Play Daioh Online
Your tiny ship feels like a tank until the screen fills with neon bullets—those first few easy minutes are a total lie. Grab orbiting power-ups just to survive the second stage’s laser chaos.
Daioh, released for MAME in 2002, is a vertical shoot 'em up originally developed by Athena. It belongs to that era of arcade games where developers were pushing hardware to its limits, focusing on dense enemy patterns and vibrant, if sometimes overwhelming, visual feedback. The game doesn't reinvent the genre, but it offers a specific kind of challenge that feels very much of its time.
You pilot a small, surprisingly durable ship through waves of enemies, aiming to survive each stage and defeat the boss. Your main tools are a standard shot and a screen-clearing bomb, but the core mechanics involve collecting power-up icons to strengthen your main weapon and grabbing the orbiting options, small drones that add extra firepower and can be positioned for strategic coverage. The pacing is deliberately deceptive; early levels feel manageable before the screen quickly saturates with intricate bullet patterns and aggressive enemy formations. It feels like a constant test of positioning and split-second decision making, where one mistake can unravel minutes of progress.
Download Daioh ROM
You can download this ROM to play Daioh offline using an MAME (Arcade Emulator) emulator (Top Emulators).
*This ROM is provided for backup and educational purposes only.
