G-Darius

About G-Darius

G-Darius (1997) is Taito's fourth arcade Darius game and the first in 3D polygons, a branching horizontal shooter in which the Silver Hawk captures enemies and fights bosses in laser beam duels.

G-Darius in Depth

Though drawn in 3D polygons, it plays in two dimensions. The Silver Hawk is armed with forward missiles, small bombs and a force field, upgraded by large orbs dropped by specially coloured enemies. Each zone ends in a boss, after which the player picks the next zone along a branching path; there are 15 in all, lettered alpha to omicron, and five in a row lead to one of five endings, with two alternative routes halfway through each level as well. The "capture ball" seizes an enemy, which then follows and helps the ship as an extra turret or shield, can be detonated as a bomb, or can be absorbed for a special ability.

Absorbing a captured enemy fires a powerful laser beam for a short time, new to the series, and every major boss has its own. If both fire at once, a beam duel begins, and the player must hammer the fire button to overpower the boss's beam, which then dissipates as the player's grows in size and power and can devastate the boss; countering several boss beams multiplies it up to four times. A prequel, its story pits the people of Amnelia against the Thiima, biomechanical guardians awakened when Amnelia used the weapon A.N. to annihilate the world Blazer.

Making G-Darius

Taito released G-Darius in arcades in 1997, and Game Machine listed it as Japan's fourth most successful arcade game in its 15 August 1997 issue, though it had fallen to tenth by 1 November. The PlayStation version followed on 9 April 1998 in Japan and that September in Europe and the US. It received favourable reviews according to GameRankings, Famitsu gave it 29 out of 40, and Next Generation said it was "fun for those fogies who can stomach it, but the average gamer will be bored to death". The arcade original was later included in Taito Legends 2 for the PlayStation 2, and a Windows version based on the PlayStation port was published in 2000 and 2001. A 2021 release for Switch and PlayStation 4 included a new HD version and was sold physically in Japan in the Darius Cozmic Revelation compilation, and G-Darius HD reached Steam in March 2022.