signature Scene:
  • The battle with Titanic Lance in Zone M of Darius Gaiden, known for being huge, a long battle, and That One Boss.
  • The very first mission's first scene in CS Mode, which features a high-speed skirmish over an ocean while "Freedom", the only track in the series with actual lyrics, plays in the background.
  • The Final Boss battle with Gigantic Bite in Chronicle Saviours in Suriaha.
• Sophomore Slump: Darius II is generally regarded as the weakest game in the series, having even more unfair respawn penalties than the first game and obnoxiously large Silver Hawk sprites and hitboxes, and many players find that it absolutely pales in comparison to its successors Darius Gaiden and G-Darius.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: Darius Gaiden. Darius II throws in design decisions that make little sense even for their time, such as oversized Silver Hawk sprites and the harshest post-respawn powerdown of any Darius game. Darius Twin, if counted as Gaiden's immediate predecessor, is more eye-friendly with only one screen, but doesn't do much to really innovate on the series. Darius Gaiden blows both games out of the water, featuring stunning 2D visuals, brilliantly-designed bosses, an amazing and atmospheric soundtrack, a wide variety of beautiful and challenging stages, and powerful new weapon upgrades for the Silver Hawk; a package that is regarded as not only one of the best Darius games, but one of the best Horizontal Scrolling Shooters of all time.
• That One Achievement:
  • "Piece Destroyer" in Chronicle Saviours. In order to get this achievement, the player must fully destroy Phantom or Mirage Castle's armor. However, pulling this off is a gigantic pain in the ass. If the player destroys too many parts of their armor and leave their body exposed, they'll discard the armor and fight you directly. And if you're playing with the Assault or the Gaiden, using the Shock Burst or the Black Hole Bomb won't work, as one of the side parts can't be destroyed unless they turn their body around. Getting this achievement requires a lot of AI manipulation to make it work.
  • "Bird of Legend", also from CS, requires the player to finish the QUZ route in ACEX (the hardest route of the game) without taking any damage.
• That One Attack:
  • Homing Lasers used by bosses are always a massive pain, since they're long, have somewhat good homing capability, and they keep dealing constant damage to your shields as long as they touch you.
  • The green, pulsing shots in Gaiden. They move a short distance, stop, aim at the player, move some distance again, stop, aim, move. This continues a few times and they last a good while on the screen, chasing the player very often. It gets particularly bad when one version of Neon Light Illusion continually uses this as its Desperation Attack.
  • Phantom Castle is mostly the same as Mirage Castle, but now fires small homing lasers any time it flies off the screen that curve tightly and can chip away at whatever shields you have.
  • The Thousand bosses all have a massive green laser that fires periodically at low health or after certain parts are destroyed. It comes with little warning, can happen in the middle of an attack phase, and is not blockable with any Burst. Many disgruntled players refer to it as the FUCK YOU Laser.
  • Many high-level bosses in Dariusburst and its variants have gray rectangular bullets that, when shot, fire similarly-colored spherial bullets that target your ship. Firing your weapons when near any of those rectangular bullets is basically a death wish.
• That One Boss: The series' bosses are known not only for basically being huge mechanical fish, but also being very punishing too.
  • Darius Plus, Super Darius, and Darius Extra have My Home Daddy. You won't be laughing at this giant hermit crab's name for long when it starts pelting you with bullets that have gravitational trajectories that can be difficult to predict in the heat of the moment and fast targeted laser bolts.
  • Great Thing in pretty much all his appearances as a Final Boss. Even by final boss standards, he's a tough customer thanks to his gigantic health, relentless spam from his cannons (which are all over him), exploding projectiles and enemy spawning.
  • Fatty Glutton in Gaiden can only be harmed when his mouth is open (which is open for a very short period), and one variant of it will spam a very hard to avoid spray of multiple, large shots. His other variant will constantly use a spread of shots that will intermittently pause and aim/fly towards you multiple times, forcing you to move around and in a tricky fashion thanks to the number that will be on screen.
  • Titanic Lance. It's a Battleship Raid which is so large it is basically a Sequential Boss as well. Titanic Lance has attacks that are very difficult to avoid in almost all of its phases, such as moving towards your vertical position◊ with a Wave-Motion Gun, a swarm of homing lasers◊, cannons◊ with Macross Missile Massacre, electrical mines with crushers◊, and a Demonic Spider maker. You'd expect a boss of this caliber to be one of the Final Bosses, but nope, you can encounter it in the fifth layer of stages out of seven.
  • Crusty Hammer was purposefully designed to ruin a player's perfect run, and it shows. No matter which variation you fight against, he will always spin in the middle of the screen and shoot fast moving lasers at you, which makes it almost impossible to dodge without a Black Hole Bomb. He also tries to attack you with his claw. You think it would be easy to dodge it, but his claw has such a wonky hitbox that you will be asking how did your lose your shield or instantly died for no reason. Oh, and if you're playing Darius Gaiden Extra, guess what: he's the first boss.
  • Storm Causer is ridiculously tough even for Darius final boss standards. Several of its attacks remove a lot of room to avoid, such as taking out a huge flamethrower while firing its mouth beam AND having several aimed shots fired at you, taking out a wide-spray gatling gun while firing the series' dreaded homing lasers and firing a laser from below, or are tricky to avoid such as going into the background and firing energy projectiles that swirl in a weird trajectory. To top it all off, he has a great amount of health too.
