What's your favourite platform for Shmups?

bello

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SEGA Saturn is THE platform for SHMUPs.
My favorite:

Battle Garegga
Dodonpachi
 

CrystalCore

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Arcades, by far. Not even close.

Most, if not 90 - 95% of the classics, started here.
 

gtmartini

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The shump I most played and enjoyed in my life was Raiden for the Atari Jaguar. Also for what I played, Sega Saturn is pretty good. but don't known if I could say that I prefer this over the rest, Dramcast, Neo geo, Genesis have great shumps. There are so many that I recently discovered and so little time to play....
 

Jibbajaba

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1. PC Engine
2. Saturn
3. Genesis

Over three years later, the PC Engine is still the king in my opinion. Although I think that I would now rank the Genesis/MD second. The Saturn has a lot of great shooters, but I just prefer 16-bit games.
 

Black_Tiger

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Arcades, by far. Not even close.

Most, if not 90 - 95% of the classics, started here.

You're talking about hundreds of hardware platforms. If they count as one, then all console and handheld games are one together as well.
 

Igakajook

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Over three years later, the PC Engine is still the king in my opinion. Although I think that I would now rank the Genesis/MD second. The Saturn has a lot of great shooters, but I just prefer 16-bit games.

I agree - 16 bit era was the best, especially for my favorite console genres: shooters and action platformers.
 

oliverclaude

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Well, one could at least argue, if the Engine is 16-bit at all and Saturn is not. It seems, it's rather an console vs. arcade preference. The PC Engine arcade ports mostly offer watered down difficulties, hence a more approachable learning curve and a brighter popularity. The Saturn makes no prisoners here, ultimately delivering, what the Neo-Geo CD only promised.
 

Igakajook

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I agree with that. I suppose it becomes worth noting here that I am not great at shooters, though I do enjoy attempting to play even the most difficult ones from time to time. But my favorite shooter experiences have taken place while playing easier shooters.

And I'll always probably classify the pc engine, in my mind, as a part of the 16 bit era whether it is technically worthy or not. That's just where my brain places it.
 

oliverclaude

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And I'll always probably classify the pc engine, in my mind, as a part of the 16 bit era whether it is technically worthy or not. That's just where my brain places it.

That was exactly my point: From a generic technical perspective neither the Engine, nor the Saturn are 16 bit, but seen from a spiritual point of view, both represent, within sprite-based 2d efforts, the 16 bit era perfectly. The former being a catalyst precursor, the latter a swan song.
 

Igakajook

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That was exactly my point: From a generic technical perspective neither the Engine, nor the Saturn are 16 bit, but seen from a spiritual point of view, both represent, within sprite-based 2d efforts, the 16 bit era perfectly. The former being a catalyst precursor, the latter a swan song.

That's an interesting perspective - I like that. Actually makes me wish that more people had seen the Saturn in that way when it was a current system. It never felt, at the time the Saturn was launching and soon after, that fans of the Genesis really thought of the Saturn as the next logical step for the games they liked on the Genesis. It always seemed to me that people viewed the Saturn as a misstep.
 

oliverclaude

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Actually makes me wish that more people had seen the Saturn in that way when it was a current system. [...] It always seemed to me that people viewed the Saturn as a misstep.

They probably regarded the Saturn that way and ultimately, that was the reason why it was seen as a misstep, i.e. an ad lib 2d-sprite launcher in a world turned polygon.

Yu Suzuki delivered with his Virtua series the first 3d blockbusters, that changed the whole orientation of the video game world from sprites to polygons, thus destroying classic games. Then, with Shenmue, he delivered the first 3d open world game, and, in the long run, destroyed the superiority of the japanese gaming industry.

Now these are just ungrounded allegations, but I often wondered, why pioneers tend to cut the limb, they're sitting on. Well, one always has to pay and maybe that's their price.
 

FilthyRear

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It always seemed to me that people viewed the Saturn as a misstep.

Sad but very true.

It didn't have the 3rd party strength in it's library that the PS1 had, but whatever 1st party efforts got released were very well done.

I wish the Saturn had gotten Raiden Project and SOTN (in the US).
 

radiantsvgun

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I know, but it would have been nice to get what they left out of the US one.

Let me have a dream, goddamit!

I gotta agree with shroom, I played Saturn Dracula X and the extras aren't worth all the added slowdown and glitches. They could have added that into the psp drac x chronicles but I digress.

Other than cabs, I played a lot of shmups on PCE and genesis.
 

Yoshi

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I gotta agree with shroom, I played Saturn Dracula X and the extras aren't worth all the added slowdown and glitches. They could have added that into the psp drac x chronicles but I digress.
IIRC, they're in the Xbox Live release.

On topic, I'm leaning PC Engine as well, though it's not clear cut for me.
 

Yoshi

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Really? I swear they were in one of the ports, as I haven't played the Saturn version forever.

edit: You're definitely right. Getting old is a bitch.
 
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