Darius: Difference between revisions

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* [[Amazing Technicolor Battlefield]] - ''G-Darius''' [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NArEuTOyKo "Genesis" stage].

* [[Ascended Glitch]]: Manually [[Button Mashing]] the fire button in ''Darius Gaiden'' will yield a much faster rate of fire than the built-in autofire. The Saturn port allows you to enable this via a code. There is a [[ROM Hack]] called ''Darius Gaiden Extra'' which has this rapid rapid-fire as the default, but its status as an official game is debatable.

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* [[A Winner Is You]]: {{spoiler|defeat Vermillion Coronatus in Darius Gaiden and you'll get...a screen depicting that you just played a game and the "pilots" are teenage kids (in the shape of Proco and Tiat) sighing a relief, accompanied by the caption: "I finally beat Darius Gaiden!"}}

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** {{spoiler|That's actually a callback to the ending for Zone Y's boss, Cuttlefish, in the first Darius.}}

* [[Bait and Switch Boss]]: Sort of, at least in-game, in the Mu and Xi zones in ''G-Darius''. Our heroes come upon a four-spiked orb in the core of Kazumn. Once you play to the end of Nu, you'll know this orb is the main ingredient of the Embryon, the Thiima's leader. Before Sameluck and Lutia can actually engage it, though, it teleports away and summons either Heavy Arms Shell (Mu) or Accordion Hazard (Xi) in its place. Then again, the warning klaxon from before you even SEE the orb DID mention the actual boss by name...

* [[Battleship Raid]]: Revenge Shark in Super Darius II, Great Alloy Lantern in ''Darius Twin'', Peace Destroyer in ''Darius Force'', Titanic Lance in ''Darius Gaiden'', most bosses in ''G-Darius'' (especially the two Fossils).

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* [[Bullet Hell]]: ''Darius Gaiden'' and possibly ''G-Darius''. Made worse by neither game having small hitboxes.

** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tReTlr04P4 This] Flash game on Twitter. All seems to be going well until the Fail Wh... I mean Great Thing shows up...

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* [[Continuing Is Painful]]: In general, dying takes away a ''lot'' of firepower. In some games, you lose whatever powerups you have since your last major upgrades (4-6 per category), or your main shot loses several levels. In the cases of ''Darius II'' and ''Darius Force'', you lose ''all'' of your powerups. It's even worse than in ''[[Gradius]]'' because powerups are less frequent; it's not uncommon for a beginner to be stuck coasting through the latter half of ''Darius Gaiden'', for example, with the lowest shot level with no hope of ever getting the laser or wave shot back. ''Darius Twin'' averts this, letting you keep your firepower.

* [[Continuity Cameo]]: Zone Lambda in ''G-Darius'' has what seems to be Titanic Lance, a particularly famous [[wikipedia:Orthocerida|ancient squid]] [[That One Boss]] from Darius Gaiden, embedded on a cliffside, apparently crash-landing intact. Quite notably, it's so huge the game can only show it's head end; the fighter you're in is probably the size of...half its eye?

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* [[Continuing Is Painful]]: In general, dying takes away a ''lot'' of firepower. In some games, you lose whatever powerups you have since your last major upgrades (4-6 per category), or your main shot loses several levels. In the cases of ''Darius II'' and ''Darius Force'', you lose ''all'' of your powerups. It's even worse than in ''[[Gradius]]'' because powerups are less frequent; it's not uncommon for a beginner to be stuck coasting through the latter half of ''Darius Gaiden'', for example, with the lowest shot level with no hope of ever getting the laser or wave shot back. ''Darius Twin'' averts this, letting you keep your firepower.

* [[Converging Stream Weapon]]: Darius Burst Another Chronicle allows two players to intersect their laser weapon, making it merge into a larger, stronger beam.

* [[Copy and Paste Environments]]: ''Darius'' has a lot of [[Palette Swap]] stages.

* [[Darker and Edgier]]: ''Darius Force''

* [[Deflector Shields]]: [[Meaningful Name|Absolute Defender]], one of the tier 3 bosses in ''G-Darius'', has this as its main schtick. As long as the shield's active, '''''NOTHING''''' hurts it, not even Alpha Beams. First, you have to overload the shield generator on its lower jaw, then get in your hits before the generator goes back up. Thankfully, each time you blow out the generator, it takes longer to come back.

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* [[Dual Boss]]: Emperor Fossil and Queen Fossil in ''Darius Twin''. ''Darius Burst Another Chronicle'' has [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiieEyTXOWM#t=04m50s Dual Spin].

* [[Dolled-Up Installment]]: Inversion -- ''Metal Black'' was originally going to be ''Darius III'', but was given its own setting because they thought the story was too depressing. It also has the predecessor to ''G-Darius'''s Alpha Beam.

* [[Downer Ending]]: Two endings in ''Darius Gaiden'':

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** In G-Darius in the final Zone Nu, [[All There in the Manual|at least according to a file hidden somewhere on the Japanese PSX disc]], {{spoiler|After you beat the Thiima archon The Embryon, its creation energies flare out and interact...[[Yin-Yang Bomb|badly]]...with the Silver Hawk's [[Deader Than Dead|omnidestruction-capable]] All-Nothing systems. Sameluck and Lutia are caught up in the storm, and are only able to share one final kiss before they're absorbed. [[Bittersweet Ending|But then again, it would seem they reincarnated back in the past as PLANET DARIUS ITSELF...]]}}

** Xi however, pulls an even less subtle punch. Apparently, Accordion Hazard's explosion {{spoiler|was so strong it engulfed both crafts. With no hope of survival, they flew close to each other.}} The next shot is a single "soul" in the shape of a silver hawk flying away. Cue the credit roll.

