(Arcade) Darius Extra - No Death Clear, 1CC A-B-D-G-K-Q-V 9.724.870 pts

Played on the Switch version of Darius Cozmic Collection, this is the "Extra" version which is the most competitive and most challenging version of the game.

There are quite a few differences between Extra version and the earlier revisions, such as: Overall weapon balance is designed to use the laser weapon as soon as you can, as opposed to waiting until late in the game (or never picking it up). A few gold/silver orb placements are different, and some of the bosses health levels have been adjusted (like Fatty Glutton having much less health making him manageable to beat with the laser).

The games' scoring is made radically different by the new end game bonus system. As you can see, I finish the game with 5 lives in reserve (2 to start, 1 extra at 6ook points, then 2 picked up as secret orbs) for a massive 5 million point bonus after the final boss is defeated. I greatly prefer this way over the original release, where you would have to stockpile all 5 of your lives and checkpoint milk certain areas (M level) or bosses, such as Octopus on X ending level. You'd spend about half the game slowly removing his limbs and then killing the timeout orbs for a few minutes each life. You can still attempt to milk timeout orbs in Extra version, but the cost for messing up and dying is so high that I really didn't bother in this run.

If you're a seasoned Darius player and can clear the original version, I definitely recommend trying Extra version. I feel like this is the way it was meant to be played.

As always, thank you for watching!