Darius Cozmic Collection: Arcade

This is a solid collection with two of the best shooters of the era, but it is pricey. [Issue#178, p.82]

Darius Cozmic Collection Arcade is fun, rewarding and a massive nostalgia trip. The soundtrack is amazing as are your game options when playing this group of great shoot 'em ups. I would have perhaps liked other titles instead of copies of the same game but hey, you can't have everything.

Darius Cozmic Collection is a piece of history for shmup fans. The collection includes a full catalog of the series that allows you to experience some titles that weren’t easily accessible before this release. While I wish there was more history featured in the collection, it was a blast playing these games again, or for the first time.

I cannot recommend this collection at this price. M2 definitely brought their museum quality curation to this collection with how many versions of Darius have been included in this including the extremely rare, maybe not released Sagaia (Version 2) but compared to M2’s other releases this is no more than their Castlevania Collection or their SEGA Ages releases. It’s hard to justify this price other than the fact that all home releases of Darius seem to be a bit pricey. This is made worse by the fact that this collection only has the arcade games: there’s another separate purchase for the console releases and when they are both purchased, they come close to $100. Do not get me wrong, this is a very good collection, but it is very hard to justify a purchase at full price for what is essentially 3 unique games and 4 variations.