Darius Alpha (Playstation 4)

Horizontal
Checkpoints OFF
1 Difficulty level
16 Stages
Ship speed fixed
- - - - - - -
Developed by Taito / M2
Published by Strictly Limited Games in 2020

Those who've been around long enough certainly know at least a little about the Taito long-running franchise where you fight all sorts of marine creatures in outer space. Besides several impressive arcade titles, in the good old days Taito was also very keen on delivering ports and even original games to home consoles. One way to know some of the best of them is by getting hold of the Darius Cozmic Collection Console, a compilation released for the Playstation 4 (and the Nintendo Switch) that packs six console classics and some variations thrown in for good measure. Of all the included games, however, the one that most people will certainly be more curious about is Darius Alpha.

A promotional version of Darius Plus released in 1990 for the PC Engine, Darius Alpha was a mail-order exclusive, obtainable only by sending in a pair of coupons found in the manuals of Super Darius and Darius Plus. Only 800 copies of the HuCard were produced, making it one of the rarest and most expensive HuCards ever made. Sure you could resort to emulation, but what about experiencing the game in full glory as ported by the nice fellows from M2? For those who value the idea of playing it on a real console, it sounds irresistible.

Considering both Darius Plus and Darius Alpha are included in this compilation, it's only natural to play the former and then Alpha, which works as an arrange version of sorts. That's what I'd recommend you to do if you haven't been exposed to the HuCard games yet, after all Darius Alpha is a boss rush where you fight all 16 bosses from Darius Plus in succession.

Is Tough Spring perhaps the 2nd degree cousin of My Home Daddy?

Although devoid of much animation, all bosses are quite large and menacing, often moving all over the screen as they try to hit you with all sorts of attacks, from bullets to lasers and even homing fireballs. Most of them can be beaten with simple strategies, but some do require precise positioning and dodging so that you can successfully avoid damage. By default, button × fires the main shot/missiles, ○ drops bombs and either □ or ∆ provide rapid shot for both inputs at the same time. Power-ups are granted automatically after each boss fight, making all three weapons (missile/shot, bombs and shield) evolve equally. Provided you don't die, the first form of shot (missile) is used against three bosses, the laser is used against seven of them and with wave shot you get to face the six final creatures. Dying strips you off all power-ups in the current upgrade level, which can be aggravating at whatever stage you are. There are no extends and no continues.

Visually and musically the game owes a lot to Darius Plus, which in turn did a decent job in adapting Darius to the home format of the PC Engine. Backgrounds consist only of that otherworldly cloud formation shifting colors as stages unfold, and the music changes as per the original main game. However, for a glorified arrange mode exclusively built upon bosses, it's just a bit disappointing that you don't get to see the names of those giant creatures prior to the fight, just like in future chapters of the franchise. Extra points are obtained by destroying some of their parts (fins, tails, arms), as well as by prolonging the fight so that those spinning timeout cubes start appearing. It's a very risky strategy though, simply because in Darius Alpha these cubes are (or at least seem to be) much more aggressive.

Playing Darius Alpha on the Playstation 4 has some minor advantages over the original HuCard. It looks great since in default conditions the game runs in Supergrafx-compatible mode, which supposedly makes colors more vivid and eliminates the occurrence of sprite flicker (not that much of a problem in the original game actually). There isn't much in the way of those fine gadgets that became the trademark of M2, but they at least included a vertical indicator named "boss navigator" that shows your progress as you beat game bosses in succession.

Release trailer for Darius Cozmic Collection Console
(courtesy of YouTube user and digital publisher ININ GAMES)

The interface for the game selection screen in Darius Cozmic Collection Console is top notch, providing valuable information on all included games in the English language. In the case of Darius Alpha three extra modes exist besides the Normal game (in Normal mode button L1 initiates the 4-minute time trial mode, serving as the SELECT button from the PC Engine original). Both the normal and time trial courses, in addition to an extra full game time attack mode, can also be played separately if you wish to get your best results into the online leaderboards. For these it's also possible to save and upload your game replay, as well as download any replay available on the leaderboards. In-game functions can always be accessed by pressing either R2 or L2.

My time revisiting Darius Alpha was short but intense. I hammered the game for one evening until I got the clear with the end result below, defeating final boss Cuttle Fish in my very last life. It was great and straight-to-the-point fun, the kind that never gets old no matter how old we get (or feel). 

