by Omar (@siegarettes)

• DoDonPachi, Deathsmiles, Ketsui add-ons for Dariusburst
  
• Developer- Pyramid, Chara-Ani
  
• Publisher- Degica
  
• Steam, PS4

Not content with simply remixing its parent series, Dariusburst has been consistently expanding and branching out into others with its impressive suite of DLC. While some like the Taito pack already made sense given its heritage, the SEGA and now CAVE were a little more unexpected given the format of their original games. This round of DLC includes appearances from DoDonPachi, Deathsmiles, and Ketsui. While Deathsmiles already followed a similar horizontal format, It’s a bit strange to see DoDonPachi and Ketsui running sideways. Despite that, the DLC adapts the mechanics of those games faithfully.

It might be a bit too faithful at times, if anything. While DoDonPachi’s bullet and laser cancelling Hyper Mode make an easy enough transition, the other two have their own suite of shortcomings. Deathsmiles makes cover character Windia playable, and while her abilities translate easily to Dariusburst it comes with one of the worst aesthetic mismatches so far. This is especially evident with the return of Deathsmiles’ scoring system, which has you collect skulls and crowns from enemies to build up score and power. The crowns and skulls feel even more absurd accumulating at the bottom of the screen than in the Fantasy Zone DLC, and the gothic aesthetics fail to even play off the more absurd elements of the Darius series. The power up mode falls flat here as well, with its short length and demanding conditions making it less useful as a supplementary tool. It means you rely almost exclusively on positioning your familiar to get you through situations. The sparse level design of Darius makes this much less interesting than in Deathsmiles, however, and combined with an inability to counter boss weapons it makes the Deathsmiles DLC feel ill suited.

Ketsui shares some of these flaws, namely the inability to counter bosses, but it goes a long way towards making up for this with its addition of a homing shot and medal system. The homing shot allows you more maneuverability while allowing you to still inflict damage, and the medals that appear when you destroy enemies still remains one of the most satisfying feedback mechanisms in the genre. In worked well in DoDonPachi Resurrection, and it works well again here, even if it is a bit mismatched. It goes a long way towards translating Ketsui’s aggressive design and makes your ship feel powerful, even without a screen spanning laser beam.

Of the three, DoDonPachi makes the easiest transition. As mentioned before, this DLC brings over the Hyper Beam from DoDonPachi resurrection, which means you’ll have to wrack up those kills to build meter, which can then be used to enter a powered up state. Unlike other ships, the Deltasword always has access to a beam weapon. This gives it a greater reach than other ships, though after playing so long with the beam mechanics of Dariusburst you’ll have to keep in mind that it doesn’t counter lasers or weaponfire. To do that you’ll have to enter Hyper Mode, where hitting enemy fire with a matching beam or rapid fire will then cancel it out. Mechanically, it’s the most straightforward of the trio, but it’s also the least exciting. Maybe its my apathy for the source material, but the DoDonPachi series and its mechanics never really captured my interest, and having them here alongside more interesting games doesn’t do much to change that. 

It’s hard to shake the feeling that as exciting as the idea of a crossover with Darius is, these CAVE ships feel fundamentally mismatched when taken outside of their bullet hell contexts. They’re a refreshing way to play the game if you’ve spent a lot of time with it, but even the music doesn’t hit the same way, and in the case of Deathsmiles, feels entirely mismatched to everything within Dariusburst. I can’t find myself with any animosity for it, as it works and delivers everything as intended, but both the SEGA and Taito DLCs have much stronger contenders that are worth your attention first.