Retro Classix: SRD - Super Real Darwin Reviews

Data East <3

There's a lot to like about this game, but I ultimately can't recommend it. The game has a cool premise, with a ship that grows and changes weapons based on which power-ups you grab. It's really satisfying to see your ship grow visibly stronger, and none of the weapons I got felt truly bad, but the fully powered-up weapons felt amazingly strong. There's also clearly an attempt to make the game more forgiving and for a single mistake to not lead into a downward spiral. When you're hit by an enemy shot, instead of dying like in most shmups, you're instead shrunk down to your weakest form, which isn't helpless. There are also lizard-like enemies on the ground you can destroy with your secondary fire. These enemies drop DNA pick-ups that power you up at the start of your next life, even if you have to use a continue to get it. Unfortunately, it all falls apart in execution. First, enemy shots have a bad habit of blending in with the background, so you take a ton of cheap hits. Second, the mechanics meant to make the game more forgiving don't really pan out. When you get hit by a shot, reverting to your weakest form takes longer based on how many power-ups you have and you can't fire while reverting, meaning enemies are likely to fill the screen and you quickly die. Also, you know how I keep saying enemy shots revert you to your weakest form? If you collide with an enemy, you die. No ifs, ands, or buts. Worse, the larger, more powerful ships, also have larger hitboxes, so the stronger you are, the more likely you are to die. I found myself avoiding picking up power-ups and denying myself the game's main selling point! As for the port, it's functional, but it's very bare-bones. You have some decent screen settings that include screen rotation and can freely rebind controls, but that's about it. There are no dipswitches, scores are not saved, there are no save states or replays, and you have to open the menu with a button combination. However, you can find the ROM in the files, easily accessible and ready to load into MAME for a better experience. (Also, did they really have the rights to the Street Fighter sound effects in the arcade background noise that plays in the menus?) Overall, Super Real Darwin has some good ideas, but you should probably look elsewhere. If there's a hack that makes the bullets more visible, makes enemy collision be treated like taking an enemy shot, and makes all ships have the small ship's hitbox, I'd love to sink some time into it. Until then, I don't see myself coming back to this game very often.

SRD is a game that came out in 1987, a sequel to Darwin 4078, this game is not on steam, but you can watch gameplay here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpNE-rnJI-0 In those years I was still a bit too young to play games, so it's still nice to occasionally try a game from 'before my time'. SRD lets the player control a combat aircraft that can change into different shapes, This fine shoot-em-up of 10 levels and a boss also features 2 attack options, 1 for ground troops and 1 against enemies who move through the air just like you. Watch a short gameplay of the game here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY8Ujnh1fIA