I was walking through Square Enix’ sizable booth at E3 this year, y’know, minding my own business when, out of the corner my eye, I saw a row of iPads. One of those iPads had Darius Burst, a horizontal space shooter in the vein of Square’s own forgotten Einhander.

It’s a simple throwback kind of game, nothing elabroate, nothing too flashy, but it’s solid and a great fit for the iPad. The touchpad controls work well. I used my left thumb on the left side of the screen and pressed some “fake” buttons on the right side to shoot and to use a “burst” move that made  my  fighter invincible for a while so long as I followed an energy ball thing it produced.

The level I played had a great flow, interesting enemy design based on sea life and GREAT music by the legendary video game music band ZUNTATA. Usually I find space shooters like this tend to bore me. Either levels drag on too long or the shooting alone isn’t enough to hold my interest. Darius Burst felt like something I could keep up with, pull out once in a while to knock a level out then put away for the next commute. It’s a nice little title.

I figure this is such a nice little title it should be on more platforms. Why not a traditional gaming platforming liiiike… PlayStation Vita! It was a Japan-only PSP release for a while, it would make sense to throw this up on PSN. There are enough shooter fans, and the game’s good! And the soundtrack might be even better.

Give the PS Vita some love, Square Enix. And I’m totally not saying this because I have a Vita and not an iPad.

Senior Reviews Editor Tim Torres loves video games and loves to write about them. He also loves movies, comics, animation and acting. He does not hate Final Fantasy VII.