My Love for the Darius Series

Lets talk about one of the best game series out there: DARIUS. It is a series of SHMUPS but you shoot FISH! They are giant mechanical fish. And oh my gosh the music! Darius Gaiden has the best soundtrack. However, for the record and your knowledge, I have not actually beat any Darius game so far. Therefore you should realize this when I talk about it. I am not that good. I have beaten only Darius II on the Mega Drive, but not any other game (without credit feeding :) ). I wanted you to know this before I start talking about it. I am not that good at most games (including Darius), but I really like the Darius series, even if I am the furthest thing from an expert or an authority on the series. So, just treat this page as my opinions so far. Please do not treat me or read this page as some sort of authority. With that out of the way, if you intend to continue reading, please do.

My first time that I played a Darius game was when I bought Darius II for my Japanese Mega Drive. I got it for my birthday in 2020, and my first game was Space Harrier II. After that, since I only had that one game, I bought Thunder Force IV, even though the Japanese version was more expensive than the American version (I wanted something for my Mega Drive, not my Genesis). Then, since that games soundtrack is amazing as well (It took me a while to remember that the opening music was just synthesized, not an actual electric guitar), I wanted another game. I saw Darius II for a decent price, and I looked it up. It did not seem horrible, so I bought it. And blin it is good! Around the same time, I bought the Genesis Mini, which has an unreleased port of the first Darius game on it. I don't remember the actual order of events (whether this one or the Mega Drive one I played first), but I remember being confused about what was going on (the power up system) the first time I played that version on the Genesis Mini, and the lag on the TV I plugged it into was b a d. I plugged it into a TV in my own room, and the lag is much better now. That games first stage music is great as well, but I truly think that Koji Kondo was inspired by this when he made the Gerudo Valley theme in Ocarina of Time (Obviously I have no evidence for this; this is just my own crazy thinking, but listen to the two of them and tell me they are not crazy similar. AGAIN>>>> This is not a fact. It is my own crazy thinking!!!!!). But anyway I had Darius II on the Mega Drive and a port of Darius on my Genesis Mini (I preordered the actual cartridge release for my Genesis. At the time of me writing this, I still have several months until it ships, but I am waiting like crazy for it.)! Anyway, I had those two, and then I bought Darius Gaiden. The gameplay threw me off a little bit, but it is a good, but extremely tough, game. But like I said, that soundtrack.... This is some amazing stuff! Zuntata simply makes amazing stuff. I also got Darius Twin on the SNES, but even though people say it is extremely easy, this one is crazy hard for me. After that I also got G-Darius. Now the Japanese PS1(s) I am playing it on have some laser issues; I am currently waiting for a replacement to finally ship, but the gameplay feels similar to what I am used to in Darius II. I will explain what I mean by this and how I think it is different to Darius Gaiden in a bit. Also during all of that time, I ordered the Korean version of Darius Cozmic Collection on the Switch. It was shipped using a Chinese courier service that had terrible reviews, but to their credit, it did arrive in time and in one piece. When I ordered it, it did say that it would take about a month to ship, and this it most certainly did, but it is here now. This is also a great game, but it is a little hard to see Darius I on my Switch because I have a Switch Lite. Either way, it is great to have the actual arcade versions of these games. I also pre-ordered Darius Cozmic Collection for the Switch. It is a few months away from shipping right now. Lastly, I bought the American version of Darius II, Sagaia, for my Genesis, because why not. Maybe you can tell that I like the Darius series? Though in the interest of you getting all of the information (who the heck even found this website anyway? If you are actually reading this, CONGRATULATIONS! I don't know how you found it, but your reward is to not only get all the information, you can hear (read) my thoughts on Darius), my first time I remember hearing of any Darius game was Jeremy Parrish through is YouTube channel on his SNES coverage. He talked about Darius Twin, and for some reason I was not paying attention and thought he was saying it was a bad game. I also thought it was stupid how it was fish themed. Boy was I wrong about me not liking Darius!

Now lets talk about what I said I would: how do I think the gameplay is different between Darius II (Sagaia) on the Mega Drive (Genesis) and G-Darius vs Darius Gaiden? I thought about it, and I came up with these two differences (kind of). Much of this information I saw elsewhere, mostly on YouTube (mostly from a channel called Bofner, who is an amazing YouTuber!), but what I am trying to do more is talk about what I think of these differences. I will now go over each game and the parts of these two differences, which are the enemy formations and the power up system (actually how you loose powerups when you get shot):

Darius II:

• The enemy formations in this game are memorizeable, and they almost ALWAYS appear in the same spot each time. Probably this is a negative for the game, but honestly I like this.

