Shmup Club May 2022 - G-Darius

[MetalFRO]

In the latter half of the 90's, a transition was taking place in the shooting game world. While newcomers CAVE were still relishing the 2D gameplay pioneered in the previous decade of the genre, many mainstream developers were embracing 3D graphics to take tried and true game styles into the next phase. Of those developers, Taito in particular jumped in with both feet. They had already created RayStorm as a 3D sequel to the acclaimed 2D game RayForce, and would continue that trend with RayCrisis a couple years later. They also went in the 3D direction with the 4th mainline entry in their biggest STG series with G-Darius.

They also continued to evolve the series mechanics. They iterated on the powered beam from Metal Black and created the idea of the Alpha Beam, and coupled that with the new Capture Ball mechanic, which allows for capturing enemy fighters and using them as extra firepower, expending them as a bomb, using them to shield yourself from bullets, and more. This added a level of depth that previous entries didn't have. Add to that the atmospheric, angular soundtrack from Zuntata, and you have a winning package. And with the more recent G-Darius HD release on all major platforms, along with the 1st wide release of the Version 2 arcade board iteration, there's never been a better time to discover or rediscover this arcade classic. Join the RF Generation Shmup Club in May 2022 as we dive deep into the robo-fish infested waters of G-Darius!

Participants:
MetalFRO
Addicted
MiniConsoleMan
Corkman
FauxMacho
zoydo
douglie007

[MiniConsoleMan]

I'm in! I'll be playing the HD version on Switch!

[MetalFRO]

I'm in! I'll be playing the HD version on Switch!

Excellent! I have the Switch version and the Darius Cozmic Revelation on PS4, so I hope to do a bit of comparison between the 2. PS4 version feels very responsive and crisp, so I'm curious to hear what you think about how it plays on Switch.

[FauxMacho]

Very into this. I love the Darius series, still looking for my first 1cc. Its seems like with enough time most Darius games are pretty doable.
I have the Switch Cozmic Revelation cartridge, if the game goes on sale soon on PS5 I'd like to grab it there too.

[zoydo]

Hey guys,

ok, this month is a no-brainer for me, as G.Darius is my favourite STG. I'm in.

I don't claim to be an expert, but i've spent quite some time with the game so i can give you a few tips for scoring and survival that might be useful:

Scoring:

Needless to say you get points for everything you shoot, but here is some info about the bonuses:

- you get a bonus for every enemy formation you destroy
- you get a x2 bonus for every enemy formation you destroy by using your secondary weapon from captured enemies
- you get a x4 Bonus for every enemy formation you destroy by using your Alpha Beam
- you get a x6 Bonus for every enemy formation you destroy with the alpha beam, if you use the captured captain (midboss) to initiate your beam.
- you get a bonus for destroying the Boss using your Alpha Beam. Bonus increases when you counter the boss' beam. The more beams you  counter, the higher the bonus (double/triple/fourfould – counter). The bonus increases if you use a captured captain for the beam counter.
- you get a 100.000 pts bonus if you end the stage with a captured captain (you don't want to do that because it's very tricky to save the captain throughout the bossfight and the bonus for feeding the captain to your counterbeam usually is higher).
- After defeating the final boss you get a 1.000.000 bonus for every extend left and 300.000 for each captain you captured (so you gotta catch 'em all!)


Survival:

- the upper route might be the most approachable. (I recommend ADGMU)
- The M2 Gadgets give you information about which Power-Ups are available in the different paths of the stages. So it helps you to plan your route.
- Capture-Ball management is extremely important for both scoring and survival. Make sure you have at least one capture ball left, when you enter a bossfight. If you plan at which spots to beam and which enemies to pick up on your route, things can become a lot easier.
- Don't be fooled by the ver.2 Beginner Mode, it really is the beginner mode only for ver. 2. It has just 3 Stages but the difficulty is comparable to ver.1 Arcade (some parts are even harder than ver.1). So if you're looking for a smooth entry, go with the Beginner Mode of the PSone port.
- Power Ups eat bullets. I don't think you can use this as a strategy but it's awlays good to get rid of one or two enemy bullets. So if you can, let them float around a bit before you pick them up.
- Enemies with a golden shield are immune to your alpha beam, so it's good to know where they pop up and to avoid beaming at this spots.  (The captains also have golden shields which you need to destroy before you can capture them)

I also recommend watching Icarus' videos for ver.1 and ver.2 Lambda Route, those helped me a lot with my first clears of the game and getting better scores afterwards.

