What's your favourite platform for Shmups?

Saturn, easily.

For me the Saturn takes the cake, the sheer number of shooters wins me over.

The PC-Engine is a solid second, and the 360 has recently been making a pretty good case for third, just because of the great Cave selection.

In order:

Genesis
Saturn
Neo Geo
Xbox 360

The SNES isn't terrible for shumps either, but it lags so far behind the Genesis/Mega Drive in that department.
Dreamcast

1. Sega Genesis
2. Sega Saturn
3. Sega Dreamcast

The Sega Genesis had tons of shmups like gaiares... gleylancer (MD) and so many other great ones. Sega made the best shmup consoles ever.

Imma have to throw my vote on the Saturn pile. 360, MD, n PCE are all very good as well

100% saturn wins.

OP mentioned JAMMA. That would be mine.

Saturn and Sharp X68000 are tied for second. (Dat midi!)

Saturn Wins 100%!

In fact the Saturn wins everything 100% as the best console ever.

1. Saturn (batsugun!!! )
2. 360/dreamcast/Genesis
... On the hunt for a tg16 tho so that'll be in the mix soon

In order....

Genesis, Neo Geo, Saturn, Dreamcast.

for me, the pc engine, saturn and neo geo are my top 3 for great shmups!

Kef9 said:

Saturn Wins 100%!

In fact the Saturn wins everything 100% as the best console ever.

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but not for racing games. There are better consoles for 3D-effects. But you are right, everything in 2D, Beat´em ups and Shoot´em ups rule on the Saturn.

Hasuki-san said:

but not for racing games.

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Not for Irems R-Type(s), either... no Compile and, to a lesser extend, no Tecno Soft, if we consider, how less appealing their Saturn games are in comparison to the almighty MD releases. It's a great console, for sure, but... 100%? That's the definition of overhyped.

Och, and what about excluding backwards compatibility for the Mega-CD & 32X? The Unforgiven...

It's a mix of Genny, DC, PS2 and PSX for me, I also bought lots of shmups on C64, some of which I still play to this day. IMO, the Commie was the best system for 8bit shmups during the 80s and early 90s, and it not only got lots of arcade conversions but also a ton of system-exclusive games that mostly were better than the ports.

About the Saturn, it's a great machine that got a number of shmups that weren't available on other systems (Battle Garegga comes to mind) but I wasn't in a pro-Sega mood back then when it was announced (still remember the silly TV ads). I just had put loadsamoney into expanding my Genny rig with a 32X and Mega-CD, then software support ceased over here practically over night and you had to refer to imports which proved to be difficult and expensive back in the day. I didn't want to make the same mistake twice so I went with the PSX. Sure, there were some SAT ports that I would have loved to play like the near arcade-perfect Street Fighter releases but the problem got fixed later on when these games were released on PS2 and DC.

From a commercial point of view, the Genny-32X-CD system was a failure and it was only natural they stopped supporting it, even though it had quite some potential that still was unexplored at the end of its life. Imagine what great 2D games we could have seen with better 3rd-party support but the add-ons came out at a time when people wanted 3D games á la Battle Arena Toshinden, Ridge Racer and Tekken and there were not a lot of Genny/32X games that could hold a candle to their visuals and gameplay so it went the way of the Dodo. Oh well.

no Tecno Soft, if we consider, how less appealing their Saturn games are in comparison to the almighty MD releases.

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Maybe from a shelfqueen perspective, but the thunderforce gold packs are considered quality and include TFII, TFIII (pack 1), TFIV, TF-AC (pack 2), saturn also has TF-V, and Hyper Duel. So saying “no Tecno Soft” is a pretty dumb thing to say.

Technosoft-wise I go with the TF Genny releases and TF V - Perfect System on PSX, which got his subtitle Perfect System for a reason.

Takumaji said:

TF V - Perfect System on PSX, which got his subtitle Perfect System for a reason.

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Because the scoring system is glitched?

Chempop said:

Because the scoring system is glitched?

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No, because Technosoft rated it as the best/"official" release, glitch or not.

Right now, Genesis, i'm playing it a lot

Thunderforce V on Saturn is better than the PSOne Version ?

IMO the PSX version is superior to the SAT version. Graphically, the SAT version looks slightly better due to some special FX not present in the PSX version but the latter had less slowdowns, extra artwork, additional play modes and hidden goodies like extra ships, unlockable free play and other stuff. Plays much more smoothly.

Saturn is easily the top (as has been stated numerous times throughout this thread), with the J-360 (the last-gen haven for the genre), J-PS2 (ESPGaluda + PS1 backwards compatibility) and DC (all dat NAOMI) following along.

Pre-32-bit, the MegaDrive and the PC-Engine pretty much go toe-to-toe.

@chemp...

...you quoted my words, just as good, as you misunderstood them. No Tecno Soft on the Saturn means as much as this: There were no SNK releases after KoF '00. If you can't live up to your legend, you cease to exist, hence there is no Tecno Soft on the Saturn...

That said, a quarter of a century old fart like Elemental Master eats up the entire TS releases for the Saturn, but that's just me... be my guest and enjoy their later output, it's ok-ish, just as much as you can enjoy Zero Special.

The Saturn is all about Toaplan and their later incarnations, see Raizing, 8ing etc. But if I had to choose between them and Irem, then the question of choice is just a rhetorical one for me .

I honor your SS D-Fens, that's more than SEGA did themselves, alas... having some critical opinions about a console and it's games, does not mean, that I don't have love for it, too. There is no good or bad, there's just different... takes on on a topic. Och, and you didn't mention Blast Wind...

Chempop said:

Maybe from a shelfqueen perspective, but the thunderforce gold packs are considered quality and include TFII, TFIII (pack 1), TFIV, TF-AC (pack 2), saturn also has TF-V, and Hyper Duel. So saying “no Tecno Soft” is a pretty dumb thing to say.

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This.

Plus, HyperDuel is the best Technosoft Shooter I've played to date. Not because it's rare (etc). I wish it wasn't. No one ever WANTS to pay exorbitant prices for videogames. But HyperDuel is really rather good - low print run or not.