Darius Cozmic Collection: Arcade

An extremely well put together love letter to a classic series of shoot ‘em ups. Darius Cozmic Collection Arcade reminds us how brutal games used to be whilst allowing newcomers in gently. A tad expensive but polished to a sheen.

Other than the original Darius and Sagaia, these games are a great way to play a series of seriously challenging arcade shmups from the past where arcades ruled.

A playworthy history lesson about an undervalued shoot-em-up franchise. The collection is technically excellent, while the retro games keep up their fascination til today, mainly because of their imaginative bosses.

Darius Cozmic Collection Arcade gathers some very important side-scrolling shoot-em-up classics into one very attractive package. It’s not a definitive edition by any means, but it’s a fantastic release for fans of the franchise.

I remember reading about Darius first in early 90s game magazines, and thought I’d have to make do with the console versions. Playing the arcade versions actually made me even more excited to try the console games in the other collection that came out. There’s some frustration to be found in this collection, but overall it’s another quality batch of shooters for Switch owners.

With a near-perfect emulation of the original classics and the possibility to change nearly every parameter possible, this is just what the 2D shoot'em-up enthusiast needs. It's true that adding collectible extras would be welcome and the compilation would be even better if it included G-Darius, but being focused on the 2D legacy of the series, Darius Cozmic Collection Arcade is more than worthy of featuring on every shoot'em-up fan with a Nintendo Switch.

All three games available in Darius Cozmic Collection Arcade, in all of their included versions, are well worth playing for any fan of shoot 'em ups out there. Those are the best ports anyone could hope for, and there is nothing wrong with them in their own right. The fact that running them on a home arcade cabinet is practically impossible because of the multi-monitor nature of the first two games included, makes this collection very desirable indeed for the sake of preservation alone. The price of admission, however, is pretty steep if one considers that only three games are truly included - no matter how great they are, and that the first neither has aged particularly well, nor is comfortable to play on modern 16:9 displays.

Darius Cozmic Collection Arcade is a good compilation and the titles included are of a high quality, but as comprehensive as it is, it's still a little limited for the price. Enthusiasts, however, will be delighted by it.

Many of us grew up playing these games, and it’s great to have them available on newer platforms. The arcade titles have aged quite well, although it feels quite pricey.

This is a much-needed collection of iconic shoot 'em ups that, until now, were lost to the sands of time. Each of the games included in this collection is a thrill to play, but it's hard not to compare the number of games included and the lack of extra content with the premium price tag and feel like something is off. A lack of extras could be forgiven if this were a complete collection, but the fact that there are titles missing from this compilation raises red flags on an otherwise stellar set of arcade shooter classics.

If you’re going to make a console compilation and leave out what is arguably the best entry then it’s hard not to see that as a missed opportunity.