Self-explanatory. Don’t read these while drinking. This poll was made possible thanks to Huge Darius Battleships. Enjoy 
Edit : Personally, My Home Daddy gets me into fits of uncontrollable laughter 
I have never played any games from this series, but My Home Daddy seems the funniest to me from that list.
buddy blazer for sure!
haha bud… blaze.
Seconded. I’m also going against DG’s suggestion, as I am drinking right now. Give me another hour, and my typing will be shit.
Buddy Blazer is winning so far. He’s based after a Scorpionfish. The Blaze part probably comes from the burning sensation one would feel if they are stung by the highly venomous barbs at the tip if its fins.
Edit : Interesting, Blazer is said to ressemble a Scorpionfish outside that link… and in there he says he’s based off a Dragonfish I’ll need to contact the guy and find out
…What the heck is this Darius thing? I like Fatty Glutton or Eight-Feet Umbrella…wouldn’t it be foot, not feet? My Home Daddy is pretty cool though.
Darius is one of the first Shooter series by Taito. It was released back in 1986 for the arcade. Back then, just having a ship fly in space wasn’t going to cut it any longer; so Taito had an idea. Instead of fighting aliens or enemy ships, you fought mechanical battleships disguised as fish. Yes, fish. The main star in Darius is known as the Silver Hawk, which had a variety of upgradable weapons, shields and bombs. Another special feature with Darius was that the two first games had a monster sized arcade as they had 3 monitors attached to one another in order to cover the entire horizontal levels. This feature was also used for Ninja Warriors, another Taito game. It was one that not only gave it a feel of novelty but also helped in providing “breathing” space so the ship wouldn’t be stuck to wall vs a gigantic boss. The music seemed to be “generic” at the time but had some charm.
Darius II gets released in 1989, uses the 3 monitor display feature of the original and gets a slight graphical upgrade. It also features some more enjoyable themes which have become quite popular amongst Darius fans.
There are several ports of those games on PC Engine which feature some excusive bosses, and still retains the arcade feel. Special mention goes to Super Darius II (1993) which ditched the unusual music for hard rocking music featuring sampled guitars and synthesizers.
Then comes 1994… alot of decent titles came out that year… like Square’s Live-A-Live and Final Fantasy VI. Taito brings us Darius Gaiden, which is recognized as one of the more graphically impressive 2D shooters even today. This one featured some excellent graphical marvels with background and boss design. The music is described as “New Age Space Opera meets Techno”, which has to be experienced in full to feel the impact. This is truly one of the most beautiful shooters I’ve had the pleasure of playing. It was ported on the Saturn in 1996 and for the PC in 1999. (Better late then never, no ?)
In 1997, Taito tries to bring Darius to 3D and give us G-Darius, which still has the 2D structure but has lush 3D backgrounds and all sort of things happening which makes it look so “alive”. The musical direction is close to Gaiden but it’s a bit rougher this time. While I haven’t played this one yet… just looking at screenshots is enough to convince me that it’s another high quality shooter. This one saw a US release on the PS1 during the same year.
The best part of all Darius games are the boss encounters. Some have the most ridiculous names, such as a Hermit Crab called My Home Daddy, a Giant Squid called Neon Light Illusion and a Japanese Pancake Fish called Eight Feet Umbrella. That little bit of quirkiness makes Darius stand out from the crowd.
Were the names due to a bad translation or something? I need to get into a good shooter, played Ikaruga at Fry’s Electronics once and it was awesome, just wish I had a Gamecube…
Either Darius Gaiden PC or G-Darius, both should be easy to get on eBay. Finding those two offline is a lot harder. You can safely ignore the others as they haven’t aged well compared to these two.
They’ve all aged well.
Of course, I’ve never played a shmup that I didn’t think aged well. To me, that’s just a genre where games never lose their edge.
Even stuff like 1942…