• When you die in this game, you loose EVERYTHING. This is actually something I don't like in Darius Gaiden, but in Darius II; I don't know, I feel like I can still kind of get by with the most basic weapons.

G-Darius:

• The enemy formations are pretty memorizeable like Darius II. I don't really remember if they are more variable compared to Darius II, but either way, I find the formations quite easy to deal with.

• I really like the power up system in this game. You have several slots to fill up before you get the next upgrade, and you loose these slots when you die, but at least that one tier (the big power up) is not taken away at all. If I got the wave, for example, I will never be taken down to something below it.

Darius Gaiden:

• The enemy patterns in this game have a bit of variation. I don't know what they are called, but the 4 little things that fly from either the top or the bottom of the screen at the beginning of the first stage (they look like tiny short pipes) will either come from the top or bottom. This is what I am talking about. Also, for some reason, I am just not that good at Gaiden compared to Darius II or maybe G-Darius.

• There are little slots like in G-Darius, but if you die, you go to the next lowest weapon. If you die enough, you can loose everything (not the bombs, though) and you are left with the weakest shot in the game. Honestly, this is like Darius II, but I feel like the weakest shot in Darius II I can get by on for a bit, but in Gaiden, I find it harder to get by on the weakest shot.

OK, that was more of my thoughts compared to Bofner's thoughts; I wrote all of this before this here paragraph, and between that time, I re-watched a few of his videos and realized that many of the topics were similar. Anyway, I like certain things he does not like, and it is the same way the other way.

Maybe it sounds like I hate Darius Gaiden, but this is not so. I will continue to play it and get better and used to how it works. On a sound level, the ranking is quite clear: Darius Gaiden is clearly the best, and then it is followed by G-Darius, and then Darius II.

I am waiting for Darius Cozmic Revelation to finally get here. I have never played Dariusburst, and that is included. Though, I may buy the original for my PSP. I would get the Vita or PS4 releases if I had any of those systems, but as you can tell, I do not have these systems.

Some other games that I have not mentioned but I want to get is every other Darius game (yay! except for maybe Darius alpha I'm not made of money), but specifically the Master System version of Darius II, the GameBoy release titled Sagaia, the PC-Egnine versions (again, I am writing this parentheses part later, but I realized that there were like 3, so I want all of them), the port of Darius II on the Saturn, maybe the PS1 port of Darius Gaiden, even though it is supposed to be not good but I want to see it anyway, Dariusburst on the PSP, and I don't know what else. I really hope that one day soon they will make a brand new Darius game. Oh and I also need to find Darius Force (Super Nova) because I have not played it yet.

I also really like the general art style of the games. The box art for Darius Gaiden is truly one of best. But not only is the box art good on some of the games, the games themselves even look good. I really like the design of the Silver Hawk and the colors they chose to make it. Darius I and II look fine (I think I like Darius I more), but Gaiden and G-Darius are really nice. The first level of Darius Gaiden looks like art, not a game, and I think that the overall art style in G-Darius is very well done, even if it is not as flashy or colorful as Darius Gaiden. Darius Gaiden is a 2D game (for the most part; Golden Ogre looks a bit 3D), so we don't have to worry about polygon count on this one. I think in general that 2D games have a better chance of holding up in looks than 3D games (but actually I really like the low polygon count/method of using 3D of many PS1 and Saturn games like Ridge Racer and Panzer Dragoon and Gungriffon), but since most of the normal enemies in G-Darius are mostly 2D (they move about in 3D like rotation, but mostly they are flat), I think that looks fine. The Silver Hawk also looks fine since it is tiny on the screen (which is also true for the enemies I was just talking about). The bosses are 3D (mostly for this part I can only think of Queen Fossil), and I think that they are done very well. The general design such as the scales I think kind of help hide the fact that this is no where near a polygon count of something modern. But dang can this game C H U G during especially the Queen Fossil fight. The backgrounds can have some 3D stuff in them. They are alright, but there is nothing I can remember that is downright stunning. Again, if you were paying attention earlier, I never truly beat any Darius game, including this one, so there ARE many backgrounds I have not seen. I am mostly thinking of the first zone. I think that the some of the backgrounds in Darius Gaiden are a bit cooler. Some of them make it look like you are in a tube.

