by Amr (@siegarettes)

• Darius Cozmic Collection Arcade
• Developer: M2
• Publisher: ININ Games
• Switch, PS4

No matter what half of the Darius Cozmic Collection you start with, it’s impossible to get away from the feeling that it’s only part of a whole. That was true of my time with Cozmic Collection Console, which not only felt incomplete without the arcade games that gave it context, but even lacked key console entries itself. The arcade collection feels even thinner–giving you what’s basically a few variations on three games. But even with the smaller lineup it’s clear which of the two collections is the headliner here. Between the novelty of the absurdly wide playfields, the previous lack of arcade accurate ports and the iconic soundtracks, the Cozmic Arcade Collection easily makes a case as the best of the two parts. 

Of the three games on the collection, the original Darius is the weakest. It makes a strong impression with its three screen wide playfield and quality soundtrack. The boss themes in particular stand out, with a mix of intimidating high energy tracks and more ominous ambient tracks. Each boss design is excellent as well, even more intimidating on the three screen setup as you can get a great sense of scale for how large they are compared to the environment. 

Despite that it’s hard not to get the sense that it’s more than a rough sketch compared to its sequels. The harsh checkpoint system removes all upgrades and kicks back your progress each time you die, and the small sprites make it difficult to make out enemy fire, especially when playing in handheld mode. Even with some of the balance changes in the included arcade revisions, it can be nearly impossible to complete the final stages without a powered up arsenal from earlier stages. 

Darius II sees all the promises from the first game fulfilled. The music is even better, with higher quality instrumentation and choice vocal samples, while leaning harder into its ambient tracks during certain stage themes. The sprites are larger, giving a more detailed and zoomed in look that makes it easier to play and more suitable to handheld mode. 

Stage design has improved a lot from the cave-like corridors of the first game, and bosses are even more detailed, with multi-phase fights and several destructible parts. Some of the mid and late game bosses are genuinely astounding and provide a great sense of narrative progression. The various overseas releases speed up the pace and remix the stage orders, but muck up the atmosphere in the process, even if they provide fun diversions. 

Darius Gaiden ditches the widescreen aspect ratio for a more traditional 4:3 playfield, but trades it in for some of the most imaginative stages and bosses in the series, with detailed backgrounds, psychedelic use of colors and a haunting soundtrack that mixes a cosmic opera and infectious synths. Mechanically it ups the complexity, adding a much welcome screen clearing bomb–which saturates the screen in psychedelic colors–and a new system that lets you recruit mid-bosses by blowing off and capturing their weak points. 

Stage layouts give a better sense of place as well, enhancing the feeling that you’re traversing the galaxy as you fight the enemy, and providing more interesting stage obstacles. It’s easily my favorite of the three, and its breezy pace makes it perfect for portable play. 

Even if you don’t have the time for a full run, the added features of the collection make it easy to jump in and practice a few stages of each game. There’s the prerequisite save state features, with a decent amount of slots for each game, but the standout here is the practice mode. Practice mode allows you to jump into any area, and even tweak the number of powerups you begin with. Combined with the state saves, it made it easy to practice certain areas and routes, and even after a single day I found noticeable improvement. 

If that isn’t enough M2 has provided several gadgets for each game, ranging from arcade marquees that are mostly for flavor, to counters that display boss weak points, boss health–down to individual part health– and even the internal ranking system that governs game difficulty. Pausing the game will even display a map of all the stages, and how many of each powerup are possible to find there. It makes a lot of the obfuscated information about each game transparent, and makes it easier to appreciate the complexities of the games and route a clear path through them. 

At nearly full price, Darius Cozmic Collection Arcade is still a hard sell, even as someone who’s paid similar prices for standalone game releases. The difference is that other STG releases often come with a plethora of alternative ways to play each game, and even more meticulous customization. You only need to look towards M2’s own Shottriggers releases to see how high the bar can be. Enough of that treatment has made it into Cozmic Collection Arcade, however, that it feels like a package that justifies continually returning to it, especially with the inclusion of Darius Gaiden. 

Gaiden is simply put, one of my favorite titles of the series and including it with the first two titles gives it more context and helped me appreciate how it iterates on ideas and bosses previously in the series. I’ll probably continue to be a little salty about the way these Darius collections were released, especially seeing how G-Darius has been held on for yet another incoming collection, but I’m glad to see these titles finally return in a modern format.