Darius Twin
Developer(s)	Taito
Publisher(s)	Taito
Director(s)	Kouji Yamazaki
Producer(s)	Takao Ueno
Programmer(s)	Junichiro Noguchi Mituo Ogura Yasutaka Minami
Artist(s)	Keisuke Miyanaga Shin Saitō Tōru Kawaishi
Composer(s)	Kazuyuki Ōnui Norihiro Furukawa
Series	Darius
Platform(s)	Super Nintendo Entertainment System
Release	JP: 29 March 1991 NA: November 1991[1] EU: 22 April 1993
Genre(s)	Scrolling shooter
Mode(s)	Single-player, co-op

Darius Twin^[a] is a 1991 horizontal-scrolling shooter video game developed and published by Taito for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. It is part of the Darius series. It was re-released on the Wii Virtual Console in 2010 for Japan on April 13 and for North America on December 13.

Gameplay

Though similar to the arcade Darius entries, Darius Twin has slightly different gameplay features, most notably in the player's power-ups.^[2] Players collect weapon and shield power-ups from square shaped enemies that approach from the front and behind, but once players die after collecting a certain number of power-ups, the power-ups collected stayed with the ship post-destruction. Players 1 and 2 are allowed their own separate number of lives. There are no continues.

The game contains five color-coded classes of power-up. The pink item powers up the main weapon, green powers up the side weapons, blue regenerates and/or improves the force shield, orange gives one extra Silver Hawk, and yellow destroys all enemies on-screen. At two points in the game, the player can find a red power-up with a special purpose. It switches the main weapon shot style between that seen in Darius and Darius II.

Reception

Darius Twin garnered a mixed reception from critics since its initial launch.^[3] In 2018, Complex named Darius Twin 56th on its "The Best Super Nintendo Games of All Time". They called the game as one of the best 2D scrolling shooters on the SNES and noted the gameplay being difficult.^[13]