  • Dreadful Whip and Massive Whip in Another Chronicle and Another Chronicle EX. Both massive cuttlefish ships that like to box you in with lasers you literally have to know in advance or else they corner you against the edges of the screen, they have boatloads of health, their elongated designs make for tricky fights, and Dreadful Whip in particular has no Burst attack, which prevents Burst-equipped ships from performing Burst Counters. If these bosses give you trouble, hope you weren't planning to do the 1st Silverhawk Cup in ACEX while it was active or in ACEX+, because Dreadful Whip is the FIRST boss you fight, after a relatively easy first stage with lots of shield pick-ups.
  • You thought Great Thing was a hard Final Boss? Then in Dariusburst: Chronicle Saviors, there's an even harder boss in Gigantic Bite. He has plenty of attacks and they are deadly as ever such as; Shrapnels shards, Homing Beams, Mini bombs like the normal Silver Hawks drops, fast homing missile that has more hits, undestructable electric harpoons that aims at you leaves a line that covers the area and shotgun lasers. Not to mention he can always keep summoning dolphins that shoots homing lasers in several of his battle phase. Have fun buying enough shields, because 50 shields won't be enough for this boss and all of his attacks will absolutely tear off your brains out.
• That One Level: Several in the CS Mode of Chronicle Saviours:
  • Narataki, one of the first Marathon Missions, featuring fourteen stages; bosses count as their own stages, but still. You also only have one spare life and start off with a bone stock ship and have to power it up yourself. Said ship is the Genesis from G-Darius which, while easy to do Burst Counters with, has to expend the entire Burst meter every time you use its Alpha Beam, unlike other ships that can freely cancel and conserve their Burst meters.
  • Ukofu includes a Boss Rush of Iron Fossil, then ramps up the difficulty with four very frustrating bosses, the worst of them being Dark Flame.
  • Nruso, an Escort Mission where tons and tons of enemies will swarm at you trying to get escape from you to the other screen. Once a lot of them get past you, it's Game Over.
  • Gurojin lulls you into a false sense of security with four moderate-difficulty stages and many powerups to arm yourself with. Then you get Great Thing—traditionally a Final Boss—of all things to fight. Since you're using the Second ship, you don't get the benefit of using the Fixed Burst bullet-blocking strategy.
  • Wani, a marathon stage without any power-up drops, so what you go into it with is all you're going to get. A series of stages that will put you on your toes and pits you against the likes of Thorn Wheel, Phantom Castle, and Thousand Knives. All this culminates in a final showdown against Savage Ruler and by then you're likely exhausted and low on shields.
  • Rifuredekku is by far the hardest mission in the game, containing 17 stages. It begins with you fight Iron Fossil with an underpowered Gaiden. While the fight is no problem thanks to the Black Hole Bomb, the rest of the mission is one grueling climb to power-up your ship and endure everything the game throws at you. To make matters worse, shield drops are ridiculously scarce. You need to know when to use Black Hole Bombs strategically since every single armor points is precious. And the mission gets harder and harder as it goes along, throwing bosses like Slash Shell, Thorn Wheel and Heavy Gluttons. Oh, and those armor points I mentioned early? The final boss is Savage Ruler. You'll need every single one of them.
  • The final mission, Suriaha. Right off the bat in the first stage, you get jumped by two snake-like mini-bosses, and the end of one stage has you fighting Phantom Castle again. But then the difficulty ramps up even further with Golden Ruler, which is basically Violent Ruler from hell. ^note  Golden Ruler isn't as hard as Savage Ruler, which is Golden Ruler up to eleven, but it's the hardest boss in the final mission, probably as hard as Gigantic Bite . In the last stage, there are even more obstacles for you to fight through, which culminates in an epic but difficult final showdown with Gigantic Bite.
    • Ruminia, chronologially the first mission in the game, also ends in Gigantic Bite...but since you're using Origin, you don't have a Burst!
  • Uinda is where you have to score 65M points to unlock the alternate route. Unfortunately, it's very hard to score so much due to how minimal the enemies tend to be, and sometimes not even a fully powered up ship can be able to help.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • The Extra Version of Darius isn't as well liked as the New and Old builds due to enemy buffs that make the game more difficult and less enjoyable.
  • Most fans advise avoiding the Taito Legends 2 version of Darius Gaiden, due to nerfing the maximum rate of fire to prevent people from blazing through with a turbo controller.
• Underused Game Mechanic:
  • Chronicle Mode in Another Chronicle EX only features content from the original Another Chronicle in the first few circles of star systems. The ACEX content (such as the option to play as its ships) does eventually appear...in the last three star systems when the missions start getting especially difficult.
  • The Steam exclusive G-Darius Exhibition for G-Darius HD seems like a good idea on paper, but it's nothing more than a glorified Training Mode where you fight Fire Fossil, Queen Fossil and G.T. in ultra widescreen and nothing more. It makes you wonder why M2 even bothered to include this mode in the game.
• Visual Effects of Awesome:
  • Darius Gaiden is easily one of Taito's finest-looking 2D games alongside its hardware sibling RayForce, featuring "Mode 7"-esque landscapes, a vibrant color palette especially in the trippy hyperspace fourth-tier Zones, and boss explosions that turn into a show of lights and colors that make up the background for the "select next Zone" prompt.
  • G-Darius, the series' first foray into 3D graphics, does not disappoint either. Firing your Alpha Beam at an enemy's Beta Beam treats you to the sight of your beam growing larger, potentially filling the whole screen if done with a captured Captain.