DariusBurst: Another Chronicle EX+
Reviewed by Cyril Lachel on
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Nearly thirty-five years after first hitting the arcade scene, Darius continues to be one of the best and most-respected shoot 'em ups on the market. The newest installment is called DariusBurst: Another Chronicle EX+, and beyond being a mouthful, it's also a gorgeous 2D shooter that is packed with more modes and levels than you'll ever have time to play. It's also filled with stunning fish-themed bosses that take up most of the super-wide display. While a little repetitive, Another Chronicle EX+ is a must for both shoot 'em up junkies and longtime fans of the Darius franchise. Now, enough with the ports. Bring on a new Darius game.
Rating: 78%
If you've watched a lot of my shoot 'em up reviews, then you have no doubt heard me complain that there's not enough content to warrant the high asking price. After all, it's common these days to see twenty- or thirty-minute shooters retailing for forty or even sixty dollars. This is not the case when it comes to DariusBurst: Another Chronicle EX+, a mouthful of a game that is overflowing with modes, levels, ships and a whole galaxy filled with tasty seafood-themed bosses. It's a shooter with so much content that it's going to take a lot more than one or two sittings to fry up the fishy alien armada to mouth-watering perfection. I think we need to start this review, because I'm getting really hungry.
For nearly thirty-five years, Darius has been one of the most consistent shoot 'em up franchises on the market. While most of the genre titans have come and gone, Taito's venerable series has continued to take the fight to the Belsar army well into the 21st century. DariusBurst: Another Chronicle EX+ is an updated port of a 2010 arcade sequel to a spin-off that originally started out on the PlayStation Portable. Confused? Don't be, because all you need to know is that this action-packed side-scroller is loaded with everything you love about classic shooters, and a whole lot more.
The other thing you need to know about Darius is that it has a fishy-theme. Belsar's army consists of a wide assortment of alien ships designed to look like metal sea creatures. I'm talking about shrimp, sharks, sawfish, squid, the chambered nautilus, octopus, barreleye fish and so much more. It's a bullet hell shooter where getting swarmed by a school of fish is every bit as deadly as the enemy bullets.
All this is presented using a super-wide 32x9 aspect ratio, which gives off the illusion of being lost in a sea of alien ships. Although it takes a little getting used to, the massive playfield really sets the action apart from the more claustrophobic 16x9 (or even 4x3) shooters. It opens up the battlefield, giving us lots of room to weave in and out of bullets while collecting colored orbs and admiring the gorgeous backdrops. And because this is still a fairly straight-forward shoot 'em up with only a couple buttons to worry about, you'll have no problem warming up to DariusBurst's many unique quirks.
One of my favorite twists on the genre is how every mode puts you in control of how the action plays out. For both the original and EX modes, players will be able to choose between different branching paths, which ultimately decides what ending you'll get. This means that you can play through the game dozens of different ways, adding a level of replay that you don't normally get in this type of shoot 'em up. Best of all, there are a whole new set of levels and bosses over in the EX mode, which has its own branching paths.
The more interesting part of the game is the Chronicle mode, which has us cycling through an entire star system to help liberate each zone by completing its challenge. These missions come in all sizes and difficulties, with some acting as a boss rush mode and others requiring speed and precision. This is where a bulk of the content is located, and it will take countless hours to work through. I love this kind of stuff. It's the kind of thing we used to see from fighting games, like SoulCalibur on Dreamcast, Street Fighter Alpha 3 on PlayStation and the 2011 version of Mortal Kombat. When you're sick of going through the various arcade modes, you'll spend months plugging away at these different challenges. There's a staggering amount of content here.
And the shocking thing is that we're not even done talking about the modes. The big new addition to Another Chronicle EX+ is the Event Mode, which features missions that were previously exclusive to limited-time arcade events. These are twenty-one unique scenarios that will test your shoot 'em up skills in order to earn high scores, adding to the already overwhelming amount of content found in the rest of the modes. I can only imagine the amount of time it will take to do and see everything in this newest version of DariusBurst. I don't even want to think about it.
Between all these different modes and levels, it's easy to lose track of the fact that this is just a great shooter. Even if it wasn't packed with an absurd amount of content, it would still be a stellar accomplishment for the long-running series. Everything from the explosive action to the tight gameplay benefits from the decades of shoot 'em up know-how, and you can see the level of expertise with every single one of the massive bosses.
It helps that DariusBurst looks incredible. The original game may be more than a decade old at this point, but Taito has done an amazing job of merging 3D graphics into a 2D action game. Although we fight through a lot of predictable locations (such as factories, asteroid belts and the middle of space), every stage has a personality that is exclusive to Darius. The widescreen battlefield also plays into the game's grandeur, creating an epic feel that you don't get in a lot of shooters. Couple all this with the amazing enemy designs and you have a game that really shines, no matter which system you own.
The biggest complaint I have against the game is that it's a bit repetitive, especially when you start digging into the Chronicle and Event modes. While the gameplay is always tight and responsive, it's not necessarily deep enough to sustain dozens of hours of content. If you're not already sold on the game with the arcade mode, then going through the Chronicle challenges will feel awfully samey. In other words, if you don't like Darius and this style of bullet hell shooter, then there's no amount of extra modes and levels that will win you over.
That said, this is an absolute treasure trove for longtime Darius fans. The forty-dollar price tag may seem a bit steep at first, but there's no question in my mind that there is enough content in Another Chronicle EX+ to justify the ask. As far as I'm concerned, all future shoot 'em ups can learn a thing or two about modes and content from DariusBurst.
Nearly thirty-five years after first hitting the arcade scene, Darius continues to be one of the best and most-respected shoot 'em ups on the market. The newest installment is called DariusBurst: Another Chronicle EX+, and beyond being a mouthful, it's also a gorgeous 2D shooter that is packed with more modes and levels than you'll ever have time to play. It's also filled with stunning fish-themed bosses that take up most of the super-wide display. While a little repetitive, Another Chronicle EX+ is a must for both shoot 'em up junkies and longtime fans of the Darius franchise. Now, enough with the ports. Bring on a new Darius game.
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