Rolling Gunner is out now on the Switch NA eShop, I didn’t realize until now that ex-Cave staff worked on it which has me even more intrigued. Have had my eye on it for awhile, recommended buy? Looks kind of like a more futuristic Progear with neon bullets.
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Rolling Gunner is great! I would pick it up but physical release is scheduled for late 2019.
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That looks great! Thanks for pointing it out.
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I might wait for the physical release then, good to know, thanks. 
Who is publishing the physical release?
Mastiff:
Mastiff @ mastiffgames Jun 14
Wish we could say more about it now, but there will be more news on the physical to come soon. 
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Well, I played Gradius 2 and after many attempts I managed to beat it, and man it’s rough, what I a step up in difficulty from the 1st game and Salamander/Life Force, heck the amount of time you can beat Gradius 2 is also the amount you can do 2 loops on Salamander/Life Force, lol. This game gets so brutal later on that dying pretty much ruins your runs in the later stages, like with those Moai heads. There’s one stage where if you die once you have to restart the entire stage all over again, and you will be too underpowered to fight the bosses.
One of the most annoying things about the game is the addition of an option hunter, an enemy that can’t kill you but can ruin your entire run as it has the ability to steal between 1 to all of your options, and you have to get them back after that. What’s worse is that it can appear even doing boss fights, so it’ll distract you from the boss.
Overall I love the game, it’s tough but fun and it was quite a struggle to beat the last few stages without dying much or at all. As for me to 1CC the game, well, it may take some time. I use Type 4 because of the 2 way missiles are like Salamander/Life Force and that helps a lot once you have more options, though you have to use Ripple, but I like it in this game.
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Very interesting… I’m working on R-Type III right now, but afterwards I’d love to get back into some Gradius. I want to finish the MAME version, then move onto Gradius II.
Also on my short list is Fantasy Zone I & II on SMS.
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Ah, nice, good luck with R-Type 3 and Gradius 2, and I still need to get into the R-Type series.
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Gradius 2 and R-TYPE III are probably my favorite sequels in those respective series.
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Nice. I heard R-type 3 is really hard though and has to be beaten twice for the full ending. Gradius 2 is really great and I’m learning to get better at it.
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HI beat R-TYPE III once about 14 years ago, didn’t know there is a second ending.
Gradius 2 and R-TYPE III are both very hard but very fun and rewarding, not to mention gorgeous games. The PC Engine version of Gradius 2 is my favorite poet of the game, the difficulty is toned down and more balanced. Plus the PCE version has an exclusive level and little improvements such as being able to destroy the crystals in the third stage.
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A bit OT but shmup content is shmup content, so here goes:
For those who love Gradius and have Mario Maker 2:
Gradius-Destroy the Core!
Course ID
CNX-RWT-7MG
This is one of the first courses I made on MM1 (as seen in the preview pic above from my Wii U file), I recreated it for MM2 and tweaked it a bit. When I have more time I plan on recreating some of my other more intense shmup levels which I made for MM1, this is meant to be a more laid back tribute stage to one of my favorite shmup series ever.
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Tonight’s Sunday Night Shmup is Raiden Fighters Jet by Seibu Keihatsu. I recently got to play a RFJ cabinet I found in the Grand Ole Creamery and Pizzeria in St Paul, MN. I hadn’t played the game in a long time and had a blast, was so nice to play it on actual hardware. Even managed to get a scrub high score with Miklus as the second fighter I chose before running out of quarters. 
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Nice, you are very lucky man! I can’t wait to get into that series one day.
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I think this is probably my favorite arcade shooting game of all time. Viewpoint is a contender too. RFJ is just so perfectly designed and balanced and beautiful in its destruction.
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The Raiden Fighters games are absolutely fantastic, if you guys don’t have the collection on 360 (maybe also on PC? not sure there) you really need to get it. Its an insane amount of fantastic gaming for a reasonable price (least it used to be not sure if it’s spiked in price).
At Too Many Games a few weekends ago (sorry it has been a ridiculously busy summer and haven’t had the time to post) I got to play through all of Salamander 2, Game Tengoku, Elevator Action Returns (I know not a shooter), and try my hand at some DoDonPachi SaiDaiOuJou (I think the black label version).
Man I have to say Salamander 2 was absolutely fantastic. This was my first time playing it, and I don’t know how I’ve missed having the Salamander Deluxe Pack Plus in my library this long. That said though I need to find a copy of this soon, because I NEED to play Salamander 2 again. I just need to find out which is the better version Saturn or PS, I assume Saturn but you never know.
You ever just have one of those moments where a game just clicks with you and for what ever reason you just really enjoy the experience of playing it. That was this game for me. I’m not going to say its my favorite shooter of all time or anything, but man it was a blast to play, and it might be my favorite horizontal shooter of all time, just not favorite overall shooter. I know there’s vertical levels mixed in but I still think of it as a horizontal shooter, specially since the monitor is orientated normally.
If you haven’t had a chance to play it you really need to.
Game Tengoku was fun, and I may pick up the PS4 version now, but I’d say it was just ok. I had fun with it but I don’t know it kind of just lacked something in the actual game play.
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I need Salamander 2 badly, loved the 1st one. And the PS1 and Saturn versions seem identical, no true advantages over the other.
I almost went to TMG on Sunday. How did you play these games? Were there setups with them running?
I probably should have just gone and seen how it is, but I ended up a little busy that day and couldn’t justify spending money to get in just to spend more money at the retro vendors.
In looking it up it seems like the PS1 version can play Salamander 1 at its original resolution but the Saturn version either pillar boxes it or stretches it. Though they both seem to play Sal 2 the same.
A lot of retro conventions have rooms dedicated to arcade set ups. This is true for TooManyGames as well which had a ton of arcades and consoles set up with freeplay. I want to say there was probably something like 30 - 40ish arcade cabs set up plus probably 5 - 10 pinball machines. At least 10 - 15 consoles, and probably like 10 ish retro computers. There was a lot of stuff set up.
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