School a Shooter Noob!

Dont hold back I can take it! I grew up playing Gradius on a Playchoice and Gradius 3 on my SNES. This got me hooked. I admit I am not the best at them but damn I love playing them even if I get my ass kicked!

That being said I continued to play GG GIV GV, Raiden Series, RS Ikaruga, Einhander. Also Blazing Star back in the day. I even had Raiden Project day one on PS1.

What shooters am I missing out on? I have a PS3 and alot of older consoles PS1 PS2 Dreamcast Gamecube N64 etc.

I felt the last decent one I played was Gradius 5 as it melted my eye balls out!

I keep hearing Cave shooter only to find I have never played one. This is one of my favorite genres but when all your friends play COD they are hard to learn about.

Please tell me what epic sauce I have missed!

When I first read the thread title, I thought there was another shooting in a school like Columbine, and got worried

I'm definitely not a pro when it comes to the shooters (I suck pretty bad actually) but I do enjoy the hell out of em. you mentioned you liked gradius, einhander and blazing star, so I can tell you dig some of the horizontal shmups. Also saw a few 360 games in your collection thread but you didn't mention that system in your op here? 360 is the way to go for current shooters imo, in fact both of the Cave domestic releases, Deathsmiles and Akai Katana (both AMAZING horis!!!) can be had for around $30 combined!! if you are interested in more cave stuff, there are several jp releases that are actually region free, Mushihimesama Futari, Espgaluda 2, and Muchi Muchi Pork, as well as the pal version of Dodonpachi Ressurection.

if you want fun and different get bangai-o. there is also a hd version on the new consoles for download.

on 360 from cave you can also download gwange, akai katana (not their best one, but still enjoyable) is the new one out and is like $17 on amazon, and deathsmiles can be had fairly cheap.

i was and still am a fan of the voltron game (a neat little twin stick shooter) that came out about a year ago. that is also downloadable.

Yeah, 360 is the way to go. Eschatos and Muchi Pork are great. As mentioned, Akai Katana and Deathsmiles are very cheap. There are some titles available for XBLA, such as Trouble Witches and Radiant Silvergun (cheaper than Saturn). Avoid KOF Sky Stage. Awful.

I think the biggest library of shooters for any one platform is probably the Saturn, although it's tough to find most of the titles for it. Here's a list, most of these games are super hard to find and get crazy expensive;
http://www.racketboy.com/retro/sega/saturn/sega-saturn-shmups-2d-shooters

If you want something a bit different, try Cannon Spike on the Dreamcast. There is also Border Down, Radirgy, and a hand full of others but they are often hard to find and rather expensive. Stay away from Dux, absolutely terrible. Gunbird 2 is great, and can be had for a reasonable price (+/- $30)

You're a Genesis fan right? Try Musha. Gaiares isn't bad either.

You mentioned Gradius V... another good shooter for PS2 is Castle Shikigami 2.

For PS3 there aren't many options. You could go with Under Defeat (which is on the Dreamcast but very expensive) or the Gundeadligne collection is pretty good bang for the buck.

On Steam you can go with Jonestown and Ether Vapor Remaster.

And of course you have the Neo. Blazing Star is awesome as you know, but you can also go with Pulstar, Captain Tomaday (bad slowdown on that one), Strikers 1945, and of course Fast Striker (my favorite). Games like Andro Dunos and Zed Blade are, "meh" imo.

I also have most of these games, you're welcome to play any of them.

DC is a great system for shooters. Mars matrix, ikaruga, border down, psyvariar 2, castle of shikigami 2, Trizeal, karous, all good to ridiculously good. You should not get these as isos but rather sell a vehicle to buy them. you will enjoy them so much more

For genesis a lot of people love Musha. I think lightening force is better and it's about 1/5 the price.

As everyone has said, 360 is the jam for recent shooters. Strania is very good and it's $10 from xbla. I absolutely love akai katana. The scoring system is rewarding as it is addicting. If you aren't too familiar with Cave, their games have very unique scoring mechanics. and beautiful pixel art.

As for schoolin', when breaking in a new game, try focusing your eyes just on your ship as opposed to the top half of the screen. I find it easier to learn bullet patterns this way. Eventually, once you know your routine then you can focus center screen and go for score.

I could go on for DAYS talking about genesis shooters, but if you dig, you can find a more than a few options on PSN believe it or not.

If you like gradius that much you might want to give the Parodius series a try.I prefer da parodius on my snes and sexy parodius on my saturn. Both versions are still affordable. Darius g and In the Hunt are a few domestic PS1 shooters that I also recommend. I also highly recommend DeathSmiles on 360.

malignantpoodle said:

You're a Genesis fan right? Try Musha. Gaiares isn't bad either.

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if you like genny, get gunstar heroes. great game from treasure- it's a run n gun type of game designed as a shooter. and it is awesome.

