139. Darius Gaiden (Taito, Arcade (PS2), 1994)

Darius Gaiden is the third arcade title (and fifth overall game) in the Darius series of horizontally-scrolling shooters. This is a classic shooter, with no big gimmicks and a focus on boss fights. You can pickup various powerups to increase the power of your main straight shot and secondary shot (which helps to hit enemies anywhere that's not right in front of you. There is also a shield that you can power up to increase the number of shots you can withstand, though powerups are pretty sparsely distributed.

The biggest addition compared to previous Darius games is a bomb, which has a very cool visual effect in addition to rendering you invulnerable for a pretty decent chunk of time. The bomb is like a black hole that sucks in or destroys any enemy projectiles, and then explodes into a ball of lightning. I never got tired of setting off the bombs through the game's 7 stages. All of the bosses in the game are modeled after various sea creatures, which is an interesting hallmark. Most were pretty fun to fight, with multiple segments that you can take apart piece-by-piece, though on average they took a bit too long to defeat.

Darius Gaiden is a very simple shooter that manages to feel classic but not outdated. The ship is a little slow and your hitbox is a bit larger than I'd like, but that is mitigated with the shield mechanic.
When you start a new credit, you get a bunch of powerups, which is very welcome, as my biggest frustration with old shooters is the typical complete loss of progress after a mistake.

Music is hit or miss but hits some good highs, especially a few tracks that have vocals. I never really thought about it, but a shooter is the perfect game for a vocal heavy soundtrack, and it makes me long for more. Completing each stage leads to two branching paths like Outrun, with a total of 7 endings. By chance, my ending was a meta one where the pilot of the ship had beaten the arcade game. Confusing, but I love it.

4/5, a solid shooter that is visually and thematically distinct