Darius Cozmic Collection Reviews

Martin Robinson wrote a review at Eurogamer that got me curious about the series back in March. Give his review a read, and follow its hyperlinks wherever they take you. You probably didn’t expect to be reading so much about a largely forgotten video game about shooting robot space fish. But I doubt any of us ever expected to know so much about the Tommy Westphall Universe or conspiracy theories connecting every Pixar movie to a shared universe. You don’t need to play Darius to have some aspirational knowledge about the history of games. Sometimes it’s fun to learn about something bizarre simply because learning is fun.

The early Darius games have been compiled into 2 collections spanning arcade and console releases!

My personal recommendation is the Console Collection, as the number of games and overall value feels more worthwhile, but Darius Gaiden is part of the Arcade Collection, so neither is really a bad buy. Both have various modes outside of the core games, like Time Attack and Practice Mode in certain titles, which adds some extra time to each Collection.

Now that we enjoyed some awesome Darius arcade games, let's see if their console counterparts are worth a few tubs full of quarters.

There's a lot to take in when reviewing a package like Darius Cozmic Collection and we wish that it had been released in a single version which includes all of the bonus games, but it is safe to say that this release floats somewhere between the barebone lack-of-care ports like the Psikyo ZeroDiv releases and the passionate ocean of love that are M2's ShotTrigger ports. Darius Cozmic Collection, with its save-states (though limited), replay function, controller configuration (again limited), and selection of games is ahead of the competition, although M2 has since proven it can do much better with the excellent ESP Ra.De Psi. In comparison to the robust accessibility features, extra modes, soundtracks, and overall polish seen in that game, this release does fall short to the gold standard set by its ShotTriggers brethren – but if you're a fan of shmups or have even the slightest degree of affection for Darius, this remains a recommended purchase.