On Steam, there is also the eXceed series, awesome vert shooters. The second one has an Ikaruga type mechanic, and the third is more traditional. The first is kinda meh, only get it if the package for all three is cheaper than two and three individually. The version of 3rd on Steam has one of the best soundtracks I've ever heard.

And I don't want to upset anyone here, but there's also Touhou to consider when talking about shmups on PC. They can get slightly expensive to import, though (but that's a given, considering the genre we're talking about)

Getting a 360, as others have mentioned, is a good idea if you're into shmups. Also, if you have an iDevice, Cave has released many of their more popular games on the app store. It's a good way to get a taste for them before you decide to make the plunge.

Hawk said:

... What shooters am I missing out on? I have a PS3 and alot of older consoles PS1 PS2 Dreamcast Gamecube N64 etc. ...

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Get on Wiki and YouTube and checkout the shmups by:

--8ING/RAIZING
--ATLUS,
--(early) CAVE,
--CAPCOM,
--SEIBU,
--PSIKYO,
--TAKUMI, and
--TOAPLAN.

That should keep you busy for a while.

If you can play import PS2 stuff, there are a few Cave titles you can pick up.

SNKorSWM said:

If you can play import PS2 stuff, there are a few Cave titles you can pick up.

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While the Saturn does have an impressive shmup library, the PSX/PS2 are certainly up there with it. If you get a Jap PS2 not only do you get access to some of the great shmups on that system but you'll also get access to the PSX's vast library of shmups as well!

Some titles are available on both Saturn & PSX but some games are better on one system than another (e.g get PSX In The Hunt over Saturn / get Saturn Thunder Force V over PSX). Some titles are also rarer on one than the other (Darius Gaiden).

Personally I'd recommend getting both Saturn & PS2... if you can!

Thanks for the help guys will be looking all these up!

PCE/TG16 gets no love??? I think this console has the best retro shmups collection. My days as a kid playing R-Type are fondly remembered. There's a vast library of shmups on this console if you have the coin for it!

For SNES or CPS:
U.N.Squadron

SNES version has great intro and awesome music. Also it lets you choose mission order from overworld map with some restrictions. CPS version has slightly bigger boss sprites and more levels and bosses.
I prefer SNES version because the CPS version can be finished with credit spamming.


For Neo:
Viewpoint
It´s oh so funky and hard as nails!



Common to both Viewpoint and SNES version of U.N. Squadron is that they throw you back a bit after death so they make you have to learn if you want to proceed.

My 1-All/1CC List:

Thunderforce III [GEN]
MUSHA [GEN]
Batsugun - original, special 1-All [SAT]
Battle Bakraid - normal course [MAME]
Armed Police Batrider - normal course [MAME]
Dodonpachi (1-All) - Type CS [SAT]
Dodonpachi Dai Ou Jou Black Label (1-All) - Type BS, Type AE [360]
Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu 1.5 (1-All) - All ships bomb, Black Label - bomb mode [360]
Deathsmiles - arcade (all lvl 3+EX), v1.1, MBL [360]
Deathsmiles 2X - X mode, arrange [360]
Mushihimesama - original, maniac, arrange [PS2] 1.5 Original, 1.5 Orig MAX, 1.5 maniac, 1.5 maniac MAX [360]
Mushihimesama Futari - 1.5 orig, 1.5 maniac, BL orig, BL maniac, arrange [360]
ESPGaluda - Ageha, Tateha [PS2]
ESPGaluda 2 - arcade, black label, omake, arrange [360]
Muchi Muchi Pork - 1.01 (1-All), arrange [360]
Pink Sweets - arrange [360]
Akai Katana - arcade, zetsu, shin [360]
Ketsui - arcade, xmode [360]
ESP RaDe - JB 5th [PCB]
Daioh - japan version (1-All) [PCB]
Gunbird - (1-All) [SAT]
Eschatos - Orignal Normal

I still play Life Force on NES on a regular basis - I've loved the shit out of it since I got it new as a kid.

Shivan128 said:

PCE/TG16 gets no love??? I think this console has the best retro shmups collection. My days as a kid playing R-Type are fondly remembered. There's a vast library of shmups on this console if you have the coin for it!

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I couldn't agree more, and a nice amount of variety to the shmups as well.

I'm sure these have all been mentioned, but a few of my favorites

PS2-
espgaluda
homura

Dreamcast-
Mars Matrix
Gigawing
Trigger Heart exelica
Under Defeat
Ikaruga
Shikigami No Shiro II
Border Down

360-
Akai Katana
Espgaluda II

If you need help playing PS2 imports, there's a softmod you can do to the memory card that will let you either play patched backup copies of your imports or play them off an HDD (if you have an old fat ps2). If you want help with that, I'll put the mod on your memory card for free so long as you cover round trip postage.

Or just buy a cheap Japanese PS2 instead. No modding needed.

It's a softmod that takes a minute (literally) to install, and you don't have to turn a single screw. Plus, you can use that same memory card to run backups or homebrew on any PS2 (with the exception of the very last generation of slims). IMO it's a much more economical option than another console.