Darius (Genesis) Playthrough - NintendoComplete
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 ส.ค. 2024
- A playthough of Sega's 2019 shoot 'em up for the Sega Genesis, Darius.
This video shows three separate gameplays: The first is of the bottom path as Proco (normal difficulty level), ending on stage V.
The second, beginning at 27:48, is of the boss rush mode, showing all twenty-six of the game's bosses fought in succession.
The third, beginning at 1:10:20, is of the top path as Tiat (easy difficulty level), ending on stage Z.
Darius was originally released in arcades by Taito in 1987. It is widely considered a classic of the shooter genre, and was the first title in a landmark series that helped to define Taito as a highly-respected developer in the 80s and 90s.
The game is often fondly remembered for its offbeat soundtrack (by Taito's celebrated in-house band Zuntata) and its robot-fish theme, but anyone that has ever played Darius in an arcade is likely to best recall what an impressively large piece of machinery the cabinet was: Darius featured an ultra wide-screen display that made use of three separate monitors (and some clever trickery with mirrors) to display an image with a nearly seamless 4:1 aspect ratio.
Of course, that screen configuration would be impossible to achieve on any non-purpose built hardware at the time, but that didn't stop Darius from being ported to various home platforms, including numerous 8 and 16-bit computers, the Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, and several variants of the PC Engine hardware. The quality of these ports varied widely, but they all had to make compromises to compensate for the screen shape and a dramatically lowered resolution.
And while this brand new port of Darius to the Sega Genesis, released through the Sega Genesis Mini system a few months back, doesn't overcome this limitation, it is arguably the closest representation of the game to ever appear on console hardware from the original coin-op's era. Even though the game was not released on a cartridge, it is a legitimate piece of Genesis/Mega Drive software that plays correctly on original hardware.
There was a fair amount of hubbub surrounding the origins of this port - it was initially developed by fan, and it was later tweaked and refined under the direction of Taito themselves to ensure that it met their quality standards, and as such, Darius is an officially licensed port.
So after all of that, how well did they pull it off?
Quite well, I'd have to say! The game is harder and faster moving than the arcade version because of the crunched screen space, but it seems that great care was put into creating as accurate a facsimile as possible.
The sprites and backgrounds look fantastic, showing little evidence of the Genesis's color limitations, and the action runs at an impressive speed without any slowdown and little sign of flicker. The music isn't quite "arcade perfect," but it does make a valiant effort with the system's FM synth, and the digital samples are surprisingly clear of the dirty, staticy distortion than plagued so many other Genesis titles.
Darius on the Genesis is a 32 megabit ROM, and the presentation clearly reflects the benefits of such a large storage capacity - for the sake of comparison, look at the Genesis's port of Darius II, Sagaia. It was smashed in a 8 megabit ROM, and the difference is huge. Of course, a 32 megabit cartridge would've been hellaciously expensive to produce in 1990 when Sagaia was released, which would explain why we never saw such cart sizes on 16-bit machines until years later.
The gameplay feels smooth, but if you're expecting an easy ride, you'll quickly find yourself in for a rude awakening. There are patterns and tricks to defeating every enemy and boss in the game, but Darius is not a game that can be breezed through. It takes a lot of sweat and blood to learn it well enough to play it reliably well, just as was the case for the arcade game.
I still can't believe I managed to finish the boss rush without dying! That took a solid couple dozen attempts to manage, but what a feeling of accomplishment it gave to do it!
Darius was an ace arcade experience, and this Genesis version does an admirable job of recapturing as much of it as humanly possible on such limited hardware. If you love Genesis shoot 'em ups, this one is well worth spending some time with.
_
No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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The coverage of this game by western reviewers and press was totally minimal. It is an amazing achievement, not only is a great port of a legendary game, super close to the arcade but also it was one of those rare cases when a fan made project became an official one with 3 big names involved like Sega, M2 and Taito and also was developed with a homebrew development software; SGDK. Darius was the reason I got the Genesis Mini. It's a shame most YT channels talked barely about it, treating it just like "another space ship shooter"
I know, I felt the same way. If you Google it there's virtually nothing out there about it. This was what made me excited for the Mini!
After thirty years, the original Darius finally receives a port on the Sega Genesis, and wow. If you're a fan of the series, you really *must* try this one!
And rerez said that games like these didn't need to be on the mini genesis, COME ON!
It is interesting that this title is a fan project and was approved by Taito.
ALTMUS
Like how Street Fighter x Megaman did.
where I can get the ROM at?
This is more than just a homebrew game, it's an official licensed game.
HELL OF A CONVERSION THIS IS! As close to the arcade as you're gonna get.
Great! But this is one of the newest Genesis games ever released since a port of "Frogger" came out in 1998.
That is a Phototype of Genesis Verison of Darius is included on Genesis Mini
Imagine if this came out in 1989!? It would almost be a killer conversion, still pretty much is.
