G-Darius HD (PC) - λ route no-miss clear, 20m

A scrappy clear of the Lambda route in G-Darius HD (Ver. 1). This was already a stellar port on the PS4 and Switch, being easily the most arcade-accurate home version of the game to date, but the PC version (and recent console update) brings this release up to par with the ShotTriggers line. It's a lavish package, featuring not only the first ever home port of Ver. 2, but also a raft of new 'gadgets' showing highly useful game information (boss HP, which enemy you've captured and their HP, command notation for the Captains' special moves, etc), a beautiful zone map on the pause screen (with helpful power-up info), and the shedloads of toggleable bells and whistles you'd expect from M2. It emulates the performance idiosyncrasies of both versions of the game very closely (be aware that Ver. 2 has completely different peaks and valleys than Ver. 1), and there's an option to disable the slowdown entirely, for those benighted souls who view all videogame slowdown as some sort of amateur mistake.
This isn't necessarily a scoring run, though I did intend to hit the 20-million benchmark. The key to scoring in G-Darius is to use your captured enemies effectively. Destroying waves of enemies with the shots fired by captured ones gives a x2 score multiplier, while converting captured Captains (minibosses) into Alpha Beams gives a x6 multiplier (detonating them gives a x3 multiplier and is useful in certain situations). The biggest score multipliers, though, are gained by using your Alpha Beams to counter the bosses' pink Beta Beams. Countering one Beta Beam produces a x6 multiplier, two give you x8, three x10, and four x12. The fourfold counter is only possible against Fire Fossil on this route - most bosses present only single or double counter opportunities. It's also worth remembering that your multiplier applies not only to whole waves of enemies or defeated bosses, but everything you destroy, so you ideally want to kill all enemies in a given wave with your captured enemy's shots, rather than just the last one. There are many other ways to milk points out of various situations in the game, but I've only used the most basic scoring strategies here, and generally aimed to get bosses out of the way as soon as possible.
There is lots of room for improvement in my run. Most notably, I pick up an enemy that doesn't shoot in zone Beta, costing me a lot of points, and I waste too many Alpha Beams in zone Delta, leaving me with too few capture balls for comfort in zone Lambda. Still, a clear's a clear! This is only where G-Darius begins, though - there are still 10 more stages and 4 more final bosses to master, as well as entirely different game balancing and scoring systems to contend with in the newly-added Ver. 2!
Played on a modified Sega Virtua Stick High Grade.

[@countelmer]

Well done. Love this game so much.

[@soratheorangejuicemascot5809]

Reading the description feels like I should choose this game over other shmups.

[@Klatrymadon]

Oh, definitely - it's one of the best. I'd rather play it than 99% of all other video games, most of the time. Give it a shot! :)

[@goldentrout4811]

Awesome play! I'm so glad its on steam now. I played this ages ago on the ps2 with my brothers. It was called Taito collections or it might have been Taito memories, it had a bunch of other arcade games including g darius but it was in japanese. Was a bit hard navigating the menus but it had some really fun games!

[@Klatrymadon]

Glad you enjoyed it! Yeah, before this port was released the Taito Memories version was arguably the best we had. It has one pretty hilarious flaw, though - it runs at a consistent 60fps with no slowdown whatsoever, so it's even harder than the arcade game! G-Darius HD gives you the option to play it that way if you want, but otherwise it emulates the slowdown accurately. :p I've uploaded another video covering the Mu route if you feel like watching that. I'm hoping to get around to uploading 1CC videos for each of the 5 final bosses.

[@BlinJe]

Damn the classic resolution looks crisp maybe i should've been playing on that

[@Klatrymadon]

This is the HD version! I recorded it with OBS so maybe that's just shit.

[@BlinJe]

@@Klatrymadon I knowww but you've got it in 4:3 oh, aspect ratio not resolution my B

[@s6B761]

13:12 LARRY IS THAT YOU!?

[@Ishmokin]

GG! your run looks similar to Icarus's run on the switch leaderboard online replay which I got strats from. Using Rei Benser Plus enemy capture was key to making Lightning Coronatus fight much easier. I savestated that part capturing Rei Benser Plus and practiced it so many times, without it, I would have not gotten the 1cc last weekend.

[@Klatrymadon]

Thank you, and well done on your 1CC! I haven't seen Icarus' run but he's a great player so it's good to know my strats aren't too suboptimal. :) Yeah, the Benser is a great capture - good damage output and loads of HP, so it usually survives long enough for an alpha beam.

[@Ishmokin]

@@Klatrymadon thanks! :) i learned some some stuff from your run too. I liked your positioning in dual horn sequnce wherein the homing "snake laser" didnt split into 3. Will copy that in my next runs. Thanks for sharing your video :)

[@Klatrymadon]

@@Ishmokin Glad it helped! Yeah, Dual Horn is probably the trickiest boss on this route, and the 3-way homing laser can really cause a lot of trouble if it splits in a bad spot. It's very satisfying to sort of indirectly throw it off the screen!

[@BlinJe]

Ah I realise the error of my ways with Dual Horn now. After the first huge zako wave I was staying at the bottom and dodging back up instead of resetting to the top first

[@Klatrymadon]

Yeah, get that bendy laser off the screen before it splits into three. Because it never splits in the same place it can always cause more trouble than you expected!

[@subtalkformer]

Needs this version on mobile