In the past few year it seems that re-releasing several classic/retro games into collections/compilations has seen a rise in popularity. There’s the Disney Afternoon collection by Capcom, Contra and Castvania collections by Konami, SNK 40th Anniversary Collection from SNK/NIS America and many more. Legendary arcade developer Taito is adding their name to that list with two collection releases, Darius Cozmic Collection Arcade and Darius Cozmic Collection Console.
A shmup (shoot em’ up) legend, Darius pioneered horizontal shmups with its dedicated dual-display cabinet, imaginative enemy designs and revolutionary sound design when it was released in 1986. Since then there has been several revisions, sequels and even console ports of this seminal series throughout the years. And now Taito is bringing the series back for a new generation of gamers and veterans to enjoy. As mentioned there are two collections being released, a console collection and an arcade collection.
The first collection is the Darius Cozmic Collection Console which consist of all of the different console versions of Darius. Here are the games that will be in the collection:
- Darius II (Mega Drive, JP version)
- SAGAIA (Genesis, US version)
- SAGAIA (Master System, EU version)
- Darius Twin (Super Famicom, JP version)
- Darius Twin (Super NES, US version)
- Darius Force (Super Famicom, JP version)
- Super Nova (Super NES, US version)
- Darius Alpha (PC Engine, JP version)
- Darius Plus (PC Engine, JP version)
And here is the trailer for that collection:
Next is the Darius Cozmic Collection Arcade. This collection of games has the various versions of Darius that were released in the arcades. Here is the list for this collection:
- Darius (Arcade, original version)
- Darius (Arcade, new version)
- Darius (Arcade, extra version)
- Darius II (Arcade, Dual Screen version)
- SAGAIA (Arcade, ver.1)
- SAGAIA (Arcade, ver.2)
- Darius Gaiden (Arcade)
And here is the trailer for this collection:
Its great to see the Darius games getting a collection, since arcades are starting to become rarer and the price of physical copies of the console versions getting more expensive. The Darius Cozmic Collection Console and the Darius Cozmic Collection Arcade are set to blast off June 16th, with the arcade collection priced at $44.99 and the console collection priced at $59.99.