@NALTO MUSIC Only thing limiting devs for both consoles back in those days was the lack of tools that modern programmers have access to.
The standard fact Gamexplain compared Megaman Wily Wars to unrelenting new Star Fox 2 Mini rather than a newer Darius port is very cringing though.
Yeah I mentioned that in the comments of that video
According to Sega this is not a fan port but is a new port by M2.
No one will truly know, but Hidecade amazingly never posted another video after this thing was put on the Mini.
They must have used the original code, this is the only conversion that has the exact shield mechanics, even the 'bounce' off terrain with hyper shield is there. Everything appears and moves just as in the arcade version. A+ on this one.
if this were to be released back then, this would probably be considered arcade perfect ( except for the panoramic view obviously), the music is spot on
M2 had a hand in this games development, but it is unknown if they got or bought the rights to that Japanese programmers work or not. My guess is the fan's work impressed M2, and they went ahead and compensated him for his work, because he only made videos to showoff progress, he would never release a ROM for it at all (I followed development far as I could. Someone was working on a Mega Drive Gradius II arcade port as well, but have not heard anything about it in a long time.
Perfect port for Sega Genesis.
Outside of some scratchy sound effects, like when capturing the powerup orbs, it is a splendid port.
What a great homemade port.
Even though i played the original only 4 times (the cabinet was very rare to see in my country but it was rather impressive), from what I can remember this port is very reminiscent of it. Even the color palette is almost identical.
One of my favorites in the Sega Genesis Mini, though it's hard as heck.
There was one where I lived before it got closed down due to covid
Do you just keep pressing two buttons all the time?
The only knock is that the orchestra hit samples are improperly tuned, so they sound a full note higher than they should. That’s enough to ruin Chaos for me, personally.
ahh shut up fool
It doesn't sound like that normally. There's an upload of the Mega Drive version of that soundtrack where they sounded identical to the arcade game.
All of the bosses have really interesting designs, but my top two favorites are the Drio Sawm and Red Crab. I also like Red Crab's unique tactic of attempting to drop down on you.
Does this version not include the full arcade ending sequence? Actually, I'm probably just thinking of Darius II.
Of all shooting games, Darius is still my favorite of all time. I have it on my Mame emulator and on one of those arcade boards you buy where you can have Games built into it with joysticks and buttons. The only problem on the joystick module, it's compressed like this is it doesn't have the long screen like the arcade did. But on my Mame emulator, it does have long screen
Your description says “Sega’s 2019 shoot em up” lol
I have both Mega Drive from 88 and mini but obviously i prefer to play it on real hardware. Better sound and pixel perfect on crt
To be fair the port is advantaged by being into a 32mbit cart - the thought of how many better 16 bit ports we may have seen, were they cheaper in the earlier years - and by an intimate knowledge of the MD/Genesis hardware that's possible so many years after the system's shelf life. Doesn't detract from it being an exceptional work, and given the official support it has received, it's heartwarming to see there's people that cares within the publishers that are still there (not everyone is like Konami, luckily).
And you are right about the lack of coverage - I didn't even know the MD Mini had it!
Oh yeah, totally. Hindsight and modern tools can do some amazing things that would've been completely impractical back then. Imagine the pain of having to burn a ROM through a super-slow serial connector to test every single tweak made to a game's code? Ack.
I just cringe at the thought of what this would have cost if it was released this way in 1990. 32mb would've put it in Neo Geo cart size territory. I wonder how many people would've been willing to pay $150 for a Genesis cart back then when most people balked already at RPGs that were $70 or $80 :D
It's one of the reasons I love the homebrew scene and coders who still work on the old hardwares, squeeze the most out of them, or find ways to go beyond some of their limits. I think of the MSU-1 (which I came to know thanks to one of your videos), or of how only a few years ago someone found a definitive solution for the ZX Spectrum's "Color Clash" (better late than never). Not to speak of programming exercises like Titan's Overdrive 2 demo for the Genesis.
It is included on genesis mini/mega drive mini because it is a homebrew ports this is also applied to pacman vs (NES) on namco museum archive and gaplus/galaga 3 also on namco museum archive
Gaplus is actually a cancelled game for the NES that finally saw it's release recently.
Oh man, now I need a Mega Drive Mini. I read about this port in Retro Gamer magazine and it looked really impressive, I have no idea how I passed up on buying this thing especially since the legends at M2 worked on it too
the ROM was extracted from the Mini and it works fine on a real Mega Drive via an Everdrive :)
@@RWL2012 Or one could've pre-ordered a real cart, some folks are finally receiving the game they purchased, in regular and special editions.
I never thought I'd say it, but...this port is arcade perfect! It gets everything spot-on (Yeah, it doesn't use three screens. So what? It's not like the Mega Drive was made with that in mind). The music is so accurate, I can't tell any differences between the two versions
Not quite, but pretty damned close, music is ever so slightly off for some songs, while others are spot on.
