Tonight I’m going for Gomola Speed (PCE) and MDK2 (Wii) which, whilst not strictly shmups, at least do include some shooting of abstract things
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Nice set up, those candy cabs look great!
Wow, it’s already week 2 for Sunday Night Shmups, where does the time go? Thanks to all who have replied so far! 
I kinda felt like playing either Strikers 1945 or 1945 II tonight but eventually decided I was in the mood for some of Psikyo’s more lighthearted fare so fired up Gunbird. Playing on my trusty Horii stand in TATE until whenever the Flip Grip releases.
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Gunbird is just so much simple fun. I love having that on Switch!
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Tate PSP shmupping
[edit] It’s been a while since I’ve played this. It’s still good fun, that guitar riff when gaining a rear shot!
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Pretty unconventional one, but I have a lot of love for this DOS classic.
Stargunner!
Made by the fine folks @ Apogee/3D Realms. They made Duke Nukem, Terminal Velocity, Death Rally, Shadow Warrior, and Rise Of The Triad. Truly one of the best developers of all time for the DOS/early PC era.
The difficulty is pretty insane with this one, and it’s tough on the easiest mode (ensign). There are 4 episodes, and I just finished the first one for the first time ever!
It’s got great music, super fast gameplay, and tons of secrets. Tyrian 2000 and this game are by far the best shmups for DOS.
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I always wanted Star Soldier PSP, am guessing TATE gets pretty uncomfortable though since you can’t customize the controls? That’s what I loved about the shmups on the Capcom PSP Collections like 1941 and Varth, the controls were 100% customizable so I’d change the D-pad movement to match TATE mode and then set shoot and bomb/special to different directions on the analog nub, it worked really well! Played through every single level of Varth holding my PSP vertically this way. 
I don’t find it uncomfortable but I do find myself leaning to the right and playing at an angle. It’s difficult, but not uncomfortable IMO, to keep your right hand above your left while adjusting your left hand to have good thumb control on the d-pad…not sure if I’ve described that well. Basically hold a PSP normally and then rotate it to TATE while holding it the same with your left hand sans index finger on L button, it’s not easy to keep it at that 90 degree rotation. Perhaps I’ve just explained that is uncomfortable, lmao.
Being able to customize the controls would be nice though. I never thought about being able to go TATE with the d-pad and assign other controls to the nub.
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Haha, yep that sounds uncomfortable. Btw is the PSP Star Soldier a remake of an earlier title or a dedicated sequel?
And yeah, that method I mentioned which is possible on the Capcom collections works great (not sure if any other shmups on PSP allow you to customize TATE controls like that). Only thing that requires a bit of adjustment at first is when you hold your PSP vertically the D-pad and analog nub are a bit close together, but not so much that it feels uncomfortable or that it effects gameplay once you get used to it (for both Varth and 1941 I mapped down on the analog nub for regular fire and up on the nub for special/bomb). Of course just have to be a bit careful holding your PSP vertically for a long period of time but I played through both 1941 and Varth with no issues at all, the size of the PSP makes it very doable (especially with the Slim models).
Remake as far as I know. It was an impulse play-asia or ncsx purchase back in the day when I was roaming the US for my job. PSP was a sanity saver for me with ~40 hours travel per week.
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Tonight’s Sunday Night Shmup is Salamander for PC Engine, my favorite port of the game. More enjoyable than the arcade version in my opinion due to its balanced difficulty and it has one of the best title sequences ever, just listen to that music:
Playing it on my region modded Turbo Duo.
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I took the ol’ TG-16 out for a spin last night, played a few rounds of Galaga ‘90. I always forget how great this game is, surprises me every time! Oh, and how can’t you love this pink HuCard! 
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Yessss, Galaga ‘90 is so good. Adding better weapons, scrolling stages and bosses on top of the standard Galaga formula was brilliant. I’m jealous of your physical copy, I currently only have it on my OG Wii Virtual Console library.
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Tonight’s Sunday Night Shmup is Lightening Force/Thunder Force IV, playing the Sega Ages port on my Switch with some nice scanline effects enabled. Always start with the Ruin stage personally, really cool level and it has one of my favorite music tracks in the game.
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What a great choice @AgentUnknown. TFIV was one of those games that really showed that the Genesis/MD was a powerhouse… so difficult though!!
On this snowy Sunday where I live, I pulled out a little talked about oldie but goodie, Fire Shark. One of Toaplan’s early efforts, so simple but very satisfying.
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Oh man, I still haven’t played Fire Shark, need to get on that. There sure were a lot of great Toaplan ports on the Genny/MD.
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Fire Shark is superb. The triumvirate of that, Twin Cobra and Truxton are vertical shooter bliss.
Looking back, it’s a shame that so many shooters shipped at the same time on Genesis and essentially diluted the strength of each game as they all had some excellent ideas and some superb graphics and gameplay.
The games above, Gaiares, Hellfire, Zero Wing, MUSHA, the Thunder Force games… so many more. When you play them now, you can’t imagine any of them being overlooked, but in a glut of them, most were!
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I have Kyukyoku Tiger for PC Engine, I haven’t played the Genesis version of Twin Cobra. I’ve played Truxton/Tatsujin on Genesis, great port. I’d like to own all of the Toaplan Genesis shmup carts someday whenever I get to them. I know Slap Fight is really expensive now though.
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I’ve been playing some 1945 on switch and I’m really enjoying it!
Being able to play games in tate on the go has been such a game changer for me !
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Flip Grip ships in a couple of weeks!
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