Director(s) Toshio Kohno Initial release date February 1987 Developer Taito | Producer(s) Toshio Kohno Series Darius Genre Shoot 'em up | |
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Designer(s) Toshio Kohno
Akira Fujita
Kazuya Mikata Programmer(s) List
Ken Hasegawa
Takashi Kurihara
Hideaki Komioka
Tohru Sugawara
Hidenori Sasatani
Hideki Hashimoto Artist(s) List
Tetsuroh Kitagawa
Yoshihiro Wakita
Junji Yarita
Yukio Ishikawa
Kozoh Igarashi
Genya Kuriki
Taira Sanuki
Mitsuru Ogawa Composer(s) Yasuhiko Tanaka
Hisayoshi Ogura
Naoto Yagishita
Tsukasa Nakamura
Eikichi Takahashi
Masahiko Takaki Platforms Arcade game, PlayStation 4, TurboGrafx-16, Wii Publishers Taito, NEC, Edge Games, NEC Avenue, Ltd. Similar Darius games, Taito games, Shoot 'em up games | ||
Darius (ダライアス, Daraiasu) is a shoot 'em up arcade game released by Taito in February 1987, even though its title screen mistakenly informs about a 1986 release. It is the first game in the Darius series. It is known for using a unique three-screen arcade cabinet setup, non-linear level design and multiple endings.
Contents
A port by Softek and The Edge was released for the Amiga and Atari ST titled Darius+. An expanded port by Bits Laboratory and NEC was released for the PC Engine's Super CD-ROM² titled Super Darius (スーパーダライアス, Sūpā Daraiasu). Another expanded port was made for the PC Engine itself, titled Darius Plus (ダライアス・プラス, Daraiasu Purasu), which is similar to the Amiga and Atari ST title. A boss rush version of Darius Plus was released under the name Darius Alpha (ダライアス・アルファ, Daraiasu Arufa). In August 2016 the original arcade version was re-released for PS4 in Japan and other Asian PS-Store's, the port was made by Hamster Corporation and is part of the Arcade Archives on PS4.
Gameplay
Darius is a two-dimensional horizontally scrolling shoot 'em up set in a fictional future. Uniquely among shoot 'em ups, the game's screen is three times wider than conventional size, and the arcade cabinet uses an arrangement of three screens to accommodate it. The player controls an ornate fighter spacecraft, named the Silver Hawk, and must navigate through scrolling terrain while battling a variety of fighter craft, ground vehicles, turrets, and other obstacles throughout the game's stages (referred to as zones in the game). The ship's arsenal consists of forward-firing missiles, aerial bombs and a protective force field, all of which can be upgraded by power-ups (in the form of large, colored orbs) that are dropped by specially-colored enemies throughout the game's zones. When the player reaches the end of a zone, a boss appears, which must be defeated to proceed. Once the boss of a zone is destroyed, the player is given a choice of which zone to play next via a branching path. While there are 28 zones in total, only seven can be played in a single run.
Development and release
The arcade game features raster graphics on three CRT monitors and amplified stereophonic sound. In order to seamlessly connect the three screens together, two of the monitors, which display the first and last thirds of the game's screen, respectively, are placed in the bottom of the cabinet facing upwards, with their visuals reflected into view via a one-way mirror. The third monitor, which displays the middle portion of the game's screen, is placed behind the mirror and is the only one actually facing the player. The reflection of the two bottom monitors partially overlaps the third monitor, giving the illusion of a seamless wide screen.
The game's soundtrack was composed by Hisayoshi Ogura, the founding member of Taito's in-house music division Zuntata. Ogura composed the music with the concept of, "a large existence," that being the large bosses in the game and the expansiveness of the universe. The game's main theme, titled "Chaos", is notable for being one of the earliest examples of avant-garde in video game music. Ogura recalled,
The first stage's theme, called "Captain Neo", is a reworked version of a song from an earlier arcade game by Taito, Metal Soldier Isaac II. When a prototype of Darius was exhibited at a trade show, the song was used as a temporary placeholder. However, upon hearing the song at the trade show, Ogura liked it and decided to keep it: "I was surprised by its overwhelming power, so much that I could feel it in my bones."
The musical score saw its first commercial release on CD, vinyl and cassette tape on June 25, 1987 by Alfa Records through their video-game music-centric imprint G.M.O. Records.
The iOS, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 game Space Invaders Infinity Gene, also by Taito, includes an upgrade option to the same craft used in Darius, and has some of the same enemies. Darius R, a remake of the first Darius game with some different tunes and a fewer number of stages, was released for the Game Boy Advance in 2002.