As mentioned already on the main page, nearly every boss in the game is modeled after a sea creature.
Super Darius and Darius Extra Version (Mega Drive) have the most bosses of any 7-stage Darius game, at 26. Darius Gaiden has the second highest, at 20.
Darius Gaiden Extra has the most number of complete Zones (that is, the main body of the stage followed by a boss) in a single playthrough of any Darius game, at 28 if the player starts a game on the Player 2 side. The second highest is Dariusburst Another Chronicle EX+, which features 13 Zones in the "6th Interplanteary Conquest" event map.
Ascended Fanon: The 2019 Genesis port of Darius was originally conceived as a fanmade ROM before being officially adopted for the Genesis Mini.
"AC Mode" in Chronicle Saviours is completely translated in English, but for some reason, the loading screen tips are left untranslated. This was later remedied in Another Chronicle EX+.
The digital edition of the Darius Odyssey guidebook, which was released as Downloadable Content for Dariusburst Chronicle Saviours, is only available in Japanese, despite the game being translated in multiple languages. An updated version of the guidebook would later be fully translated in English for the Western release of Darius Cozmic Revelation, but as part of the collector's edition.
Development Gag: The "Cozmic" in Darius Cozmic Collection and Darius Cozmic Revelation looks like a strange typo to make it sound cool, but it's actually a reference to one (of several) Working Title for the first game, Cozmo, before Taito set up on the final name.
Executive Meddling: The brutal difficulty of Darius II was the result of this trope. According to an interview with the development team, the Easy difficulty was originally the default Normal difficulty during development, but since players were already becoming more familiar with horizontal shmups at the time, the developers were forced to increase the game's difficulty by arcade operators at the last minute.
Super Darius, Super Darius II, the PSP Dariusburst, and the original Dariusburst Another Chronicle have all not seen rereleases on more modern platforms. Notably, most of the other games in the series have seen rereleases on modern platforms, usually as part of compilations; this includes console reformulations of the arcade Darius and Darius II. Somewhat justified for Super Darius since Darius Extra Version on Mega Drive is quite similar to it, also being a 4:3 adaptation of the original Darius with 26 bosses. Justified in the case of DBAC as its expanded rerelease Dariusburst Another Chronicle EX is available for sale in rereleases. Super Darius was later re-released in 2020 as part of the PC Engine Mini.
Excluding the home console ports, the original three-screen version of Darius II was never ported to any other console. Most of its home ports are based on its updated dual-screen version because of its brutal difficulty. It finally got a release in 2023 for Nintendo Switch and Playstation 4 as part of Hamster's Arcade Archives lineup.
The Genesis/MD version of Darius II was released in Japan and North America, but not in Europe, where they instead received a region-exclusive Sega Master System version of the game. Europe would not get the Gensis version until the Cozmic CollectionCompilation Re-release a little under 30 years later. Conversely, North American and Japanese players would not get the SMS version until that same compilation's release.
The Cozmic Collection version of Sagaia (Game Boy) was packaged with preorders of the Japanese versions, but not the international versions. Perhaps to make up for this, it is included in physical Western copies of Darius Cozmic Revelation.
For that matter, Sagaia itself was originally a Japan-exclusive, and would not see an overseas release until the Cozmic Revelation package, 20 years later.
G-Darius HD and Dariusburst Another Chronicle EX+ (as well as their compilation physical release, Darius Cozmic Revelation) were released in the West some months after their Japanese versions, with the Western versions not even getting release dates until some time after said Japanese versions' releases. History would repeat with G-Darius HD Ver.2, which was pushed out for Japanese PS4 and Switch players on March 31, 2022, as well as the launch version of the Steam port which was released the same day, while Western Switch and PS4 players had to wait until June 1 of the same year.note This seems to be a common practice with Strictly Limited Games and their parent company, United Games, as they also did the same with Cotton Reboot! and Cotton Fantasy.
Of all the ports of the first game, Darius Plus, Darius Alpha, Super Darius and Darius R were never released outside of Japan. Darius Plus and Darius Alpha finally made its way worldwide with the Cozmic Collection.
Super Darius 2 is Japan exclusive and the Saturn port of II was not released in North America.
The original Dariusburst remained Japan exclusive for a few years until Second Prologue was released worldwide. The 2009 PSP game was planned to be released worldwide as well, as the game was rated in some European countries, but it never happened.
While Chronicle Saviours is available digitally in all major reasons, the physical Vita release—the only physical version of the game—is Japan-only. Mercifully, like other Vita games, it has no region-lock, but you'll still have to pay a premium to import it if you live outside of Japan, and it doesn't have other language options.
