G Darius
Description
G Darius chronicles the story of the Darius star, and the heroes who protect it from evil. While most of the series staple mechanics are present here, such as the RGB powerup system and branching stage structure, G Darius introduces several mechanics that made it the most unique Darius in the series.
The first is an expanded capture mechanic. Continuing the capture mechanic from Darius Gaiden which was then limited to mid-bosses, the Silver Hawk model in G Darius can now capture even small enemies, and now consumes "capture balls" in place of bombs, replenishable via purple pickups. Captured enemies turn into drones that follow and fight for the Silver Hawk in patterns unique to each enemy type. The captured drones can block enemy projectiles and take damage for doing so. Mid-bosses are still vulnerable to being captured, provided you destroy their gold-plated shields first. In order to capture a new enemy, you must sacrifice the existing captured drones, and you can do so in 2 ways: detonate them for a big explosion, or consume them to charge up a (blue) alpha beam.
The second mechanic is beam dueling. Borrowing the mechanic from Taito's very own Metal Black, while your alpha beam is clashing with a boss' (red) beta beam, you can absorb the beta beam and make your alpha beam more powerful by repeatedly pressing the fire button fast enough. Conversely, you lose the duel if you don't press fire fast enough and make the boss' beta beam bigger.
The third mechanic is in-stage branching. In the middle of every stage is a branching choice, which you make by moving the Silver Hawk to the top or bottom half of the screen. Each path leads to a different background scroll, enemy pattern and a different variant of the stage boss. Stage boss variants have different color palettes, sometimes different 3D models and mostly different attack patterns.
Like its peers in the same era such as Einhander/Thunder Force V/R-Type Delta, G Darius has made a leap into fully 3D backgrounds.
The PlayStation port adds the Beginner Mode from the Ver.2 Arcade version, a "VS BOSS" mode where you can customize a playlist of all stage boss variants in the game for a boss rush that you can also play in 2-player local co-op, and a FMV player.
The Windows port is mostly based on the PlayStation port, but renders up to 480p - double the resolution of the Arcade and PlayStation versions.