Recent reviews by MustaMike

Its pretty Ok

The best one so far.

Im writing this review, in hopes that it will garner the attention of people, who are either in the progress of deciding on whether they want to purchase this game or not, as well as hoping that it will get the attention of people, who have so far not heard of either this game, or the franchise as a whole. Most of this review includes what this game includes. For the 'review' review, scroll further below if you wish to skip what Darius Burst is all about.

Darius Burst: Chronicle Saviours is so far the newest entry in the Darius series by Taito, and making it the first home console/PC port after almost 17 years, with G-Darius having been the predecessor. So far though, DBCS is so far the 4th iteration of the Darius Burst series, having first started on the psp as a japanese only release, and then having been preceded by 2 arcade-only versions, namely Another Chronicles, and Chronicles EX.

Darius Burst: Chronicle Saviours contains 2 differing gamemodes, one which is the afformentioned Chronicles Ex, and the other being the newly added mode exlusive to CS, namely called CS mode.

Chronicles EX mode is a perfect copy port of the Arcade version, Chronicle EX. Chronicle EX is pretty much how one would imagine playing an arcade game, minus having to spend the extra expenses whenever wanting to play it. You start of by choosing one of 4 modes, with the first 2 being Chronicles and Chronicles EX. Those 2 are the standard mode, where you select your ship, and then choose from a wide range of routes, which increase in difficulty as you progress downward. The multiple route choice provides plenty of replayabilty, and most of them contain a variety of unique bosses, each with their own way of fighting.

Both start of with the progression through each pre-selected areas, as you blast your way through hordes of enemies, who attempt to blast you to space dust in return, while collecting powerups from defeated enemies, to strenghten your main weapon, missles and shield. This concludes with the aformentioned boss, who needs to be defeated to progress.

From the afformentioned ship selection, one is able to choose from 9 differing ships, each with their own unique playstyle, and most coming with somehting called a burst weapon. The burst weapon is considered your trump card, allowing you to either use it offensively to blast away huge hordes of enemies, or defensively, to protect yourself from barrages of laser fire. Most are unique to each ship, and require a different strategy to be used efficently.

Following this is the challenge mode, which simply consists of over 3000 pre-set routes, each with their own challenges, such as lack of powerups, or a shield. The unique gimick of it this time is that players around the world help eachother unlock the challenges, allowing you most likely to play most of them in due time at any given order. You are still able to complete them all yourself, which will show seperate indicators on whether it is unlocked, and whether you have already completed it.

Moving on from the classic arcade mode is the brand new CS mode. CS mode can be considered the story mode, as it tries to piece together the story that began from the original psp version of the game, and tries to finally wrap it all up. CS mode includes a variety of new bosses that are exclusive to it only, as well as up to almsot 200 missions, which are all abotu defeating the Belzer army, which are the Gigantic Cyborg Sealife.

Now, for people who are avid fans of the SCHMUP, this game can be considered recommendable. Compared to many previous games of the same genre, the amount of levels, as well as unique bosses is mind boggling. The amount of routes as well add to the replayability, and if you are one who loves games with an arcade feel to it, then this game is a great choice.

Criticism, however, is not devoid of this game. For once, the game currently lacks online multiplayer, which I am hoping will be added in a later update. This is due one of the features of this game being the 4 player multiplayer. This is required too for some of the challenges in EX mode to be completed, or even be playable, although the single player challenges far outnumber the multiplayer ones.

Alot of the translation work has not been done yet for Chronicle EX mode, with alot of the starter text still being in their native japanese language. The multiple endings at the end of each route however, do have their text translated, which is a plus indeed. CS mode however, is fully translated.

CS mode so far has proved to be enjoyable, but the story aspect seems to fall a bit flat, with most of the story being told in a overview through the level select screen, and additional text simply telling you why exactly you are moving onto the next zone.

As many people have complained, the price for a game of this genre seems a bit on the high end, which makes it a bit problematic. Darius Burst is a very enjoyable game, but people are less likely to try it when the price is as high as this. This includes people who are have played SCHMUPS before, or even previous Darius games, so this makes me especially sad. The price range can be justified though, given the game was released worldwide alongside japan, as well as having all these additional features, and plenty of translations, so I recommend people here to atleast spread the word of the game, and to watch some gameplay on youtube, to hopefully encourage others to atleast give this game a shot.

As a final verdict, there have been more challenging games of this genre, but Darius Burst: Chronicle Saviours is a hard to miss entry in both SCHMUPS and the Darius franchise, providing one with plenty of ships from throughout the series, tons of challenges, unique bosses by the load, and even including the entire soundtrack from the franchise, all the way back to the first Darius game in 1986. If you are willing to help the SCHMUP genre gain higher ground again, as well as being willing to spend a bit extra for something fun, then this game is indeed highly recommended.