No Port For You: Most of the games, even their console ports, have since made their way to rereleases on modern consoles, so the ones that don't stand out more:
Super Darius and Super Darius II remain exclusive to the PC Engine CD-ROM2.
Darius Gaiden Extra has never been ported to a home platform.
Darius R remains a Game Boy Advance exclusive.
The original Dariusburst is PSP-only, and while Dariusburst Second Prologue on smartphones is mostly a port of it, it has somewhat different mechanics (slide controls let you move much faster and Burst Counters don't have to be timed).
Preorder Bonus: If you ordered the Japanese arcade or full versions of Darius Cozmic Collection within a particular 36-hour window on Amazon, you would get Sagaia (Game Boy) as a bonus game. This wasn't the case for the overseas versions, however Game Boy Sagaia would later be a bonus title for the physical overseas edition of Darius Cozmic Revelation. It would later receive a standalone digital release on October 2022.
Recycled Set: Although Darius initially came in a dedicated two-monitor cabinet, Taito later released a kit for converting original Darius cabinets to Darius II, allowing operators to save money and players to enjoy Darius II with three screens.
WARNING! A HUGE BATTLESHIP "SOH-TAKEKO" IS APPROACHING FAST
In Minecraft, one of the randomly-picked subtitles for the title screen is "Warning! A huge battleship 'STEVE' is approaching fast!"
Psyvariar, another shmup, pays homage to Darius's boss warning screen.
WARNING THE AREA TARGET (boss name) IS APPROACHING FAST
This game shows up briefly on a TV screen in the action film, Black Mask. Specifically, the titular hero's Love Interest is shown playing the Golden Ogre stage.
Refitted for Sequel: The original Darius was originally planned to have 28 bosses but this was later reduced to 11 bosses. Some of these bosses would be instead used in Darius II.
Schedule Slip: M2 originally planned to release the Ver.2 patch for G Darius HD during Summer 2021, but they went out of their way to not only port and update the arcade revision, but also the Playstation port as well, causing the patch and the PC port to be delayed to March 2022.
Short Run in Peru: The Master System version of Darius II was originally released in Europe and Brazil in 1992 to cash in on the console's enduring popularity in both regions (meanwhile, Japan and North America would get the Genesis/MD port instead), and would not see a release in Japan until 2019 when it was included in the console port and special editions of Darius Cozmic Collection, 27 years later.
Similarly Named Works: "G ZERO", the title of G-Darius's Zone α theme, is also the name of the zero-calorie variant of Gatorade sports drinks.
Years prior to the Genesis Mini port, an official port of the first game was planned to be released for the original Genesis during its lifetime, but it was quietly cancelled for unknown reasons.
The first game was going to have a unique boss for every Zone, but the list was later cut down to 11 (one for each tier of Zones and five Final Bosses). Darius II would then adapt some of these bosses, while Super Darius brings all 26 together.
An arcade installment titled Darius III (teased◊ note The text translates to "Darius III next year." in Zone X's ending in Darius II if the player hadn't lost a life throughout the game) was in development for an early 90's release, but wound up being cancelled as a result of Creative Differences over what screen set-up to employ. It is frequently assumed that Metal Black was born from this cancelled game, although the real story is a bit more complicated. Additionally, the jellyfish seen in the Zone X ending was intended to be the boss of the Zone in question, but was ultimately scrapped according to the second interview on this page.
There were two bosses in Darius Gaiden that never got past the concept stage. The first is "Oogarei", a flatfish battleship with a ruined city on its back that would have camouflage abilities and "Shield Octopus", an octopus pot boss.
Crusty Hammer was originally planned to be the first boss in Darius Gaiden, but since the game was already too easy, they moved him to later stages, tweaked his difficulty and made him harder to make a no-miss run impossible to achieve. This idea was reused in Darius Gaiden Extra where he's the first boss instead of Golden Ogre, but thankfully he's much easier to deal with due to the player starting with a low rank.
A Xbox 360 port of Dariusburst Another Chronicle was in the works, and it would introduce the Silver Hawk Formula pilot Ivry Hadd as the game's main protagonist. The port never got off the ground, but Ivry would later show up in Alice Gear Aegis alongside Ti-2.
Word of Dante: The gag boss in Akkanvader known as My Home Daddy's Girl got her name on a fan site.
Word of God: According to an interview with the developers by Gamest magazine (translation here), the reason Darius Gaiden (the third arcade game) isn't called Darius III is because unlike the first two games, it only uses a single screen; the developers did not consider it a "proper" Darius game due to not using multiple monitors, so they considered it a spinoff.
with the development team, the Easy difficulty was originally the default Normal difficulty during development, but since players were already becoming more familiar with horizontal shmups at the time, the developers were forced to increase the game's difficulty by arcade operators at the last minute.