Darius II I did not notice much slowdown, except for the fight against Drio Sawm and maybe a few other areas. There is some slowdown in some places, but most of the game runs fine. Darius I, at least the few stage (not plural) I can beat does not slow down much, if at all. Darius Gaiden I really only remember for a fact the entrance of Golden Ogre slowing down (at least compared to the arcade version on the Switch, which does not slow down at this part). G-Darius can C H U G, however. Though it doesn't really bother me at all. Lets see how it comes out on the Switch. Unless the whole game itself is made poorly, I don't think it will slow down.

Like I said, I preordered Darius Cozmic Revelation and Darius Extra Version for the Switch and Genesis, respectively. I am looking forward to both of them, but I think I am waiting more for Darius Extra Version. We can finally have it on a cartridge format for the Genesis (apparently they did a re-release for the Mega Drive as well and I think they are doing it again, but Amazon Japan does not ship that one to the US, and I don't have an Amazon Japan account, or an Amazon account). I really want to play this one on actual hardware and not on an HD flat screen. Don't get me wrong, the one on the Genesis Mini is great, but I do prefer playing on CRTs when I can. In fact, I have this one CRT; it's a Daewoo something. You can clearly tell that they were mass-produced to a cost (at least this is what I thought of it, maybe it was meant to be a bit more premium and I am calling it trash?), and it only has Mono sound, but dang is the composite picture on this TV nice! I used to have my Super Famicom connected to it and it looked almost as good as S-Video. The NES looks amazing on it too. Anyway, I plug in my NES through RF and my Genesis, Mega Drive, and Master System through composite with a switch to this TV because those 3 (not the NES) have the worst composite in general, so I compensate for a great looking composite image from this TV. I play Darius II and Sagaia on here, and now I want to see Darius I on here as well. I can't wait. It's December as I am writing this, and apparently it is not supposed to even ship until next August, but I think it will really be worth the wait for Darius. I hope that they put a notch in the side so that I can play it on my Mega Drive as well. If I could have done it, I would have gotten the Mega Drive version of it instead, but even if they don't put the notches in the side, I will enjoy the heck out of this one. I play it every now and then on the Genesis Mini, and I really enjoy it.

Now that we have gotten started talking about the Darius Series, let us go into a further analysis followed by a discussion for each game.

DARIUS (Genesis Mini)

I like this one. The first time I played it, it completely destroyed me, and I was wondering what the heck the little colored balls were, but now I know what everything does, and I really enjoy it. The first level is quite tough, but I think that most of it is not BS tough. I also like the music in this first stage. You already heard me talk about it in the introduction; but I think that the Gerudo Valley theme is probably the best song in Ocarina of Time (and maybe the Forest Temple theme is second), so having music that is so close in the way it is written is a joy for me. I don't remember if it is stage B or C, maybe it is both, but I didn't care for the music as much in those stages. You already know that I suck at getting anywhere near what may be considered far in a Darius game, so I can't talk about any other stage. Maybe I got there once or twice, but I don't remember the music. King Fossil is a cool looking boss. I like how he is blue. I think it fits him. Maybe red may also work, but I think that is it. I think he would look bad in any other color. This game runs smooth, the parts of it I was able to play.

DARIUS II (SAGAIA) [Mega Drive] (Genesis)

This is the game that got me into the Darius series only 6 months ago (as of the very end of 2020, so it was the summer of 2020). I think that technically most other games would beat this one in most categories, but since it was the one I started with, it is probably my favorite. I think that the controls are quite good in this game. The music is nothing spectacular, though. I have never been able to get past any 4th stage. A number of times, I was a few hits away from defeating the boss, but then I was shot and had a game over. Maybe I had some continues, but I was just sad. Anyway, the bosses are nothing spectacular, but they are fine. I have beat it only once. Also, I don't know why I wrote that the bosses are nothing spectacular. Maybe they are not the absolute flashiest or most memorable among EVERY GAME THAT EXISTS, but they are quite good, except for Leadain. He is too tough. Also, I think I was a bit hard on the music a few sentences ago. While Darius II still is not my most favorite soundtrack of a Darius game, it is still good, and there are some really nice songs in there. Drio Sawm is quite easy. The one true complaint is that, and maybe this is just because of the video quality, even for that TV I am using, King Fossil looks not as good as he did in the first game. Obviously he is made smaller into a midpoint boss, and maybe he would look better through RGB on a PVM or maybe upscaled nicely (equipment for these I have absolutely none of, though I would greatly like even a tiny PVM, and I mean even a tiny one), and then some more details would be shown that makes him look better, but at least right now through composite, even on a TV that has amazing composite quality, he does not look as good as I think he could have. Maybe it sounds like I do not like Darius II. Clearly you have not been paying attention to me. This is probably my favorite Darius Game.

