Darius II | Sega Saturn Playthrough | Real hardware

Useful cheats
INPUT ON MAIN MENU
2 more credits – C,R, RIGHT, DOWN
VERY EASY MODE – L, RIGHT, DOWN, LEFT
STAGE SELECT – Z, DOWN, L, UP
MY PREFERRED ROUTE - A-C-E-I-N-T-Z.

Darius II (AKA Sagaia) is a scrolling shooter video game developed and published by Taito for the Sega Saturn in 1996. The game is the second instalment in the "Darius" series and features similar gameplay to its predecessor, with the player piloting a spaceship through levels filled with enemy ships and obstacles. "Darius II" introduces new power-ups and branching paths, allowing players to choose different routes through the game. The game is known for its challenging difficulty.

Review:-

This is very different take on shmup. In the arcades, they made the screen thin and tall for vertical scrollers. This kind of borrows that idea but makes the game horizontal but in super wide screen. This makes the entire game played in an area the third of the size of the screen. Unless you zoom in to make it full screen which makes the game unplayably hard. Although you can use the zoom in function to your advantage at times if you are just concentrating on dodging tiny bullets. The Megadrive/Genesis version is played in zoomed in mode but they must have redesigned it to be playable.
The game has great weapons but it takes a long time to build up. You basically have to build yourself up for half the game to enable yourself make it through the levels much more easily. When you lose a life and then your powerups, you have to scrape through the final levels just hoping you have enough lives left. It’s all about seeing how long you can last with your first life.
Even when you have saved all your lives, this game is still incredibly hard. I mean, I was playing this daily to try to do it legit. I had to practice a lot with the level select cheat to see which path would be my best – another gameplay mechanic of this game is to choose your path of 7 levels out of a possible 27 to choose. I felt the lowest path was the easiest up until the last level which I found the last shrimp egg boss the least difficult (but still incredibly hard). I wasted my last few lives trying to get desperation shots in to finish it early which in retrospect which normally I wouldn’t have spare.

The bosses are all the same up until the final branching path of which there are 7 levels to end on which house 3 different bosses
I completed it a few times using the “very easy” cheat and kept trying to complete it legit with no cheats on easy. I kept failing and it began to become demoralising dying in the same spots with no 100% strategy of getting through without dying.
In the end, I decided that it was going to be my last attempt because I had spent way too long on this game. But to my relief I did it. I actually used the cheat for 2 extra credits but I didn’t need them. I had done it legit and was super proud.
I lost 3 lives on the fifth level boss where I shouldn’t have, but clutched the sixth level with only dying once on the boss which was a record for me since there are so many places I normally die.
It’s takes a lot to make me stick to an old game for such a long time since I hope to go through one or 2 games per session. I must have put around 10 hours in so it says a lot about the enjoyment I got from this game.
Shout out to the intro music one minute in where they count down 3-2-1 and the music kicks in. The music ends up being pantry but the build-up gets me buzzed up every time I play.

Rating 8 /10
Difficulty 10/10

Original game played on PAL Sega Saturn.
Picture split between CRT TV for my own viewing and OSCC scan converter with 2x line doubler, upscaled to HDMI for recording
No cheats used
Easy difficulty
Box art from thumbnail is taken from my own collection

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More like this:
Sega Saturn - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXnIZkuKAW4OPiZauY1B3bdDwUoCsWDRt

Megadrive/genesis - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXnIZkuKAW4NqEf523ELXZBl1T_3j-E9M

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