RF Generation Message Board

In 1987, Taito released Darius in the arcades, and pioneered the shooting game genre's first multi-screen game, setting up a horizontally scrolling shooter that spanned three arcade monitors. Two years later, the sequel, Darius II slimmed down the configuration somewhat, employing only two monitors. These games not only included multiple monitors, but were also very recognizable due to their excellent soundtracks, vibrant graphics, and the iconic aquatic theme of the bosses in the game. They also introduced the idea of branching paths to the shooter landscape, giving the games more replayability, and some degree of variable difficulty. In 1991, Taito shifted the focus from the arcade to the home console, with the release of Darius Twin in 1991, on Nintendo's Super Famicom. Coming just at the end of the launch window for North American consumers, it was an obvious choice for early adopters of the Super Nintendo who were still craving arcade action at home.

A thousand years ago, legendary pilots Proco and Tiat repelled the Belser forces from the planet Darius, bringing peace to their world. In the centuries since, their descendants colonized other planets in the galaxy, including the resource-rich world of Orga. They established a galactic federation, based on this planet, that would govern peaceful colonies across the galaxy. However, the Belser forces decided to expand their empire, and once again set out to conquer the galaxy. The Federation has enlisted its two best pilots to meet the Belser threat head on. Jump in the cockpit of your Silver Hawk, and join the RF Generation Shmup Club as we blast off in October 2020, and play Darius Twin!

Participants:
MetalFRO
Addicted
douglie007
Cork
dtungsten
FauxMacho
GravyBread

When posting screenshots of score, please also mention which stage route you took! It will be interesting to see if a particular route is better for scoring.

I'll try and get a score or 2.  I like the Darius games.

Excellent! Welcome to the Darius Force :D

Hi all, I'll be joining this month and playing on the SNES.

I never really took a Darius game seriously and really tried to play it for score or a game clear. So this will be good to give it a try!

Time to blow up some mechanical fish!  :guncannon: :guncannon: :guncannon:

Welcome aboard!

Originally i intended to take this month off, but i just couldn't skip the first Darius game in the shmup club.

Haven't played Darius Twin for a while (and not tooo much at all), so i played some credits over the last three days to get a feeling for the game again.

Today i managed to get a clear on ACDEGJL route (Normal).
This came by surprise and was my very first clear of the game.

[img width=500 height=281]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50404214453_0e63a17a1f.jpg[/img]

The first two stages can be a pain in the a, but the game becomes more fun, the more you power up.

Yes! Literally just picked this game up a few months back and I am so glad it made the list!

Great stuff already, zoydo! I'll be curious to see how many routes you can conquer through the course of the month :D


Yeah, it was time for us to finally get a Darius game in here, and since this one is relatively common, plus included on the Darius Cozmic Collection console release, as zoydo shows above, the timing was right.

I managed to get to stage 4 this evening, and broke over a half million points, so that's a good start, at least! I'm starting with the top path, just to get my feet wet. Been years since I played this one seriously.

Count me in!

34,500 on SNES version on MiSTer. Woo! I blew up the angelfish! This is game is crazy hard.

203,500! Much better!

569,400! These are on the default settings, BTW.

Man, great progress already!

Good job so far everyone!

I just realized this game was published by Mattel according to MetalFRO's picture there. Huh??? Are there different versions of the box? I don't see other boxes like that.

Good Job, guys! :)

Not a new PB but i got another clear yesterday, this time on ACDEHJL route (#2).
Also could progress the lower route (ACDFIKL) up to L-Zone. Even could defeat "Hyper Greatthing", but died on that stupid crab-midboss in L-zone (#3).

[img width=500 height=281]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50416291986_32cd002354.jpg[/img]

Got the clear on the ACDFIKL route today. But still not a new PB.

https://youtu.be/xhdNJ0ccMGk

Awesome work, zoydo! I suspect before the end of the month, we'll see a new PB, as well as you completing all the routes ;D

That was just the cleanest box art I could find. Mattel handled publishing for the game in Australia, though Taito self-published it in North America, and presumably, in Japan.

New PB, and I got farther this evening!

I managed to up my score a bit, and hit the boss rush! There's some definite boss cheesing you can do in a few places, including the boss rush, so be aware that some of the bosses can be beaten quite easily with smart positioning.

* Zone A boss, you just need to avoid that initial straight bullet of the 3 spread, then stay centered with the boss and keep firing, and repeat when it shoots the 2nd spread of 3.
* Zone B, concentrate on the Fossil Queen (pink fish), and when she stops firing, move around her bullets up to the top of the screen, and you should be able to get the Fossil King (green fish) with your diagonal lasers.
* Zone C, stay low, and as soon as the boss fires its pincer at you, move up, and fire at its eye. When it retracts the claw, move forward and down, to avoid the bullet spread, and use your diagonal weapon to do damage. Rinse and repeat.
* Zone E, the "lobster" boss, you can literally stay at the top of the screen, and your your diagonal weapon to shoot its head. You just need to avoid the claws it throws at you, which you should be able to destroy after 2 or 3 volleys, then just stay up top near the center and keep blasting until it goes down.
* Zone G, the turtle boss, you can stay at the top, and just move back and forth to avoid running into the smaller turtles, and use your diagonal weapon to shoot at its head, while also fending off the small turtles that way. And while you're cheesing that boss, you'll milk some additional score out of that boss, as you're taking out the small turtles.

