TOKYO — Here is the crown jewel of the TurboGrafx family, Darius Alpha, on sale at Akihabara’s retro games paradise Super Potato.
To get your hands on Darius Alpha, you had to buy both the CD-ROM and HuCard versions of the game Darius Plus, so by definition you had to be the sort of person who really enjoys getting soaked by videogame publishers. You then sent in coupons from both games’ instruction manuals (and then you of course bought second copies of each game because you’d just marred their perfect condition forever) and if you were one of a lucky 800 or so people, you got Darius Alpha in the mail.
It’s infamous not only for being the rarest and most expensive PC Engine game ever — this random site that I just found quantifies it — but for featuring upgraded graphics when played on a SuperGrafx system, thus throwing any and all collectors who want an unimpeachably complete collection into conniption fits.
It may very well be the single most expensive item at Super Potato, coming in at over $1000.
Errata: Only now, looking at the box, do I notice that that Darius is actually pronounced da-rye-us and not dairy-us.
Image: Chris Kohler/Wired.com
See also:
- The Complete* SuperGrafx Collection
- Beginning a SuperGrafx Adventure
- We Are the Kings of Game, Upon Our Famicom Throne