![]() Aoki-san was also very passionate about the game, so we didn't always see eye to eye, but it lead to a game we were very proud of. Of course, shooters weren't selling that well at the time so getting a green light wasn't easy, but it was the chance to revive a much-loved series, so we kept pushing. "It originally came about due to our passion for the series matching that of the then-producer, Hiroshi Aoki. "We've worked closely with Taito since the inception of the series on PSP," says Pyramid producer and expat James Wragg. Taito - now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Square Enix - has allowed the compact and agile Pyramid to do the heavy lifting in terms of development, and a productive relationship has blossomed between the two companies. Which brings us to Chronicle Saviours, the first major home release in the series for what seems like an eternity, and the culmination of six years of development, iteration and evolution. An augmented Android and iOS port would follow in 2012 under the subtitle Second Prologue, which included extras taken from the arcade version. Another Chronicle was a rare instance of a domestic game getting an arcade port rather than the other way around, and swiftly became the stuff of legend among coin-op lovers a near-mythical beast rarely encountered in the wild. While the original version of Dariusburst was a consumer release first and foremost, Pyramid was keen to maintain that vital link to the franchise's former stomping ground: the arcade.Ģ010's Dariusburst: Another Chronicle was a multi-screen coin-op behemoth, housing two 32-inch monitors to mimic the three-screen setup seen in the original 1986 Darius cabinet. "The PSP version of Dariusburst was instigated by Hiroshi Aoki after years of pushing the plan through with Taito until it was at last accepted and developed," explains Pyramid senior vice president Junichi Kashiwagi. It's been a remarkable endeavour for all concerned. Developed by Patapon studio Pyramid, this refreshing take on Taito's classic capitalised on the Japanese resurgence of Sony's handheld, and launched a spin-off Darius sub-series which has since expanded to arcades and smartphones - and, more recently, to PC, PlayStation 4 and PS Vita in the shape of Dariusburst: Chronicle Saviours, which launches worldwide this month. However, unlike its aforementioned contemporaries - which have sadly fallen dormant due to developer collapse and publisher apathy respectively - Darius has more or less managed to remain in active duty since those glory days.Īfter a prolonged period of absence, Dariusburst launched on the PlayStation Portable in Japan back in 2009, the first all-new entry in the series since G-Darius over a decade previously. Taito's seminal Darius series - like its arcade competitors R-Type and Gradius - is one of the franchises which helped shape and define the 2D horizontal shooter genre during the coin-op dreamland that was the mid-to-late '80s.
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