Thanks! 
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Welcome to RGB forum, Bastia! I’m happy that you chose the Sunday Night Shmup thread as your first time posting on the site. 
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Got a bunch of ace shmup stuff this week.
Gradius III SNES + arcade soundtrack from Ship to Shore vinyl (I don’t even have a working record player right now but some things just can’t wait, ya know?)
Got the Shooting Game Historica vol 4 set which features TwinBee figures with poseable arms and legs and the Flint Lock from Xexex (the tentacle and ship fins are moveable), haven’t assembled the other figures in the set yet.
Finally got a copy of Parodius Portable for PSP. Got it for only $54 mint from a U.S. dealer, pretty good bargain considering it usually goes for at least $80-90. This completes my full set of the Konami PSP shmup collections which I’ve been buying on and off since 2006 when the Gradius Portable collection was first released.
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Nice pics and pick ups there.
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Tonight’s Sunday Night Shmup is Soldier Blade for the PC Engine/Turbografx-16:
Considered by many the be the best of Hudson Soft’s epic Star Soldier series, Soldier Blade pushes the PCE/TG-16 hardware to its limits with beautiful visuals featuring huge enemy and boss sprites and a killer soundtrack. The game follows the series’ standard red/green/blue power up system. Red nets you a standard, versatile spread shot, green gets you fanning wave lasers and blue features a nice, powerful beam shot. Your ship also picks up nifty little assist mechas which follow your fighter and strengthen your firepower. With excellent sprite work, nice music, a simple yet satisfying weapon system and balanced difficulty, Soldier Blade isn’t just a great PCE/TG-16 game, it’s a great vertical shmup, period which stands the test of time and makes you yearn for the days when Hudson was one of the most prolific Japanese third parties.
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Cool write up, this sounds really good, I always wanted to try this game. Maybe one day when I get a PC Engine/TG-16 in the future.
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I love Soldier Blade, especially the soundtrack, it’s got a great way of hyping you up as you obliterate everything on screen. There’s something about the PC Engine sound chip that was so unique compared to the competition at the time.
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Oh man, tried this for the first time tonight, what a game! Everdrive is so worth it.
Composite looks surprisingly good on the TG16.
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Speaking of Everdrive, I may order one this week.
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I definitely think it’s one of the most worthwhile consoles to put an Everdrive into, for sure. It’s one of the cheapest ones, yet the TG16 has some of the more expensive games.
You could go the Super SD System if you want to go that high in price. For me, I want to get more acquainted with the library before I dump that much more money into it.
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Funny enough I’m interested in a lot of the CD only games for the system so a Super SD System could be worth it.
Amazing pickups! I bought Parodius Portable a few years ago, when it was relatively new, but didn’t grab the Salamander or Twinbee collections, so I’m definitely lamenting that. That Gradius III vinyl is sweet. I haven’t listened to mine yet, but I made sure to preorder it, and II, as soon as I saw they were available. Good stuff.
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Yes, the composite on TurboGrafx (via a TurboBooster) is actually pretty clean, all things considered. I think the only system that looks comparable is my JVC X’Eye.
Just a heads-up, in case anyone wants to participate. My Shmup Club game of the month for May will be Gradius III!
Both the arcade and SNES versions are fare game, and of course, Gradius III got excellent ports on the PSP and PS2, so it’s fairly widely available. For those who don’t want to sign up on another forum, if you happen to be on Twitter, we’re opening up participation there as well. Just follow and/or tweet me @GameBoyGuru or the podcast account @shootcorecast and use #rfgshmupclub in your posts, so we can search for that and find high scores, feedback, thoughts on the game, etc. Hopefully we’ll see some participation from other places 
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Yeah, I was really impressed. I’ve already got the SCART cable for it though, I just need to order a BNC breakout cable to use RGB from it.
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I watched Mike Matei play Recca…game looks ridiculous, lol.
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Holy crap you’re not kidding… that’s nuts.
Recca is one of the only reproduction carts I own. I wanted it just to see if the NES was really capable of running that fast. The speed, despite being fast, doesn’t feel like a smooth 60fps even though it is. All the sprite flicker takes a toll on the feel despite not being slowdown.
And the gameplay genuinely feels kind of unfair and unfun in some ways. But it really is a cool game that will get your blood pumping.
It’s just a little too hardcore to its detriment for my tastes. But I respect it. And I’m glad something like it exists.
Didn’t Sega have a hand in its development actually? It’s origins are a cool story that I don’t fully remember.
I’m gonna load it up on the NES & N8 tonight and give it a shot… put some hair on my chest.
there is a sega title logo that blows up but it is only accesed by code or rom hack, they had no part in its development. aside from its technical prowess the game is most notable for being programmed by shinobu yagawa before his raizing and cave career.
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