DARIUS GAIDEN (Saturn)

I already explained how I think this game plays and works differently compared to Darius II and G-Darius, but this is a good game. But I am T E R R I B L E at it. I remember dying maybe 20 seconds into the first level the first time I got it. The color choices and the art style is great, though. I have the Japanese version, and I really like the box art. I even have the obi for it (I also have the Panzer Dragoon obi). Now, where I think this game is very strong, and I do not have any difficulty with this part, is the music. After listening to the music, I don't have only one favorite composer/group anymore. I have two. They are Nobuo Uematsu, and now I add Zuntata. They put so much care and attention and details in the soundtrack. These people really know what they are doing. My personal favorite track is FAKE. I could fall asleep listening to this soundtrack it is so good. Anyway, I plan to work on my skills so that I can be a better player. Honestly, my main issue that I talked about earlier is how you loose your weapon upgrades when you die. I don't mind the slightly random enemy patterns. It is the loss of weapon upgrades that makes it difficult for me. But anyway, this really is an amazing game. It runs smoothly, the music is some of the best, and it looks great as well, and it is fun. Honestly, if a game is fun, that is the most important thing.

G-DARIUS (PS1)

I like this one. Like all of the others, I cant get far in this one, but I don't remember immediately dying on the first level. I think that the controls are good and the gameplay is fun. The game looks good, and the music is also good. I think that of all of these, the gameplay is the best. For me, it is more similar to Darius II, which is probably my favorite. I like the capture balls that you can use anytime. Darius Gaiden had these for the midway boss, and I think this is a good innovation, but I think that this is a better innovation on that. There is this one section where the screen is 45 Degrees tilted upwards to the right. I think that this is a good way to add something new. The whole game is not like this. I don't know if the game would be as good if it was, but this one section is nice to have. And what a boss Queen Fossil is! It slows the whole system down, but the game is still playable (though you should know that I have a good tolerance to slowdown in many games. I know that some people do not like slowdown at all. That is fine, I just want you to know that it is something I tolerate). The boxart is not as good as Darius Gaiden, but I like the logo. I actually would have liked to see how this would have ran on the Saturn. Maybe it would not slow down as much; but it still probably would. I don't know. I know that Darius Gaiden came to the PS1, but I read on the internets that this one is not all that good. The only thing right now is that my PS1 needs a new laser, so the audio skips (again, this I am writing later within the parentheses, but it looks like I wont be getting the replacement laser I talked about earlier. They cancelled my order after missing 2 "expected" delivery dates. There is a certain major, massive retailer that I truly do NOT like. So that means that I am not dealing with that problem now. Yes, I am literally shoving the problem in a box and not worrying about it.). That is the kind of thing that really bothers me, so I do not play this one much. I am waiting on a new laser to get here. Hopefully that will solve the issue. If it is the disk, that would not be good, but at least a new laser cant hurt the PS1. If it is the disk, I would probably play it more, but maybe I would one day buy a new disk. It's a bit expensive, though. But maybe I could just buy the disk itself. I already have the case and manual; I don't need to buy those again. I could save some money.

DARIUS TWIN (SNES)

I have barely played this one. I did not care for it much, but I will give it more time. I have read on the internet and seen videos where people say that this one is supposed to be easy, but it most certainly isn't easy for me. I think I only got to the second level only a couple of times. I am slightly better than Darius I on the Genesis Mini. It looks alright. There is nothing special, but I think that they got the proportion between the ships size, the enemies, and the overall screen area good. Nothing is too big or too small. Hopefully I will play this one more and hopefully I will have many many more positive things to say about this game. But for now, I don't hate it, but I need to play it more.

