When I purchased my PS4 and Switch last year, I had no idea that those two consoles would open the door to rediscovering my love for the SHMUP genre. On both of those systems, I have purchased numerous titles like the Gradius games, Last Resort, Ikaruga, Gunbird, Danmaku 3 and a ton of others. The Switch alone has become quite the beast for shooters and the portability of the console makes it a match made in heaven. I am once again late to the party, but I just found out that a Darius compilation is headed for the Switch on February 28th, 2019. The Darius Cozmic Collection is something I've always wanted and almost sounds like a dream come true for a Darius fan. I say "almost" because the way Taito is going about releasing it is downright scummy.
As of now Darius Cozmic Collection is slated for a Japan only release but with the Switch being region free, importing it is an easy option. The real question is should you even bother. This compilation is being released in two flavors. The standard edition will contain the arcade versions of Darius, Darius II, Sagaia and Darius Gaiden. Picking up the special, limited edition will get you the aforementioned games as well as Darius Twin (SNES), Darius Force (Super Famicom), Sagaia (SEGA Mayster System version), Darius II (Mega Drive version) and Darius Alpha (PC Engine.) It also has some bonuses like an arranged music CD, a booklet and mini acrylic marquee.
You Darius heads might have noticed the glaring omission that is G-Darius. G-Darius is my favorite Darius game it it sucks to see it get the shaft here. However, what sucks even more is the, for lack of a better word, crappy way Taito is releasing the Darius Cozmic Collection. Anyone that wants all of the games on this collection will have to spring for the special, limited edition. This is some EA and Activision levels of BS. I mean, why in the eff would you cut your audience off from five of the games? You aren't even getting the whole collection when you buy the standard edition. Oh, and for those of you that don't know much about the Darius titles, the arcade version of Sagaia is the arcade version of Darius II under a different name, so in reality, you'll only get three titles with the standard edition.
If that didn't leave a sour taste in your mouth, let's talk about the asking price for both editions. Buying the vanilla version of Darius Cozmic Collection will have you forking over 5,200 Yen. That converts to $46.75 in US dollars. Grabbing the special, limited edition of the collect will set you back 16,800 Yen, which converts to a little over $150. No matter what side of the world you live on that is far too much moola to be parting with for either version of this compilation. All of the games in this collection are freaking old and while I'd love to check out Darius and Darius II and the Mega Drive version of Sagaia, the mere thought of shelling out cash for this collection disgusts me. There have been compilations that have released with far more games (SEGA Genesis Collection) and cost less money than what Taito expects us to pay. I have no idea what Taito is smoking but it must be pretty dang good for them to cook up this sort of nonsense.
As quickly as my hopes for the Darius Cozmic Collection were raised, they were immediately dashed. I guess Taito didn't get the memo about how a special edition should be handled because this is not the way to go about it.
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