Release Date: 3/29/91 (JP)/ Nov. 1991 (U.S)
Developer: Taito Corporation
Publisher: Taito Corporation
This game, when I originally blogged about it, was the first game to make me throw my controller in rage. I swear I am not a twelve year old boy; this game was just very frustrating and difficult. I found it more infuriating that Gradius III.
Background
Darius Twin was the latest in Taito's Darius series, a shoot-em-up series unique for the fact that you are a spaceship fighting giant fish-spaceships. You heard me correctly, every enemy in this game is based off of some undersea creature from squids...
The series itself has a good bit of history to it. It is Taito's original shooting series developed by Junji Arita and Akira Fujita. The original design and Darius' claim to fame as a series was to add end bosses to each of the levels, designed around huge and visually striking enemy spaceships. Each of these bosses was lovingly designed by Fujita, who had a love of undersea creatures. The music was composed and arranged by Taito's in-house band, Zuntata. The first was released in 1987 and was a big hit in the arcades, boasting over 25 levels. The second game was Sylvalion, released in 1988, and then Darius II in 1989. Each of those games would receive ports to the PC-Engine and other platforms much later down the line. Darius Twin, though, was developed solely for the SNES, which was really rare for schmups back in the day.
Story
The story is pretty simple (as it is with every game at this point in the Super Famicom's life; the artful stories will come soon though): having beaten the Belser Empire in Darius II, the two pilots from the first game realized that the Empire had extended farther than previously thought, and the pilots return to find their homeworld of Orga under attack once again. The pilots then have to push the enemy back, planet by planet (Star Fox 64 style) until they take the fight back to the Belser Empire's home base.
Gameplay
The game is definitely NOT easy but, unlike Gradius III, it is difficult in a rather unfair way. You see, at least Gradius was difficult to the point where if you messed up, it was purely your fault. Gradius gives you the opportunity to increase your speed, decrease your hit box, etc. Darius Twin, though, leaves you with a very large, and slow, ship in a very small level. Literally all the enemy sprites take up a good portion of the screen, and it makes them very difficult to dodge.
This means that it doesn't take skill to beat Darius Twin, but rather rote memorization of where your threats are coming from. Enemies will literally swarm you from the top and bottom of the screen, being impossible to dodge at some points unless you knew where they were coming from. That is not fun, that is annoying.
The game, as well, only gives you a set amount of lives with no continues, so once you lose all your lives, that's it, you have to start the game over. If you can't tell from the level select picture, it is a rather long game as well. This means that Darius Twin demands that you memorize all these levels in order to win.
There are some nice things about the game, though, like the fact that you keep all your power-ups if you do die, and you continue right from the point where you died. Those were both things that were denied to you in Gradius III. As well, you do get the same insane power-ups that allow you to flood the screen with bullets and bombs in every direction, and unlike Gradius, you can just hold down the buttons this time and not have to continuously press the fire button. My thumbs were quite relieved by this.
The bosses are one of the better parts of the game. You get those nice dramatic "WARNING" signs when one of them is about to arrive, and they are all usually based off of some crazy sea creature.
What about them tasty SNES licks?
The music in this game is rather forgettable. As one reviewer stated, is has a very elevator music quality to it. Nothing really to put on your iPod. It seems to feature that faux-electric guitar, which gets really tinny and annoying as it tries to imitate shredding. Here are some samples to whet your SNES palette.I found this...
And this...
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7068cs
Sorry this was not on youtube. It is the Japanese commercial.
Final Verdict
Coming back to this blog, I FINALLY beat Darius Twin. Oh I cheated my ass off with an emulator and some online Game Genie codes, but I still beat it.
But if you are a die-hard Shoot-em-up fan, it is definitely worth checking out. You may get a kick out of it. I have to say, I certainly did enjoy the aquatic enemies, as they were really well thought out in design.You can pick up this game on Amazon or ebay for around $5-10 dollars.
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