The spangly new Switch has bounced the 360 off its HDMI connection. Our main gaming TV is wall mounted with the HDMI cables running inside conduit so it's nice and clean. I stupidly didn't connect all the HDMIs up before hanging it. Taking it down is a minumum two person job - if connecting something new it's really a 3 person job. I have 2 spare HDMIs but to hell with that...

So I have temp moved the 360 into the gaming den - which means access to a rotated 4:3 CRT. It's a last release 360 so my choices are HDMI or composite - there doesn't seem to be an RGB SCART cable for it. I have a rotatable LCD TV with HDMI there too but I just hooked it up with the composite cable and tried Futari in TATE mode.

Dear Lord what a game - it's back as my bestest shmup ever. Even with a washed out shitty old composite connection it looks glorious (helped by the CRT and the fact that the port as an non HD arcade mode which I never played on the big TV. Sitting up close has defanged it a bit- the dreaded 2nd half of level 3 isn't as scary. Sitting closer is helping a lot - that really wasn't practical on the main TV.  I may still hook it up to the LCD with HDMI and see if the difference is worth it to me (I know it probably will be but there's a charm to the CRT -  wonder if there is a quality method of going from HDMI to RGB SCART....)

The 360 has too many good non shmup games for it to be banished in this way though - it will makes its way back downstairs as it's still a great console for family play. This has me considering getting a second 360 just for shmups though.

Now of course I also have the Switch and its shmup selection. Handheld TATE gaming might be something I'll dip into. Will be checking that out.

Had a break from Ketsui myself, good to avoid the burnout and play something nice and relaxing like the Dark Souls trilogy.  Tried to keep my eye in by half-watching streams of it, which seems to have helped, and I even picked up a few new routes.  Stage 5 knocked me down to size on my first credit but a bit of practice and I'm back to NMNB'ing it once in a million tries.

Switch shmups then..

The pick seems to be Esp.Ra.De Psi but that's JP only? What's that about??!!?? I have played it bit on MAME and it's a bit special - so I'd considering paying for a physical release if it gets a Western release - surely that must happen at some point?

Then there's Darius Collection. No interest in the console collection - would be arcade for me. I can remember encountering the multi-screen cabinet in the arcade many moons ago.

Not a huge fan of the 1st two games as they are pretty so-so but seeing them run on my 50" screen would be fun. 

Love Darius Gaiden and have 1CCed it on Saturn and MAME but there's plenty of different routes to run in that game. Anyone know if the Extra version of Gaiden is included ?  £35 for digital Darius is steep but I may fold on that one. There's a physical release but seems to be super low run with dust gathering gubbins for a lot fo coin.

I've heard the Psikyo games have lag - I have them on other consoles anyhow so not something I'd go for is I'm honest.

Have a Caladrius game on 360 and unless I could get a physical release I'd probably pass on it.

There's a Psyvariar game that looks nice.

Anything else?

OMG Crimzon Clover! OMG Ikaruga physical! Omg my empty wallet!

Literally as soon as you know anything further on the above, please please please post here!!!

Yeah I've got the email alerts set up for those.

Only other place I've found so far is this reseller on amazon.jp.  Switch Version.

edit: resellers aren't shipping to the UK either, it seems.

Darius Collection on Switch then. The arcade collection.

I've played the original in the arcade - the 2 (or was it 3?) screen wide behemoth. Was a glorious sit down experience but it was so long ago I can hardly remember it.  I had Darius 2 for Saturn and it tried it's best to recreate the 2 screen version with real time zooming using the shoulder buttons. But really - displays of the time just weren't suitable. It was a casualty of my big clearout. At the time I was thinking I'd get the JP version but I never did. I believe it's not that accurate gameplay wise either. Darius 2 also came in a 3 screen variant but I never saw that. Darius Gaiden is a single screen game and is great. Have the Saturn version of it and have played it loads. Have played it in MAME and in the Taito Legends compilation.

This collection makes Darius and Darius 2 and its variants playable if you have a big screen.  The original suffers a bit because it's so damn wide and even on a 50" screen it's odd seeing a wide screen game that doesn't fill the screen vertically - not even near! Darius 2 being 2 screen looks a good bit better. The first 2 Darius games are very much a run-of-the-mill old school shooters but the display style just makes it fun as you can see loads around you. I reckon it will be good craic in 2 player as well simply because of the amount of space you have.

