The Mega Drive conversion of Darius II arcade, ambitious yet clearly cut down compared to the original. Pleasant for fans, frustrating for purists.
Your verdict
Category
Shooter1 player7+
Description
Two-player simultaneous Silver Hawk ships battle zoomorphic bosses in this Taito Darius II. Published by Taito, released in Japan in March 1990. Two-simultaneous-player horizontal shoot'em up, giant zoomorphic bosses and multiple level branches.
Darius II review
4/5
Art direction
★★★★★
"Striking"
4/5
Music
★★★★★
"Excellent"
1/5
Story
★★★★★
"Anecdotal"
Taito builds its bestiary from fish and crustaceans turned into war machines: armoured whale, plated ray, mechanical shrimp with visible joints. Sea and space backgrounds alternate depending on the branch taken, and the bosses take a disproportionate place that dwarfs the player's ship.
The themes signed by the Zuntata collective refuse fanfare in favour of murkier moods, between slow pads and industrial rhythms. Some pieces let synthetic voices and water sounds through, extending the marine imagination of the scenery into sound. Writing recognisable among all others in the genre.
Complete: box, manual and disc/cart very clean. Lightly handled.
Q1 damagedQ6 completeQ10 new
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Collector interest
Mega Drive conversion of Taito's Darius II, a horizontal shoot'em up with famed zoomorphic bosses, here in its Japanese edition. Its collector interest comes from the combination of a prestigious arcade licence and a necessarily trimmed home adaptation that saga fans want to own in its original form. The Japanese print and the lasting aura of the Darius series among shmup fans sustain steady demand for this cut on the console.
