ARCADE FIRE
THERE’S a fabulous serving of retro goodness for shmup (shoot ‘em up) fans this week, with the release of Darius Cozmic Collection. Darius first appeared in 1986 – its arcade cabinet featuring a unique three-screen set-up for cinemascopic gaming, which 80s gamers had never seen – and a soundtrack like nothing heard before.
It also introduced branching to the genre, with players being able to choose which ‘zone’ they entered next – with 28 to explore, but only seven playable in a single run.
The arcade cabinet, while a real thing of beauty, was a beast of a machine space-wise, thus they were very rarely spotted in UK arcades.
And when the series finally came to the West, it failed to make much of an impact – something I’ve never really understood.
Now gamers have a chance to rediscover this side-scrolling classic, as Darius Cozmic Collections arrive on the PlayStation and Switch.
There are two collections to
DARIUS COZMIC COLLECTIONS
PS4, Switch (PEGI 6) choose from, one which includes a number of the series’ arcade releases, and the other which bundles up all the ports and sequels which had home console releases.
Brace yourselves, because it’s not cheap – with the console collection coming in at £47.99.
That being said, it does also include the most games – nine in total – including the super-rare Darius Alpha, which was released as a sweepstakes giveaway and was limited to only 800 copies, some of which are selling now for an eye-watering £3k.
First play though, and I’d forgotten just how fast the action is – and quite how fish-heavy the games are.
The map looks incredibly wide but narrow on the TV, making things a little difficult to see... but then, my poor old eyes are not what they used to be. Even so, that beautifully wide vista lulls you into the belief that you have lots of space to move around. But navigating rocky outcrops, and dodging enemies at speed, saw me wiping out more often than not to begin with.
For a game that’s nearly 35 years old, the non-linear level design makes it feel very modern, and more importantly, gives it hours and hours of replayability.
There are settings you can alter to make life easier for yourself, like changing the frequency of extra life drops, and enabling rapid fire.
No matter what you do, these games are still challenging, but in a great way.
Whichever title you choose, it’s basically the same game, with a few tweaks here and there. It’s lucky then that they are all great fun to play.
The reasons for two collections are not very clear, combining the arcade and the console games would have made this a must have title for any serious shmup fan, instead of forcing them to choose. And they’re a little light on extras to be charging so much.
That being said, it’s wonderful to finally see the Darius series getting some love on modern consoles.
The games have not been easy to come by, and each collection does a great job of preserving these titles and introducing them to a whole new generation of gamers.
£47.99 from store. playstation.com/