Gertlushgaming banner logo

Review: Darius Cozmic Collection Console (PlayStation 4)

by ·

Experience one of the most influential horizontally scrolling shoot ’em up series of all time from the comfort of your home, on your TV screen. Developed by the legendary TAITO Corporation and first released for arcade machines, the monumental Darius Cozmic Collection Console offers 6 of the best console entries in the long-running series in a total of 9 versions.

Pros:

  • Graphics.
  • 149.5mb download size.
  • Platinum trophy.
  • Nine games in one- Darius 2 (Megadrive), Sagaia (Genesis), Sagaia (Master System), Darius Twin (SFC), Darius Twin (Snes), Darius Force (SFC), Super Nova (Snes), Darius Alpha (PC Engine) and Darius Plus (PC Engine).
  • Game manual for all the games.
  • Display type-normal/pixel perfect/fit to screen/fullscreen.
  • Smoothing-on/off.
  • Scanlines-on/off.
  • Backgrounds-on/off.
  • Can rebind controls and change rapid-fire speed.
  • Online leaderboards for each game.
  • Replays-make your own or download and watch them from the leaderboards.
  • Quicksave and load feature.
  • Can quit out back to the game selection screen.
  • Darius 2 has a two-game modes-normal and special mode.
  • Darius Force has 2 modes-normal mode and boss endurance mode.
  • Darius Alpha has 4 modes-normal, score attack, time attack, and 4 minute time trial.
  • Additional game modes don’t support cheat codes or quicksave/load.
  • Analague and d-pad support.

Cons:

  • Only one background choice.
  • Have to source your own cheat codes, no option to just turn them on.
  • The basic description of the history of games.
  • No extra bells and whistles content.
  • The manual is just a Web page image of the controls.

  • 8/10
    Graphics - 8/10
  • 8/10
    Sound - 8/10
  • 7/10
    Accessibility - 7/10
  • 8/10
    Length - 8/10
  • 9/10
    Fun Factor - 9/10
8/10

Summary

Darius, there’s a name I’ve not heard in a while. I remember vaguely playing this back on a mates Megadrive but I wasn’t very good so I would just watch. Fast forward to today after years of honing my skills and reflexes, I still cannot hold my own on Darius! But this time round I get to sample all the Darius games in one package. The Collection is a fans pixel porn mag, it has a brief description of the games, a bit of history and online leaderboards. Us scrubs who either suck or didn’t play it will struggle at first but if it gets to much I’m sure you can find a way to get further but I won’t mention or condone cheats of any sorts. I did like the now standard TV filters and display settings, tweaking shoot speed means it has had some love. I do wonder why we didn’t get any classy artwork to adorn the sides of the screen, you get just the one and can turn it off or on. Overall its a solid collection but it doesn’t have the depth of additional content many fans may have wanted but if you like Darius, you have a few games to choose from!

Jim Smale

Gaming since the Atari 2600, I enjoy the weirdness in games counting Densha De Go and RC De Go as my favourite titles of all time. I prefer gaming of old where buying games from a shop was a thing, Being social in person was a thing. Join me as I attempt to adapt to this new digital age!