Game:

Darius (1987)

Duration: 15:35

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A shooting game known for being played on three screens- it's amazing how they made this happen, even with the side monitors. The game's also known for its branching paths which chooses the next zone the player enters, leading to multiple endings and increases the replayability. There are 28 zones in total, though only seven can be played in a single run.

The game also comes with a very cool power-up system; the three main armaments come in three tiers of power, upgraded by collecting 8 of their own colored orbs; the red weapon's first tier is the Missile, a basic forward-firing bullet, which increases in value as more red orbs are collected, the second tier is the Laser, which increases in length as more orbs are collected, and the third tier is the Wave, which increases in width as more orbs are collected. The green weapon's first tier is the Bomb which fires downwards, the second tier is the Twin bomb which fires upwards and downwards, and the third tier is the Multi bomb which fires upwards and downwards on both sides. The Arm is the shield of the Silver Hawk, and collecting a blue orb generates it which allows for up to three hits, but can be increased by collecting more orbs, by one hit. The second tier, the Silver Arm, adds two hitpoints for every orb collected, and the third tier, the Gold Arm, can bounce the player back if terrain is touched, taking two hits. Tiers are retained when the player loses a life but they'll reset to their initial power.

Interestingly, the arcade version is also the only one to have the player start at a pre-defined checkpoint after the player dies in single-player; when playing with two players, ships respawn after they're destroyed. In the ports and subsequent games, players will always respawn when they die.

The international versions of this game allow for continues (but were disabled in this playthrough). A limited revision called Darius Extra Version adds in more enemies in the zones and adds a point limit for bosses to prevent players from milking them for extra points. Continues are also available in that version, but will be disabled in-game once the player reaches one of the final zones, or of course, can be turned off entirely.

Fun fact: The names of the main characters, Proco and Tiat, are the reverse spelling of the namesake of Taito Corporation.