Cool, so the Sega Genesis Mini came with a new official port of Darius, and it sounds and looks super close , faithful and very extremely near identical to the original game(minus the large widescreen)!😄🤩😎👌 This kinds of reminds me of when when the release of the SNES Classic Edition introduced the official release of Star Fox 2!😏
I just downloaded it on a Reddit post and It plays well on original hardware
Did my name come from this Darius game?
of course it did. was there ever any doubt?
I'm not sure that a TH-cam comment section would be a particularly reliable source of information there.
@@NintendoComplete I apologize.
This is a Pc ENgine port to Sega Genesis???? PC Engine have darius too, is very familiar to this.
They are both based on the arcade game, but afaik beyond that the PC Engine version isn't at all related to this one.
I see you used Genesis Plus GX to do the gameplay, the samples used on musics are high-pitched compared to Kega Fusion, PicoDrive, MAME and even the MD Mini itself. It was the same results when I was into the hidden Sound Test using the GenPlus GX.
Too difficult to be enjoyable. Especially while playing with Proco. Therefore don't have any credits to continue. Too bad...
I thought the same as you, but then realized I can use save states. Practice right where you left off. Then when you're ready and good enough, go for a 1cc run. This game is impressive. Don't sleep on it
The original arcade game also had no continues, so it is accurate in that aspect.
Apparently this port is based directly in the Darius' port for NEC-PC Engine CD, "Super Darius" (1990), as it contain all 26 bosses created originally for Darius (13 appeared by the first time in "Darius", 5 in "Darius II" and the rest in "Super Darius")
Also, both ports adapted the same sound effects and background music (The Genesis version needs some little improvements. Just listen to the stage F song before the boss battle and you'll see what I mean)
Also, both ports have one boss rush (in the case of "Super Darius", you need to input a secret key with the 2P controller to access it)
Too dificult from the begining, 3 lives only... and no continues?? C'mon!
This port looks fantastic.
Admittedly, it being 4MB makes me realize why we never got such great looking ports back in the day, but it's still super impressive. The visuals are well detailed and fairly close to arcade (given the hardware -- having only one screen and less colors totally does lessen the impact of the visuals) and the audio is nearly spot on. It's a lot more faithful sounding than a lot of arcade ports on the machine.
somehow this one looks less crusty and baked than its arcade counterpart and that is AMAZING for a genesis port from arcades.
I swear I remember Darius Twin getting a Genesis port back in the 90s. Maybe it was only on the SNES, I dunno.
Twin was a SNES exclusive. Are you thinking of Sagaia?
@@NintendoComplete That's probably the one.
Cool game
Man , I cant believe this is running off the Genesis Mini!! So does that mean this could've technically been released on the Genesis back in the day? Or did they use "tricks' to get it to work only on Genesis Mini? And to think I too overlooked this when I bought the Mini...Man, I gotta play this..
This would've totally been possible back in the day. I think it's all to do with the cost of producing the carts. This is 32megabit cart, which would've been pricey, even in the mid 90s. Sagaia could've been done just as well, but it used an 8megabit cart and it was still a $60 game when it came out. If you've seen Sagaia, you can see what a difference the extra memory can do for these games. But yeah, I agree with you. This is awesome. I would've happily shelled out for this cart if they'd made it way back.
my friend made me a repro and works on my original genesis and mega sg no problem.
Nick-09/11/2019.-pm.17;04.-you´re are geenius!!
Darius is legendary conversion of the arcade game classic from taito
A brilliant and excellent mega drive version
With ABSOLUTELY AWESOME graphics and STUNNING gameplay
Holy shit, the last boss is a freaking sperm whale!
NICE GAMEPLAY....JUAT GOTTA SAVE IT AND CONTINOU AND THEN KEEP ON.
Incrível
Привет из Украины! Отличный порт с хорошей графикой и динамичным геймплеем. Однако, обидно что данная игра идет не на всех системах корректно. А именно проблема со звуком. Такие же проблемы я наблюдал еще примерно в 5ти новодельных играх для Sega mega drive. Здесь много крутых и знающих геймеров - подскажите и посоветуйте где можно скачать дамп Darius Extra Version? Буду очень признателен всем кто даст какую либо информацию. В свою очередь поделюсь своими редкими дампами.
What’s the difference between Proco and Tiat?
Difficulty
king fosile got demoted from an emperor to a king and from a second stage boss to a first stage.... no respect for the king lol
I see what you did there xD
Sagaia the original for the genesis is much better than this port.
Darius ii is a better game but this port is really impressive considering it was done by one guy as a fan project. Come to think of it this port is more accurate to the arcade than Darius ii on Genesis was years ago.
This is the prequel to Darius II/Sagaia, of course D2 would have improvements over this game, that's usually how sequels work.
Lindo
The back is terrible! There is nothing!
Played this on the mini mega drive, never a fan of shooters, couldn't get past the first level, off it went and it will remain so....never understood the appeal, music was catchy, but no fun as a game, sorry