Here's my personal best. I'm doing the upper route. No clear yet. Got completely obliterated by the mini boss rush a couple of times. Need to practice that.

@MetalFro, I got you by only 5900 points, ha!  I bet you will pass that on your next runs so I'll have to keep at it!

Haha, that's hilarious! I'm hoping to jump back in this evening for a stream, so I'm hopeful I can find a groove and get the top path 1CC :)

Started to get a bit into scoring yesterday.

As MEtalFro already mentioned you can milk some of the bosses. The Turtle - Boss seems to be the most efficient.
I tried milking the coronatus boss too, but it's not worth the effort i think.

You can also milk the Super Alloy Lantern Boss in L-Zone during it's final phase, when he shoots the little piranhas at you.

[img width=500 height=375]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50468503798_e8efd52293.jpg[/img]

Great score, zoydo! I haven't managed to clear it yet, due to that dumb crab mini-boss, and that final zone just gives me a bit of trouble. I'm very close, though.

@MetalFro: thank you. Keep pushing! The crab miniboss seems to be the worst  enemy in the game...i die at least one time at one of them, either in stage 4 or in the final zone. :D

btw. I did some experimenting with the final zone today. I wanted to know if it pays off to shoot the minibosses (or at least some of them) instead of hiding in the upper right corner.
But the more enemies you shoot, the more appear. I stacked up two crabs and a shark at once today, which is kind of nightmarish (the shark miniboss doesn't even appear when you use the safe spot). To me it just seems impossible to get a proper way to this zone without using the safe spot. If i tried to find a route or strategy some enemy crashed into me, coming out of nowhere. It just seems totally random (even though i know nothing in shmups is random) and it's nearly impossible to find a rhythm. Anyhow the score you get by shooting the enemies doesn't seem to be worth the effort.

My apologies that I haven't posted, but I've been playing.
I've enjoyed steady improvement, and I've reached the last stage boss rush, but I fear it will be a wall for me for a while.
2,767,800 is my best for now.

I played a lot of the original arcade Darius last year, and I like the iterative improvements that this console sequel (?) has: mostly that there's no power down punishment for death, but the bosses are a bit more fun too.

Great score, FauxMacho! That boss rush is quite a pain, for sure. Remember, you can sit at the very top or very bottom of the screen to avoid the angelfish wave attacks, and then move around when necessary, to avoid other enemies. I haven't quite managed to get the clear yet, either, but I'm confident I can pull it out before the end of the month!

That last level boss rush is brutal!

But, I finally cleared it and the whole game! ;D 

ABDEGJL upper route. The boss rush is much harder than the last boss.

Interestingly, my score isn't as good as my previous score. How many points do you get with that weapon downgrade in Zone J?

Going to try the lower routes now.

Very nice! I'm not sure about the weapon change power-up, and how many points it offers, I haven't watched the score. I might have to check last night's run, and see if that shows. But that's probably not a big enough gain to make a huge difference. I've found that milking points from destructible boss projectiles helps, as is making sure you're taking out every last popcorn enemy. The more aggressive you are, it seems like there are extra enemy waves that you can have the game spawn, which gives you even more opportunity to score points. So it seems like every stage has between 1 & 3 additional enemy waves you can potentially spawn, if you take stuff out quickly. That's been my observation, at least. As you know, that stupid crab miniboss is still the thorn in my side, but I'm close!

I promise I plan on playing some this month, but my sd2snes died.  So I have to go through my snes games, they are not in order and I haven't had time to search the pile.

Sorry to hear about your sd2snes, that's a bummer. If you do manage to find the cart, let us know.

Oh, that makes sense. I was unknowingly milking the bosses because I didn't have a good strategy against them in the earlier runs. I know I killed a lot of those little turtles on that turtle boss. I also didn't kill the seahorse boss really quick either.

I finally managed to get the top-path 1CC!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GQ0_SB5nLs

Found it and got some scores. Best I could do today.[img width=700 height=393]https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20201027/c5c00a39fa308cb1665422b7a5e0fe12.jpg[/img]

Nice! The main thing with this game is memorizing enemy waves, so you can anticipate where to be on screen, and be able to not get run into by enemies. There's not much in the way of bullets from most things, so learning the various waves and formations will go a long way to allowing you to progress quickly.

I made a save state on the PS4 version just prior to Zone H, so I could do some practicing. There's no sure fire way (that I've found so far) to cheese out the boss in Zone H, so between that being the hardest level in the game, that boss is also a bit tricky. It requires WAY more dexterity and quick response than anything the game throws at you before that. Not sure I'll get another clear with H before the end of the month, but for those looking for a challenge in the game, definitely execute a path with H in the mix.

@MetalFRO: Good job, congrats on the clear! :)

First time braking a million! Trying to get them memorization down, but no save states to practice. I'm very happy with that score.[img width=700 height=393]https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20201031/1c0ae48ae4efd2f4cf95e6e4ac764038.jpg[/img]

Excellent score, douglie! 1 million is probably the first big hurdle in the game, followed by about the middle zone, due to the crab mini-boss. Great job, sir!

Anyone have any final thoughts they want to add, as we close out the month with this game?