Darius
Alpha is a very, very, VERY rare HuCard to find, being a limited
edition given to consumers who bought Super
Darius CD in Japan. There' s only a few hundred of the HuCards
in existence, so keep yours if you have one! It' s worth a fortune
to people like Malc!
Anyways,
being limited edition Darius, there isn' t anything particularly
interesting about Alpha (a few games now with Greek in the name
- Darius Alpha, R-Type Delta...). This game is meant to be a competition
piece in a way, as it' s Darius just consisting of continuous boss
attacks. No levels, no powerups, no enemies, no nothing. This kinda
shocked me when I first booted up the ROM, as I was greeted by a
boss straight away! And another! And yet another!! Luckily the game
powers up your craft after every boss beaten, so you can face the
next with a better chance of winning.
All
the well known Darius bosses are featured in this game, mainly from
Darius PCE games. The big squid, shark and lobster (don' t know
the names, but they' re bound to be weird) all feature in here,
and they are quite good fun to beat, being the seafood hater that
I am...
Graphics
wise, theres nothing entirely different from Super Darius CD, with
all of the usual sprites being re-used over and over again. Music
is re-used from Darius PCE again, and to my ears the music isn'
t exactly interesting of enjoyable quality or style, but thats what
game music in the nineties does to your ears. makes them \lquote
techno-susceptible' =)
What
really excels in Darius Alpha is the challenge. The bosses get harder
as the game goes onward (obviously), and the only way to get past
later bosses is to not die (duh). Keep those shelds! Some bosses
have really powerful weapons!
I
wouldn' t exactly call this a classic, as it' s too obscure to be
cool, but it' s a good, fun ROM or HuCard (if you' re lucky enough
to own the original), and the Time Attack (achieved by pushing something
or over buttons) is good for competitions - get as far as you can
in four minutes! Plain yes, but packed with challenge - unless of
course you' ve beaten all Dariuses already =)
Darius
Alpha - Taito
