Review: G-Darius HD - A classic shooter with a fun twist.
Review by Emily Zelda Frood & Video by Anton Winters.
Written Review
G-Darius HD is, as the name suggests, an HD remaster of the 1997 side scrolling arcade classic G-Darius. This action packed arcade shooter sits you in the Silver Hawk, a ship designed for one thing – the defeat of the invaders of Amnelia, the Thiima.
In a similar fashion to Star Fox, you traverse different planets in the galaxy defeating enemies and bosses until to reach the end of the galaxy. The tiered system of level selection provides a great deal of replay value. So if you’re a completionist like myself, you’ll enjoy wanting to go through every planet to discover every boss. Each of which are unique and brilliantly designed.
G-Darius has some fairly basic controls – it is an arcade game after all – all of which are really well designed for the switch. You’re equipped with guns, missiles, and a shield meter. All of which can be upgraded throughout levels by nabbing the right upgrades from defeated enemies. The core gimmick of the game, if you will, is it’s capture system. You can fire capture balls at certain enemies and even near defeated minibosses, which allows the player to increase their fire power by turning the enemy to your side. If you get sick of the enemy you’ve captured, you can detonate it in front of enemies for a spectacular blast – they can also be destroyed by other enemies so guard them well!
This capture function is key to success in this game, however I had a bad habit of forgetting it was there and just tried shooting my way through anything and everything coming from the right side if the screen.
Bosses can be exceptionally difficult and often change the direction that they shoot from, making it a must to use the capture system and fend off attacks from any angle.
Just like the original arcade version, gameplay is based on credits, you have to actively insert a credit before each playthrough. After you lose your lives you have the option to add another credit or start from the beginning. As much as I appreciate the true to arcade energy given here. I felt like I could just die as many times as I wanted because I could just add more and more credits and not have to worry about losing progress. It did make me feel like a rich kid in an arcade for a hot minute but it got old quite quickly. A more rigid system of playing would feel more appropriate to a console HD version.
Speaking of HD, you do have the option to actually play the original version of the game as well. I really didn’t see that much of a visual difference for it to be worthwhile. You do have the option to change the aspect ratio, and I feel like the developers of this remaster could’ve taken a leaf out of the books of games like Downwell or Blasphemous, both of which have excellent examples of in game palette and ratio customisation. I would have suggested a little bit more tinkering with the visuals to really make the difference between the original and the HD really striking.
The UI of the switch version also works really well and seems to be designed after or inspired by the NES and SNES online UIs which is a plus.
All in all, I think G-Darius HD is a brilliant remaster which feels made for the switch, it has a great amount of replay value and is a real fun game. As I said it could have done with some more visual tinkering, and I would’ve gotten rid of the credit system to make the game feel better suited to console. But otherwise, it’s a fun ride.