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Darius II / Sagaia (GEN/SMS, 1990-92)

Taito ups the ante.

Darius II: You Sunk My Deathship!
let’s just pretend that says Darius II.

PLAYERS: 1

PUBLISHER/DEVELOPER: Taito

GENRE: Shoot-em-up

RELEASE DATE: 12/20/90 – (JP), 04/91 – (EU)

Darius II, or Sagaia as it’s known in the West for some reason, is yet another horizontal shoot-em-up that takes place in space – as if the Genesis needs more of this genre in its life. I remain in awe at how many shoot-em-ups Sega’s 16-bit console received, particularly in its early years. Good news, though. Darius II stands out from the exhausting deluge with solid mechanics and never-before-seen replay value.

Visiting some ancient ruins before the war begins.

In the original Darius, main characters Proco and Tiat (“Taito Corp” spelled backwards) escaped from their home planet Darius before it was destroyed by the Belsar empire. In Darius II, their descendants – Proco Jr. and Tiat Young, now living on the planet Orga – receive a mysterious distress signal from Darius. They travel through the Milky Way, battling the Belsar empire as they attempt to save the remaining Darians from imminent destruction.

Proco Jr. and Tiat regret their inheritance.

Your ship, the Silver Hawk, starts off in the ‘A’ Zone, a sun with a lava floor and solar flares that careen around you. You’re equipped with a single laser and bombs that drop by two underneath your ship. Enemies are almost always grouped together, and you’re given a point bonus if you can destroy the entire group. Little metallic UFO groups bestow different items, like laser upgrades, stronger bombs, a shield that allows you to be hit three additional times, and green lasers that spew vertically from your ship. Two large crustaceans appear at the end and engage you in a boss battle. Defeat them, and you’re whisked away to the screen below.

Just look at that image, friends. Twenty-eight stages! Multiple pathways! Seven different endings! Sure, the original Darius had this branching path feature too – even more astounding, given its 1986 release date – but this is the first we’ve seen of it on a Sega console. You might think that this would give Taito an excuse to slack off and make the stages shorter, but this isn’t the case. You could play through Darius II a variety of ways and it will feel like a complete game each time.

Of course, Zone C would be a cave. Of course.

The power of choice is all well and good, but how does she play? Like a dream, for the most part. The Silver Hawk is a quick, easy-to-maneuver ship, and if you hold down ‘A’ and ‘B,’ your weapon and bombs stream out automatically. You’re never overpowered, though, even with several weapon upgrades on your person. Even the smaller enemies can take a couple hits to kill, to say nothing of the occasional large fishes or octopi that function as minibosses.

Just a humble space squid looking for a sloppy space kiss.

Like most shoot-em-ups, Darius II will make your cheeks clench. The garden variety enemies are strong and bosses grow increasingly tougher with each stage (screw you, brain helmet that took ten minutes to kill). The Silver Hawk is fast, but she’s also large. Avoiding enemy fire is a real concern, particularly when groups of enemies bum rush the screen, spray a mist of projectiles at you, then fly away. Because of your size, at times it feels impossible to avoid the onslaughts, which lends the game a slight unfairness. You’re given shields fairly often, which eliminates some of the pressure to avoid every stray projectile, but you shouldn’t have to rely on a shield to constantly succeed.

Bury me at zone M with Pinhead’s brain.

I blame the porting process. The arcade version was presented in two-screen and three-screen versions, which gave not only a wider field of view, but also more space for the Silver Hawk to move around. When the game was ported to the Genesis (and the Master System), the action had to be condensed into one screen – understandable, as few would have been willing to rubberband two TVs together for that authentic look. The Silver Hawk’s sprite wasn’t shrunk enough to account for the change, making it difficult to avoid everything the game throws at you.

Two shrimp cocktails for the price of die

Concessions aside, the Genesis port looks and plays fantastic, given the circumstances. The soundtrack is phenomenal and alternates between rock jams and moody atmosphere. The gunplay can be cheap at times, but it’s rewarding and addicting enough that you’ll want to power through it to see the end (or ends). Likewise, the lack of a two-player mode is disappointing, but if you enjoy the game, there’s plenty of it to keep you occupied. Darius II doesn’t break the space shoot-em-up mold, but its consistently higher quality elevates it above the more common, mediocre Genesis shmups. Your move, Technosoft.

