Darius Gaiden

About Darius Gaiden

Darius Gaiden (1994) is Taito's acclaimed horizontal shooter for its F3 System, in which the Silver Hawk battles the aquatic machines of the Belsar empire across branching stages, with black hole bombs.

Darius Gaiden in Depth

The Silver Hawk sets out to destroy the Belsar empire, which plans to wipe out the remnants of humanity on their new home, planet Darius; a second player can join at any time. After each stage players choose the next, so seven of its twenty-seven stages are played in one run. The ship must destroy constantly moving formations of enemies shaped like fish, crabs, seahorses and other sea creatures while dodging their fire and obstacles, and each level ends with a boss that must be hit in a weak spot such as its head or mouth.

The Silver Hawk starts with a forward shot; coloured emblems dropped by matching enemies add missiles (green), lengthen and strengthen shots (red) or give a shield (blue), and further emblems upgrade them, for example to missiles that fire forwards and backwards. New to the series are three black hole bombs, which open a swirling vortex that sucks in enemies and bullets before lightning deals massive damage, and the ability to capture mid-level bosses. Designer Hirokazu Kato insisted on dropping the earlier games' three-monitor display, feeling it had grown old, and the team focused on making it fun and unlike any other shooter.

Making Darius Gaiden

Taito developed and published it for arcades in 1994 as the fifth Darius game, led by producer Hidehiro Fujiwara with designer Hirokazu Kato and programmer Akira Kurabayashi; Taito wanted big-name franchises on its new F3 board. It was critically acclaimed and commercially successful, and home versions for Saturn and PlayStation were well received, though some found its music bizarre. It is ranked among the greatest side-scrolling shooters and was followed by G-Darius in 1997.