DARIUS COZMIC COLLECTION (SWITCH)

I like this one. It has the arcade versions of Darius I, II, and Gaiden. Darius I has three versions. Darius II also has 3 versions, but I only really care about the Japanese version, since this is what the Mega Drive and Genesis releases are based on. I don't care for what they did to the international arcade releases of Darius II, though I will admit that I barely played them. I truly do like the voiced lines at the beginning. I really like being able to play the arcade release of Darius I. The only issue is that it was a 3 screen cabinet, so the screen on the Switch is long and narrow. I have a Switch Lite, so this is especially hard to see. Either way, I do like it though. Darius II is a bit easier to see since it was only 2 screens. Darius Gaiden was of course one screen, so there is no issue there. All of the games run smoothly. I only wish that there was a way to listen to the music of the three games separately. Maybe there is a way that I don't know about, but I have not seen any. The slowdown when Golden Ogre enters on the Saturn does not happen on the Switch version. Like many people say, the retail price is a bit expensive (it's about $50 USD), but if you like Darius, this is a good game to get. Otherwise, other than possible previous ports, the only way that I know of is to find the original cabinets.

And so far, that is the end of me talking about Darius, for now. When I get more games or something else to talk about, I will. I hope you enjoyed reading this. If you actually read all the way through, then thank you. You must be a huge Darius fan as well. Keep playing Darius, whatever game in the series it is. If you are not a Darius fan, maybe I convinced you to become one? Even if you are not a Darius fan and you know that you never will be, thank you for reading.

-----January 15, 2021-----

Right now, I have a quick update on Darius II. It is a Friday as I am writing this, but I think it was on Tuesday (yes it was) when I finally got further in Darius II. Well, it was actually Sagaia. I was playing on my Genesis because I didn't want to have to plug in my Mega Drive along with the step-down transformer. But either way, I got it all the way to Zone Q before I had a game-over. If you read everything that is written before this stuff on this page, you would know that I was never able to get past the 4th stage boss, no matter which route it was. I hate to admit it, but I think that the Retro-Bit Genesis 6-Button D-Pad may have helped at least a bit. It felt a bit more comfortable to use instead of the D-Pad on my Mega Drive controller. But other than that, I will most likely have a good update to this page hopefully tomorrow (Saturday January 16, 2021) or the next Monday. If you saw the "Other SHMUPS I Like" page, then you also know to check another page. You probably have some idea what I got, but maybe not specifically... You will see soon. I will give you a big hint as to at least part of what I got: Other models have TERRIBLE capacitors. That is why I got what I got.

-----January 21, 2021-----

IT'S HERE!

"And I assume you got some way to play it, Floppy?"

Oh boy:

The picture doesn't do it justice. It is truly in beautiful cosmetic condition! I also got a controller for it. There are some scuffs, but overall it's fine. Anyway, let's at least talk about Darius now. There will be a new page just for this console once I am done typing this part right now:

I only played a tiny bit of Darius simply because I only had it for a few hours at the time I am typing this, but it looks like a really solid game. I watched a longplay on YouTube (from World of Longplays) of this game, and I thought it looked good. I did not think the music translated well (at least compared to what we have on the Genesis Mini), and I was not 100% sold on the fact that the screen scrolls a tiny, tiny bit up and down (I was like 95% there, though), but now that I have it, The music sounds better, and the scrolling absolutely does not bother me at all. It's SOOO tiny that it barely makes any difference. As I play more, I will write more, obviously, but right now I really, really want to get started on that PC Engine page!

----- 5-7-2021 -----

Let's talk about Darius Plus now.

DARIUS PLUS (PC ENGINE)

This is honestly a pretty good port of the first Darius game. Before I even got the PC Engine, when I was looking at some gameplay of Darius Plus, I thought its weakest point was how the music came through. Now that I have played some Darius Plus, this probably still is the weakest point of the game (I mean how do you get the PC Engine to sound better), but honestly, I kind of like how it sounds. Let me be clear: I am not talking about the composition (I kind of like it more than Darius II), I mean only how it sounds on the PC Engine. Anyway, I like how it sounds now. It is kind of unique. Now let's talk about the graphics. I think they are pretty dang good. Yes, there is some sprite flickering in places, but I saw that in the gameplay video, and honestly, it did not surprise me, and it definitely does not ruin the game at all for me. Now let's talk about the controls. It controls great, HOWEVER, the PC Engine controller is honestly horrible for this game. My hands hurt after playing it for maybe 15 or some minutes. This is not the fault of the game, though. Yes, I am the one who is choosing to have both the bombs and the front gun/laser/wave (I don't think I made it that far, or at least only once or twice) going on at the same time. I could easily just use the one I need at that certain time, but I want both. Anyway, it really is just the controller and not the game. Other than this, everything I think controls nice. I don't think it is as difficult as the port of Darius I on the Genesis Mini, so that is I guess kind of good.

