Darius/YMMV

WARNING! A HUGE BATTLESHIP "SUBJECTIVE TROPES" IS APPROACHING FAST.

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• Contested Sequel: While many praise Darius II's continued use of combined monitors, some players dislike it due to the Silver Hawk's disproportionately large spride and hitbox and the player losing all powerups upon death (rather than just being reduced to their current upgrades' lowest levels), which are major sources of Fake Difficulty.
• Crowning Music of Awesome: Zuntata, Taito's in-house music group, did a fantastic job with the games' soundtracks, including lots of sampled opera and the second boss-fight's music in G-Darius, "B. T. Dutch", containing the sounds of power drills. Listen to it here.
  • The non-Zuntata performed soundtracks are also very good, Darius Twin and Darius Force
  • Kimera II from G-Darius is one of this troper's favorite songs ever.
  • Darius Burst gives us this gem in the form of The World of Spirit.
  • Super Darius II took the original Darius II soundtrack and made it incredibly dramatic and awesome.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks: A common complaint about the Chronicle Saviours DLC packs is that they don't add any unique stages or bosses, making the 5 USD price tag for each ship feel unjustified.
• Memetic Mutation: The opening dialogue in "Olga Breeze", the stage 1 song of Darius II, which along with some Techno Babble in Engrish includes this infamous line:

Tiat Young: "I always wanted a thing called TUNA SASHIMI!"

• • Recently, on Pixiv, the whale-like boss Great Thing has been used in parodies of the Twitter Fail Whale.
• Porting Disaster:
  • Darius+ (Not to be confused with Darius Plus) requires damaging the boss-vessel components in the correct order, some of which were near the back of the enemy. In this version, you also get stuck with a limited-range pea shooter if you get killed - even during a boss fight.
  • Darius Plus for the ZX Spectrum. Much Fake Difficulty (such as foes coming in from behind), too large collision boxes, extremely slow.
  • While the CS mode of Chronicle Saviours is perfectly playable on a Vita, the same cannot be said for AC mode (a.k.a. the Dariusburst Another Chronicle port), due to squishing a 32:9 display onto the screen, making it nearly impossible to see anything. One wonders if this particular version was developed with the PS TV in mind instead.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • In Dariusburst Another Chronicle, some Chronicle sectors require multiple players participating at once. This is fine in an arcade establishment that's open to the public, but this is a problem in the Chronicle Saviours version due to multiplayer being local-only, if you don't have local friends or family willing to play with you. Vita version players have it even worse, as they cannot play multiplayer and thus cannot participate in these missions at all.
  • Bosses don't have Life Meters; the only indication of damage is that they start to turn red and give off sparks. In Dariusburst, this can make whittling them down enough to finish them off with a Burst Counter—or worse, the Assault's and Murakumo's Burst finishes and the X-LAY's full lock-on finish—aggrevatingly difficult.
• Signature Scene:
  • The battle with Titanic Lance in Zone M of Darius Gaiden.
  • The Final Boss battle with Gigantic Bite in Chronicle Saviours.
• That One Boss: The series' bosses are known not only for basically being huge mechanical fish, but also being very punishing too. Those that come to mind are Great Thing (in all appearances), Fatty Glutton (in all appearances except Burst, where he's the easiest final boss), Titanic Lance and Storm Causer from Gaiden, The Embryon from G-Darius, etc.