G-Darius

1997 video game

G Darius (Gダライアス, Jī Daraiasu) is a horizontally scrolling shooter arcade video game released by Taito in 1997. It is the fourth arcade installment of the Darius series and the first with three dimensional polygonal graphics. A port to the PlayStation was published as G Darius.

Much like previous installments in the Darius series, G Darius is a horizontally scrolling shooter. While the game uses three dimensional polygonal graphics, the gameplay is two dimensional. The player controls a spaceship named the Silver Hawk and must battle enemies and avoid obstacles throughout the game's stages (referred to as "zones" in the game). The ship is armed with forward firing missiles, small aerial bombs, and a protective force field. These can be upgraded by power ups, in the form of large orbs, that are dropped by specially colored enemies when they are destroyed. When the player reaches the end of a zone, a boss appears, which must be defeated to proceed. Once the boss of a zone is destroyed, the player is given a choice of which zone to play next via a branching path. Each enemy contains a unique enhancement; some will act as extra turrets and others will act as shields. Additionally, the player can detonate their captured enemy as a bomb. The captured enemy will continue to follow the player until either they are destroyed after taking enough damage, the player's ship is destroyed or the player 'absorbs' them to utilize a special ability.

G Darius is a prequel story that revolves around a conflict between the humanoids of Amelia and cyborg/chimera biovessels known as the "Thiima" (meant to mean simply "deliverer of death"). The Thiima had been aroused by the Amnelian army's use of the weapon A. N. (All Nothing) to annihilate the world Blazer, whom Amelia had been at war with over jurisdiction over the moon Mahsah. Determined to protect their existence, and long ago programmed to protect the universe from just such threats as A. N., the Thiima swarmed Amelia. Although the armed forces were badly ravaged, Amnelian scientists and engineers were able to make use of both A. N. and reverse engineered Thiiman technology/life systems to create the Silver Hawk fighters. Ultimately, two pilots Sameluck Raida and Lutia Feen are chosen to perform a decisive attack on the main Thiima base: Kazumn, a satellite of the planet Darius.

G Darius was ported to the PlayStation as G Darius by THQ. The Windows 95 version, based on the PlayStation port, was published by CyberFront Corporation, MediaKite, and Sourcenext in 2000–01. A port for Nintendo Switch and Sony PlayStation 4 was released in 2021 worldwide digitally. It contains the standard resolution version, as well as a new HD version of the game. In the US and Europe, it was also released as a physical edition. In Japan, the physical release is part of the compilation Darius Cozmic Revelation. This compilation was released internationally by Strictly Limited Games. G Darius HD Steam version was released on March 30, 2022. An update to the Switch and PS4 ports on the same date added G Darius Ver. 2, G Darius Ver. 2 HD and G Darius for Consumer (the Japanese PlayStation port).

The PlayStation port received favorable reviews according to the review aggregation website GameRankings. Five issues later (November 1), however, the magazine demoted it to being the tenth most successful arcade game of the month. In a 2014 retrospective, Euro gamer called the game "one of the greatest shooting games ever released".