Darwin 4078 - Evolutions?

I agree it’s a very nice shmup! I played it a lot as a kid (until my father sold the cartridge ). The evolution and ability to dock with enemies and transform is very unique.

There is a quite elaborate explanation of the evolution system on GameFAQs. Also on Arcade-History and Wikipedia.

What a shameless self-plug!
I'm just kidding, your project is very cool and I look forward to the final product.

I think i may know why Darwin isn't on many best of lists, on my third try through the game I was able to clear it pretty easily. Once you get the laser circle, the enemies go down so easily, that its almost hard to lose! Also the patterns got predictable, two yellow guys come out on the left, two yellow guys are now probably coming out on the right. Green football thing comes down the right, one is about to fly down the left side next. With the circle laser going back and forth and shooting nonstop killed half the enemies before they even appeared on the screen! Finally, the game is pretty long for a shmup, but after the half way point there wasn't anything new and the game didn't get harder. The back half seemed like filler.

With all that said, it was an average game still and well worth playing. The good stuff was the game did play smoothly and pretty fast. Also there were a lot of weapons to use, even if a few of them stink (bullet that splits when hitting an enemy) and a few are OP. I'm going to go back one more time just to get the black dragon thing, since I never figured out that evolution without a FAQ. It might also be fun to take a hit on purpose and try to beat the game in shrunken mode, it would be a good challenge and since bosses run eventually the lack of firepower not a dealbreaker.

Speaking of smooth shmups, Freedom Fighter looking good! Just make sure the ship speed makes sense, some of those enemies look fast! Definitely something I'd want to give a shot.

I have cleaned up the evolution chart from the MSX2 manual and translated it to English in the past:

Before that I also made this chart, based on the arcade version's chart: