Played as Darius (New Version) in Cozmic Collection Arcade (PC). Route was A-C-F-I-N-T-Z.
I'll admit I wanted to get into this series for only a couple things, the name being one of them. It's a name that means something to me so I thought it'd be fun to try digging deep here. I'm thinking it'll pay off! This was fun but fell short of feeling particularly great to play.
Sounds wonderful, controls are tight (maybe even to a fault), levels are engaging and feel tough as nails while the super wide screen looks like a total treat on two or more monitors! The downgrades you get for dying are immense, though, and a lot of enemies fly at you faster than you tend to be able to shoot! Those and how slowly you move make this game a lot less fun and fair feeling than one would hope for, though I know this wasn't fully designed to be those things just yet.
Also some of the bosses are brutal to the point where I cheesed the last couple by just spamming twin/multi bombs on them from the very bottom of where the game would let me sit. I really don't know how you're expected to beat Iron Hammer in particular, that one's far more aggressive than I could keep up with. Fatty Glutton was super hard for me too, though it's possible my laser just wasn't upgraded far enough to deal significant damage.
Anyway, going back to the time of release I could see this being a total quarter muncher, though I'd imagine it would be a lot more fun playing co-op since the game's likely much more manageable that way considering the low speed of the ships, though the on-screen projectile limit would pose a problem too. Hmm... Regardless, though, there's potential here. I had fun getting boss patterns down until I could clear them and the music was generally nice to listen to while I did so. I'm fairly certain the games going forward improve upon this a lot so I'm excited to get through them when I have the chance.
I'll admit I wanted to get into this series for only a couple things, the name being one of them. It's a name that means something to me so I thought it'd be fun to try digging deep here. I'm thinking it'll pay off! This was fun but fell short of feeling particularly great to play.
Sounds wonderful, controls are tight (maybe even to a fault), levels are engaging and feel tough as nails while the super wide screen looks like a total treat on two or more monitors! The downgrades you get for dying are immense, though, and a lot of enemies fly at you faster than you tend to be able to shoot! Those and how slowly you move make this game a lot less fun and fair feeling than one would hope for, though I know this wasn't fully designed to be those things just yet.
Also some of the bosses are brutal to the point where I cheesed the last couple by just spamming twin/multi bombs on them from the very bottom of where the game would let me sit. I really don't know how you're expected to beat Iron Hammer in particular, that one's far more aggressive than I could keep up with. Fatty Glutton was super hard for me too, though it's possible my laser just wasn't upgraded far enough to deal significant damage.
Anyway, going back to the time of release I could see this being a total quarter muncher, though I'd imagine it would be a lot more fun playing co-op since the game's likely much more manageable that way considering the low speed of the ships, though the on-screen projectile limit would pose a problem too. Hmm... Regardless, though, there's potential here. I had fun getting boss patterns down until I could clear them and the music was generally nice to listen to while I did so. I'm fairly certain the games going forward improve upon this a lot so I'm excited to get through them when I have the chance.