I’d say Raiden Fighters Aces are the best.
DoDonPachi is the greatest of all time.
Then Battle Garegga.
Early bullet hell so they’re not yet too silly, but are still magnificent.
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Over Horizon is new to me. Can someone give me the scoop on any differences between the JP and PAL versions?
Got any recommendations for “easier” shmups with a lot of cool powerups? I’m no good at the genre but can enjoy it. Stuff like Lords of Thunder and Elemental Master I can manage. Bullet hell dosn’t really appeal to me, and not because of the difficulty,
The only one I’m aware of comes from this youtube comment:
This game has simply one of the worst, if not THE WORST music conversion to 50Hz ever made. In the PAL version, they screwed up the tempo, and the triangle and Pulse 1 and 2 channels go horribly off, into an unlistenable garbage later on in every single track, exepct the title screen and the EDIT music.
For those of you who haven’t heard of this game before it was made by Hot B and I believe the same team that would go on to make Steel Empire for the Genesis.
check out compile games (blazing lazerz, gunac, aleste series etc).
Man, I forgot about Steel Empire. Great game.
Will do. Thanks.
Played Layer Section tate style just last evening with a friend, through the OSSC on a flatscreen TV. Stunning game and really fun, but I suck at these types of games and usually end up cheating to complete them.
Same. I love the concept and looks of shmups but haven’t put the time into them to get better. And since I’m more into playing other games that is an issue I can never get over.
They need difficulties that aren’t just more lives and better hits, but dynamically change number of bullets, easier bullet patterns and maybe slower pace etc. making it possible to reach the end of the game for newbies.
However the genre just seems to be made for extreme bullet hell experts these days sadly.
I haven’t beat Layer Section yet. The farthest I’ve gotten was the beginning of stage 7. I actually think it’s a very balanced difficulty curve even for newbies.
You don’t need to beat a game in order to enjoy it. In fact, seeing how far you can get and having the ending be a mystery is part of the allure. Every run I think “is THIS the time I finally do it?”
It creates a tension that, in my humble opinion, only adds to the experience. Each time I play I get a little better and progress a little farther. And each playthrough of the game actually carries more weight.
You get to see more of the game as you get better and cheating definitely would ruin that allure for me. But to each his own.
I would like to add that absolutely EVERY shmup fan needs to have Cho Ren Sha on their PC. It’s available on the internet for free.
seriously, the quality of this game is outstanding and there is so much to it. All the little secrets and scoring tricks, not to mention the cool secret menu options to allow for stage select, including a secret boss rush, being able to control enemy suicide bullets, invincibility. Too good. It is a damn shame it never made it to any other systems and it surely deserved at least a sequel.
For shumps I feel that that is one of the things that makes me enjoy them, seeing the full game. I’ve always felt that beating them should be the bare minimum and then people that want more can enjoy 1ccing and score hunting.
Meh. Just like I wouldn’t want the Souls like games changed to accommodate other people, I wouldn’t want to expect shumps changes to accommodate me. There are enough “easy” “flashy” ones that I can beat it seems to keep me into it, and I just avoid the bullet hell games in general since I don’t enjoy even watching the,.
Nah, like I said earlier there are beginner / novice modes EVERYWHERE nowadays. If anything modern ports and new releases are way more accommodating to newer players then they ever have been.
Seconding that you shouldn’t be intimidated by bullet hell. It’s mechanically distinct, but a lot of the impact is aesthetic. Layer Section (I think) and R-Type are notably harder to clear than DoDonPachi, and DoDonPachi’s hardly the only one.
The notion that STGs difficulty’d themselves into a corner is wrong, imo. Grab any modern Cave port and check out the Novice mode, you’ll be fine.
Mushihimesama Futari is a good all-around “new to the genre” suggestion, I think. Xbox 360, $30-ish on Amazon, region-free. I find its “Original” mode to be easier than the prequel.
The Novice modes in pretty much every modern Cave port do these things.
By the way, I got to the boss on stage 7 with a life or two to spare on the default settings for Layer Section. The boss kicked my ass, but now it’s a matter of time before I take him down. Slowly but surely, I’m getting closer to beating this game without cheats.
So if this is considered a hard game I’m the genre, I could probably handle some bullet hell as long as the controls aren’t too complicated. I think one of the things I like about Layer Section is that the scoring system and controls are all very simple and intuitive.
Games like Ikaruga with its complicated 3 chain scoring system really turn me off due to the pure memorization required.
I like the Hudson ‘Soldier’ shooters on PC-Engine
Super Star Soldier
Final Soldier
Soldier Blade
These plus Gunhead / Blazing Lasers (Hudson/Compile) are great examples of accessible vertical shooters. Not as flashy as Layer Section, but very solid.
Warning: I think most of these are 480i on Virtual Console for Wii unless you hack them.
Given that most of the best games in the genre are arcade games, it’s worth being mindful of how home ports handle continues and how you want to play. I think that over time most ports veered toward simply providing unlimited credits and stopped worrying about whether players were credit-feeding or not, so it’s worth setting up some personal limitations if you want the games to have any tension.
My top 5 Shmups
- Lords of Thunder (GOAT soundtrack)
- Batsugun
- Blazing Lasers / Super Star Soldier
- DoDonPachi
- Progear