B+

James Cameron’s Sagaia

PLAYERS: 1

PUBLISHER/DEVELOPER: Taito (port by Natsume)

RELEASE DATE: 06/92 – (EU)

There are many misguided ports on the Master System, but Darius II isn’t one of them. It looks and sounds great, and plays more aggressively. From the first stage on, enemies bombard you with fire. In the options menu, the default difficulty is Easy, and you should stick with that. I chose Normal and got my cheeks handed to me.

At least they’re set for blood transfusions.

Of course, Natsume had to rearrange some features to make sure the game could function. The Silver Hawk now fires vertically without the need for upgrades. There are twelve stages instead of twenty-eight, due to space limitations. Boss fights are also fought on a black screen, separated from the level itself.

Sagaia: Private Reserve

You should absolutely not choose this port over the Genesis version (or the Saturn version, probably), but the quality of Darius II on the retirement-age Master System can not be denied. A bronze medal for Natsume.

B-

16 replies on “Darius II / Sagaia (GEN/SMS, 1990-92)”

Interesting review, I never realised how many horizontal shooters the Mega Drive had until SegaDoes started up. I need to play more of them really.

Good to see the Master System get a decent arcade port too, well overdue!

When I was seriously into collecting for the Genesis I found Sagaia was one tough cart to find. I remember paying through the nose for it and only see in it twice locally in 15 years: once boxed at Funcoland and a very beaten loose copy at a now closed down Gamefellas (for those in Austin, TX).

SMS Sagaia is regarded as one of the best post-USA releases, almost near the quality of the earlier R-Type. I never knew Natsume did it, good to know for this SMS fan.

Glad the Master System can still hold its own with its bigger brother getting all the attention. Since you gave Rtype an A, would Darius have also gotten an A if it had been released around the same time?

Out of curiosity, are you going to play Saturn games with emulation? I’m not sure if there are any emulators that can properly deal with the system’s complexity and give you an accurate representation so you can be sure your reviews are spot on. I realize the time and expense trying to track down all the physical games would be a separate endeavor all itself.

Good question. I think R-Type is a slightly bigger technical achievement. Plus I just like it more than Darius II.

I’m going to softmod my Saturn and see how that goes. Saturn emulation is still in a super buggy state. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting to run into a Saturn game until a couple years from now. Definitely caught off guard! But I’m actively working towards getting my Saturn up and ready.

Somehow I missed the Darius connection. I never made much headway with either version of this but it has always sat near the top of my list of shooters for each system.

Sagaia is one of the handful of “must have” shmups released in the US that I don’t have (along with M.U.S.H.A., of course!) for the Genesis yet. I was aware of the SMS port, but as mentioned, not that Natsume handled it. Strange, given their lack of expertise with the genre. I’m still salty about the US not getting the Saturn release, despite its drawbacks. Europe getting that and not us still burns a little. Granted, we got the far superior Darius Gaiden, which has an AMAZING Redbook Audio soundtrack, but still, it would have been nice to have this port. $50 for the Genesis version you say? Ouch! Looks like I need to start saving my money for a copy…

The time of the Saturn was when Bernie Stolar (probably the most hated person in Sega history, Google him) was running things I think, he would have shot down Darius II for sure.

So what’s with the Sagaia name? It seems like an odd decision to downplay that this was part of an established series, unless there was some legal reason. Where they afraid Darius Rucker was going to sue them?

I heard that some people did a revised homebrew port of Darius II/Sagaia and that it was an even better game than the officially released Sega Genesis/Mega Drive port of the game. Moreover, I find it odd that this website not only conveniently, but also completely, forgot that Nintendo also got a Sagaia game that was officially released for the Game Boy. Finally, I heard that not only did someone else in Japan made a unofficial homebrew port of Darius I for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive, but that said port had impressed Sega and Taito so much that Taito actually hired the person to work with their M2 division in building a special port of the game for the upcoming Sega Genesis/Mega Drive Mini.

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