Takotan (Playstation 4)

Horizontal
Checkpoints OFF/ON
2 Difficulty levels
8 Stages
Ship speed fixed
- - - - - - -
Developed by Joseph Calabro
Published by Red Art Games in 2021

Dear fellow shmuppers, especially those who are fond of everything Parodius or Gradius, beware. This game is a trap. Down to the game's name, on the outside everything about it screams Takosuke the Octopus, a major character in the long-running comedic franchise created by Konami. I actually wonder how the devs could actually pull off a stunt like this, but considering the Konami of today couldn't care less about its IPs it's no wonder such aberrations are allowed to exist. Suffice it to say that apart from the visual similarities there is absolutely nothing here that serves as a throwback to Parodius or poor Takosuke.

Takotan hit the gaming scene in several platforms at around the same time, and considering it was even released for the long dead PS Vita my guess is that it was actually developed from the ground up for this particular system. All other versions then probably followed. Also released as Octonaut in some other platforms, it's a simplistic widescreen cute'em up where the main character is a golden octopus on a mission to save planet Earth from an alien invasion. The opening animation hints at the fact that Takotan/Octonaut is actually a kaiju, much like similar humongous creatures such as Godzilla or Mothra.

Given its relatively friendly visuals, it's astonishing how little fun you can have with this game. You shoot with button × and activate the last collected weapon with button □, while also having the ability to dodge by quickly retreating to the background with button ○. A new stage always starts with 1.000 points of health/shield, allowing players to take lots — and I mean lots — of damage before dying. The game practically doesn't want you to die, but if by any chance you happen to bite the dust Takotan will be respawned at the start of the level or the start of the boss fight.

Release trailer for Takotan on the Playstation 4
(courtesy of YouTube user and publisher RED ART GAMES)

On top of granting a huge amount of shield energy, Takotan also gives you health refills every now and then in between weapon items. Unfortunately, of all 12 weapons available only the 3-way shot (scatter) is actually useful. All other weapons are either stupidly cumbersome or just underpowered to the point you can't even destroy a single turret, and with no power-ups in sight it's just foolish to relinquish 3-way. Not even the "invincible" item is worth a damn since it prohibits you from shooting while denying any damaging power whatsoever. Finally, as if dying wasn't such a hard thing to do, you can also run into extra lives to prolong the agony.

But hey! Do you feel the need to lose even less health? Just turn Assist to ON at the start screen and off you go!

Anyway, the remainder of the items that appear from destroyed waves and enemies are crystals, which as they get hit increase in value from 100 to 500 while shifting colors from green to yellow, red, pink, pinkier and then back to green. Naturally, crystals are one of the main sources of extra points. The other scoring device consists of destroying enemies in succession to make the score multiplier increase up to a maximum of ×10. The problem with this mechanic is that most of the time it's impossible to sustain the maximum multiplier simply because the game has too many empty sections. Some stages are pretty much just obstacle fields devised to make use of the background dodging maneuver.

In a nutshell, the gameplay in Takotan is a catastrophe of wrong choices all over. It severely lacks any sense of balance in weapons, stage design or scoring. What was supposed to be simple and easygoing is just incredibly boring, with zero potential for a minimum sense of drive or excitement. When will devs realize that cute design and decently drawn sprites for bosses aren't enough to make a game? Let alone one that blatantly steals and dillutes ideas without any sort of expansion whatsoever? Sorry, but the background dodging thing doesn't cut it.

The boss from stage 5 (The Outpost)

The irregular duration of levels is also a noteworthy aspect of why the game seems a real chore to play. The 4th stage, titled "the stars", seems to take forever to complete, and depending on which weapon you have boss fights might drag even more than they normally do. On the other side of the torture spectrum, a special mode called Panic gives you only a 1-hit shield and instant death afterwards, in a harder setting of sorts that's nigh impossible due to the idiotic way weapons are implemented. Finally, in Custom mode you can adjust everything you want about the gameplay, such as fixing weapons, eliminating weapon choices, selecting stages, etc.

In trying to get more information to share with you fine readers I ended up beating the game one more time, as you can see from the leaderboard table below. If you want to do the same, i.e. have your name immortalized in this mighty colorful screen, be warned you'll have to endure the game to the end since it's impossible to input your initials unless you do so. Oh yes, just like in any other hobby suffering is sometimes inescapable. The good news is that life goes on and there are lots of games around the corner waiting to provide much more fun than things of this sorry caliber.