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* [[Dual Boss]]: Emperor Fossil and Queen Fossil in ''Darius Twin''. ''Darius Burst Another Chronicle'' has [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiieEyTXOWM#t=04m50s Dual Spin].

* [[Dynamic Difficulty]]: ''Darius Gaiden'' has a nasty version of this. Each layer of stages has a default difficulty level; powering up your main shot will set the game difficulty to that level. It's recommended that you stop powering up after your fourth stage, as this keeps the last few stages managable...oh wait, you just died and now you have reduced power? Well, too bad for you, the difficulty level never goes down, so you have to stay powered down. Deal with it.

* [[Earthshattering Kaboom]]: In addition to a certain ''Darius Gaiden'' ending, the events preceding ''G-Darius'' involved a scuffle between Planet Amnelia and one of its moons, Blazar, over who should have jurisdiction over another moon, Mahsah. Someone on the Amnelian side got the [[Sarcasm Mode|bright idea]] to use a nightmarishly powerful weapon, [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|All-]][[Deader Than Dead|Nothing]], to settle the dispute by ''obliterating Blazar''. It was this act, by the way, that alarmed the Thiima into their attempt to conquer Amnelia...

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* [[Fluffy the Terrible]]: One of the possible final bosses of Darius II is an Angel Fish called "Little Stripes". In the arcade edition, anyway. The PC-Engine port, however, has several new bosses to take Little Stripes's place. It helps that Little Stripes appeared as a third-tier boss in that system's own Darius I port.

* [[Flying Seafood Special]]: Almost all the bosses in the series are [[Humongous Mecha]] sea creatures, and most of them are fought in mid-air.

** The SNES Darius game ''Darius Force'' averts this with some bosses: Zone O's final boss is what appears to be a [[Humongous Mecha]] ape/human skeleton. Another of the final zones has you up against a mecha-pterodactyl .

** The SNES Darius game ''Darius Force'' averts this with some bosses: Zone O's final boss is what appears to be a [[Humongous Mecha]] ape/human skeleton. Another of the final zones has you up against a mecha-pterodactyl.

* [[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''' '''K'''ing", "'''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.

* [[Gaiden Game]]: The game ''Syvalion'' is meant to be a spinoff of the series, with you helping the people of Planet Darius halfway through the game. The metal dragon makes a cameo in ''Darius Burst''

* [[Gainax Ending]]: Some of the endings in ''G Darius'' are quite weird.

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* [[Red Oni, Blue Oni|Red Pilot, Blue Pilot]]: Red (player 1) is male while Blue (player 2) is female. Darius Burst inverted this. Subverted with the 2-player game of Darius Twin whereas the 1-player game involves a green-colored Silver Hawk.

* [[Roboteching]]: Expect ''lots'' of homing lasers of doom in ''Darius Gaiden'' and ''G-Darius'', along with all sorts of other nearly-impossible-to-dodge crap that makes the games border on [[Fake Difficulty]].

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* [[Sdrawkcab Name]]: Proco and Tiat, when put together, is "Taito Corp" spelled backwards.

* [[Seldom-Seen Species]]: Many of the bosses are based off obscure sea creatures. Absolute Defender- [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/Monocentris_japonica.jpg pinecone fish], Tripod Sardine- [http://starofthelost.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/deepsea-tripod_fish_j02-illustration_closeup.jpg tripod fish], Folding Fan- [http://australianmuseum.net.au/Uploads/Images/11416/DSCF0121edited_big.jpg fanfish], The Embryon- [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/Sea_angel.jpg sea angel], (insert noun here) Fossil- Coelacanth, Accordion Hazard- ''[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/c/c3/20101107022939!Anomalocaris_BW.jpg Anomalocaris]'', Brightly Stare- [http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-live/photos/000/210/cache/fish-transparent-head-2_21052_600x450.jpg Barrel Eye Fish], etc.

* [[Sequential Boss]]: After you defeat ''Alloy Lantern'' in ''Darius 2'', you fly into his mouth to fight another boss. Also done the same way in ''Darius Twin''.

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** Then again, "Red Crowned Seahorse" wouldn't seem like a good name for it either...

*** It's a callback to the first game's "Green Coronatus".

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* [[Sdrawkcab Name]]: Proco and Tiat, when put together, is "Taito Corp" spelled backwards.

* [[Shielded Core Boss]]: [[Meaningful Name|Absolute Defender]] from ''G-Darius'', you had to destroy his regenerating shield generator in order to be properly damage him.

* [[Shout-Out]]: The Silver Hawk itself cameos in the relatively obscure game ''Syvalion''.

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** As well as the [[Goddamned Bats|annoyingly tough exhaust rockets]] in Darius Gaiden.

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* [[A Winner Is You]]: {{spoiler|defeat Vermillion Coronatus in Darius Gaiden and you'll get...a screen depicting that you just played a game and the "pilots" are teenage kids (in the shape of Proco and Tiat) sighing a relief, accompanied by the caption: "I finally beat Darius Gaiden!"}}

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** {{spoiler|That's actually a callback to the ending for Zone Y's boss, Cuttlefish, in the first Darius.}}

* [[Word Salad Title]]: Various boss names, among them "Eight Foot Umbrella", "Tripod Sardine", "Accordion Hazard", and of course "Risk Storage".

** [[It Makes Sense in Context]], as Eight Foot Umbrella refers to a webbed octopus (an eight-legged creature that looks like an umbrella), Tripod Sardine refers to a tripod fish (a fish species that "stands" on its elongated fins on the ocean floor to catch prey), Risk Storage refers to the gulper eel (an eel with a very large mouth-to-body ratio, swallowing is identical to "storing" stuff inside the body right?), an eel that can randomly shoot stuff from its mouth, hence "risky", and Accordion Hazard refers to the Anomalocaris (which has a segmented body similar to an accordion's creases).