[MetalFRO]

Thank you both for jumping in! Also, very cool to find out this is your favorite STG, zoydo! Either I was previously unaware of that, or had forgotten somehow. Thank you so much for the detailed information about scoring, that's excellent to know and will come in handy for those of us at least attempting to engage in the game's scoring this month. I wasn't aware that the alpha beam doesn't affect golden shielded enemies, so that's a great tip. I generally haven't been into using the alpha beam during stages in the past, but I tried it out on stream the other night, because I know that's a common strat, especially for stage 3 in the Lambda route, because there's just so much going on.

Here's an Icarus Lambda route run on PS1, which might be the one you're referencing:


I'll have to give that a watch later, and see if I can learn the strats for Dual Horn. I have a good bit of the fight choreographed, but I think I'm still missing something in terms of the best way to deal with a couple phases.

[Golem]

I won't have time to join for this month, but I just want to say:
- This is the very best Kirby game
- You get a billion jillion bombs in this game, so don't forget to use them

[zoydo]

- This is the very best Kirby game

I love this, totally agree! xD



Here some additions to my recent post:

- you get a x3 bonus if you destroy an enemy formation by using a bomb
- every Boss has destructable parts, that give you some extra points. The M2 Gadget gives you detailed information about that for every boss
- there is an hidden extra live in stage 4 on every route.
- In Stage 5 there is an enemy that mimics an extra live (sometimes it mimics a power up or golden orb too), if you try to pick it up it transforms and attacks you with it's flame thrower



I finally found some time to play a full run today (Lambda):




Also played some VS Boss in the PSone version:

[douglie007]

I'll join

[MetalFRO]

Welcome to the Shmup Club this month, douglie!

[zoydo]

Tried some new strategies yesterday and finally passed the 20mil on lambda route. This has been kind of a longtime goal for me and i'm really glad i finally did it!

[MetalFRO]

Way to go, zoydo! That must mean a fair bit of optimization in that route, right?

[zoydo]

For my skill-level it does i guess.  

But i'd say it's kind of a first stage of optimization for that route, because there's still much room for further gains. For Example destroying all bossparts properly to get those extra points or going through more phases of the bossfights to get more opportunities for higher levels of beam counters.

Here's a replay by Erppo that shows pretty good how valuable it is to go deeper into the bossfights:

https://youtu.be/BTtyvLqHA0o


And this replay by leona_a_witch is pretty close to perfection i'd say. It's the highest scoring video for lambda-route i'm aware of. It's absolutely insane:

https://youtu.be/fI-MbPZCzHg



I played a run on omicron-route today and made it to stage 4 (died just right before the boss). Unfortunately the screenshot doesn't show the score and the game didn't save the replay (maybe because i closed the game without going back to the main menu first) so i have no clue what my score actually was. :/

[MetalFRO]

I beat it a few times the other day from a Lightning Coronatus save state I have in the Cozmic Arrival version on PS4, and with the bonuses all figured, I ended up with something like 18mil. My best 1-credit score is a little over 10mil at this point. I'm hoping with a bit of Lambda stage practice I can finally get the clear this week, and then focus on checking some of the other routes. And that's with trying to beam-duel all the bosses and get the kill that way if possible. I take the lower route on stage 2, because I find that form of the boss to be a bit easier to deal with, since the blue bullets are destructible, versus having to dodge the twin laser deals. I can do that okay, but then when the boss breaks out the huge energy orbs, I can never hold my Alpha Beam long enough to get the kill during that phase. I'm wondering if I need to concentrate on doing more damage up front so I can take it out in a beam duel.

[FauxMacho]

G-Darius is on sale for $17.99 on Playstation until June 2.
https://psdeals.net/us-st...e/game/2271281/gdarius-hd

Going to have to watch some of your videos and hit the books on all your strategies because so far I've only gotten to the stage 2 boss. I want to finish the month strong though, so let's see how much I can improve.