Gaiden is recreated beautifully - it looks and sounds great. Better than MAME, the Taito Legends port (which is quite poor) and the still-very-nice Saturn version. I think I noticed a bit more detail in explosions etc in this Switch port. But that could be the big display.

There is auto-fire support - this makes these games far more enjoyable for a modern audience - and for those of us of advancing years who get hand cramp easily now - and also makes them do-able re a 1CC for those of us less skilled. You can adjust it but sticking with default rate it seems to fire at the same rate as the Saturn port's rapid fire option. 

You can play it in pixel-perfect mode which shrinks the image a bit or stretch to fit which retains the ratio and fills the display a bit more - it's probably the best compromise. There is an ugly warped fill-the-screen version which is for arseholes.

This is an M2 port so expect their usual flare for screen furniture in the form of widgets that fill the spare space with all sorts of status info that would have been invisible to us playing on older ports. There's marque art and control panel art available too. Very nice.

Darius 2 seems to have a pile of variants that were released to rebalance difficulty for Western releases etc. They do play a bit differently - they are like arrange modes really. I suspect the big Darius fans will love these.

Would have been nice to see Gaiden Extra version which was a rearrangement of the levels with some powerup tweaking. Maybe it will appear as DLC. Maybe it wasn't an official Taito release which might explain its absence.

Playing with the 2 joycons in the holder it controls OK - the stick is causing me lost lives though as I'm used to playing shumps either with a stick or a dpad. I have 1CCed Gaiden using a stick so that is burned in with me. But it's not bad - it's playable at least at casual level without feeling hobbled. I reckon I could adjust to it but I really should get a 2D controller.

At the end of the day it's £35 for 3 Darius games when you ignore the variants. But this is good. This is damn good. I will definitely get value out of it. Online ranking and replay support , save states and all that gubbins are there. All very slick and easy to use. There is a manual but it seems to be a link to a webpage which is mostly in Japanese.  !!    You don't really need it - all the menus are in English.

If you like shmups, which being in this thread I presume you do, you will like this.

There's a console collection version which is more expensive. Not as keen on that. The only Darius game I played on a console was Gaiden on Saturn - so really it holds no interest to me.Most of those games will be compromised ports on older consoles - though I would like to try the Megadrive version that was on the JP mini.

G-Darius looks great but that got a good port on PS2 as part of Taito Legends. It's probably a really nice collection with plenty of features and if it wasn't £45 I'd probably pick it up. But it is. £80 in total - that's just too expensive for a digital game. Having something so comprehensive is at odds with the temporary nature of digital.

I suppose it's possible to install it onto a card and then be able to back that up. But it might also need to be registered/installed on the console? I can't see file copying being insurance against not being able to play a game I bought in the future.

Despite having sunk what I have , if a reasonably priced physical copy without all the tat were to be published I'd buy it.

I cancelled my order of 2x Collector's Edition a couple of weeks ago. Plan was to keep one sealed and I'm kind of regretting it now.

I'll pick it up when it gets a digital discount.

I just ordered the basic version - comes with a badge. I'll put it in storage as the digital version will have the same content.

I like Darius but not THAT much to pay for the collector's edition.

There's a nice Space Invaders anthology available. I'd be more inclined to dig deeper for that.

Would love to see M2 do their magic on a DDP port though....long overdue. Or imagine an arcade Parodius collection.

@hylian_elf
https://store.nicalis.com/products/ikaruga?variant=30303655690376

Are you not still clearing your house out? You've got issues m8.

Y'see I don't agree with that strapline about Ikaruga being the shmup fan's shooter. I admire it but don't like it. It's in a subgenre all its own. Deep down the mechanics are the same as an elite level challenge....akin say to a Cave 2nd loop ..... but it doesn't present itself like that. Probably because it's so in your face from the off. I wouldn't be without a copy.....that currently being the US gamecube version....but I don't aspire to 1ccing it the way I would with DDP or Futari.Not sure why....feels too restrictive even though it probably isn't?????

NMNB?

I thought that, but the clip Dubs links has yer man losing a life or two.

He NMNBed the true last boss.

GDQ and shmups is a bit of an uneasy alliance. They are essentially auto-scrollers which is the dead zone for speedrunners.

That run at Winter GDQ (Futari 1.01 Maniac?) for pure entertainment obviously broke the log jam. But Futari is very audience friendly. Not sure it's really a long term thing this - bit like the Tetris Grandmaster blocks that happened.

I always thought that caravan modes would be a better match for GDQ as the better ones have a bonus depending on the time left in the 2 min and 5 min modes - but no-one seems to have made that connection.