I did discover the PC Engine reset keys, however, and this was unfortune. I think I was paused, and I was doing alright, and I accidentally slid my thumb across Select to get to Run, and this reset the console. I looked it up, and this seems to be how the PC Engine is reset. I also somehow discovered that you can press Select at the title screen after a Game Over to continue on the last level you were on, so that is kind of cool.

Now let me talk about Darius Plus in relation to the other Darius games that I have.

For this, though, I am not going to talk about compilations (like Darius Cozmic Collection) as a whole. Instead, I will treat the games in the compilations as their own games.

Let's get probably my least favorite Darius game out of the way (I don't hate it, I just need more time with it). That is definitely Darius Twin on the SNES. Next would probably be the arcade version of Darius I. This is not because I think it is a bad game. It is simply because the only way I can play it is on the Switch Lite, and the 3-screen setup makes everything incredibly small on the Switch Lite's screen. Next would probably be the arcade version of Darius II. Again, this is kind of the same as the arcade Darius I, but it is definitely easier to see. However, like Bofner pointed out, your ship does not move as fast, which kind of makes the game pretty hard. The graphics, however, are absolutely amazing. Next would probably have to be G-Darius, and honestly it has this ranking probably because my Japanese PS1s kind of do not work (maybe). The game itself is hard, but it is great. Choosing between G-Darius and Darius Gaiden was tough, and I think G-Darius was ultimately chosen because of that PS1 operability fact. So, next would be Darius Gaiden (both the arcade and Saturn port), and as I am writing this, Darius Gaiden does, I think, rank higher than G-Darius because of the utter beauty and magnificence of the soundtrack. It is not at the top simply because I am kind of bad at playing it, and it is hard. Next would be Sagaia on the Genesis. To be honest, I would have this share the spot with Darius II on the Mega Drive, but since there is a law of physics that says that two things cannot be in the same place at the same time, one of them had to be lower, and it was Sagaia simply because it is not the Japanese version. So, that obviously means that next would be Darius II, and after that, we have Darius Plus. Honestly, I am surprised that I put Darius Plus at the top. Now, of course, all of this is subject, and it most certainly will, change with time. I also want to say that none of these games are bad, even the lowest ranked ones. I am ranking the top 1% of games WITHIN that 1% boundary.

So now that this is done, we should talk more about the Darius series. As you have read, I am only just getting started. I think I am going to talk about the box art for the games that I have now.

Let's go by the order that they were released in. Of course, I can only talk about the ones that I have boxed. That means that as of now (soon I will be able to talk about two more), I only have 4 games to talk about.

• Darius Plus (PC Engine, NTSC-J): This is nice boxart, but I don't know what the boss is in the background. Maybe it's a final boss, so I have not gotten that far. It kind of looks like some sort of bug instead of see life (at least it's face does), but the Silver Hawk looks really nice. The box art could be a bit busier (I like the box art that has like a thesis paper written on the front along with like 400 pictures on the front), but the colors are pretty good, espeically how the Silver Hawk contrasts with the darker colors. The logo is awesome. Next, we have:

• Darius Gaiden (Saturn, NTSC-J): This is awesome boxart. The illustrations are so dang good. I don't watch anime, but the box art kind of looks like it to me, and it's amazing! It's sooooooooooooo beautiful! Next, we have:

• G-Darius (PS1, NTSC-J): Honestly, it's not the best. I have not seen the American one much, but I think it looked a bit better than this. The logo is a bit confusing, but I like it. I wish it was better, but it is not offensive. Lastly, we have:

• Darius Cozmic Collection (Switch, Korea): Yes, I have the Korean version, which I am almost 100% certain is identical to the Japanese version in terms of art. I like this. Usually, I am not sure if the split art like it is here will end up looking good. I mean that sometimes it just looked like a buch of stuff that is just put together. However, it is done really well. I doubt that it is because of their art segmentation (that is what I will call it!). I think it is more because the individual art for each game kind of follows the same style, so it all works together. I just noticed, however, that, from left to right, the first is Darius II, then Darius I, and lastly Darius Gaiden. Maybe it would have been better to have Darius I go first, so that there is a progression of the series being represented. Anyway, this is really a tiny, tiny thing that I noticed. Otherwise, this is also excellent box art.