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[Regiruler]

So I don't even have enough context about this game to tell you if it's actually good, but let's talk about Steel Empire.



This is the first shmup I remember putting a lot of time into. For some reason it stuck with me. I remember playing it a bunch when I was a kid, renting it from Blockbuster back when that was a thing. You could play as a little fighter plane or a big blimp.

I thought it was cool seeing all the crazy ships and the flying fortresses that looked like big boats, and that everything was all gears and propellers. Played the game a lot, loved it, haven't played it in probably 20+ years, still remember it for some reason.

There was a 3DS remake, no? I remember it being kinda expensive.

 

[Fularu]

There was a 3DS remake, no? I remember it being kinda expensive.

Yes, download only on the eShop

 

[WarAdept]

UN Squadron (SNES version) will forever be my favourite shmup of all time.

The 3 distinct characters and their abilities. The multiple aircraft and weapon loadouts you could do meant you could go through the game several ways. A fairly balanced difficulty curve that never meant you were too overpowered or underpowered, regardless of what ship/weapon choices you chose.

The super epic and large scale bosses, ranging from a massive desert Aircraft Carrier, a Fortress in the forest to a dogfight against a enormous Stealth Bomber in a storm.

Region: Australia

 

[The Hermit]

I love a bunch of musics from David Wise especially from DKC 2. As I grew older I enjoyed many other game musics but DKC2 was still my favorite.

Then, Tropical Freeze launches and I am loving, the gameplay is dynamic and the music is amazing, but still not quite as good DKC2 until:

Alpine Incline stage http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=db9Ul5tVPP4

The first time I heard this tune I actually put the controller down just to hear. I don't know why but it felt like I knew it, never felt so flooded with nostalgia. Maybe it was the synch or something but it felt like a music from Snes era.

This is how I felt

Its not my favorite DW music ( I can't possibly choose) but it was the one that made the biggest impact since Chrono Trigger Corridors of Time.

 

[UltraGunner]

One shmup I feel that's often overlooked is Triggerheart Exelica. It was an arcade game that got ported to the Dreamcast in 2007. It's in 3D but played from a 2D top-down perspective. It takes cues form stuff like Touhou where instead of a piloting a spaceship you control moe anime girls in power suits.

Like all Shmup games it got a 360 port, but the Dreamcast version is still the best thanks to the anime as fuck story and the Arrange mode.

 

[OmegaDL50]

While I've love to go over the Parodius series, I suppose it's association with Gradius would disclude it.

So let me talk about a game I loved to play years ago on my Dreamcast.

Capcom surprisingly known for other genres, they actually dabbled a bit into the STG genre as well, and one of my particularly favorite games from them is called Giga Wing.

It was a curtain fire style vertical shooter, which similar to that of some Cave titles. Such as Mushihimesama as the screen could become literal walls of bullets.

It had an interesting scoring mechanic in which all enemies shot down turned into medals. Each medal you collected added a cumulative multiplier which your score could go into potential billions, possibly trillions even.

There was also an interesting shield mechanic in which if you held down the fire button it would release bubble that surrounded your ship for about 1 full second. All enemy fire that hit this shield would instantly reflect back to the enemy and exploding your enemy targets into a shower of golden medals, which you collect and with the cumulative multiplier racking up to get a huge boost to your score. There is also a panic bomb attack which creates a massive screen clearing laser / flamethrower like super attack, but using the bomb will disable your shield temporarily so there is a risk / reward scenario at play.

It had 4 characters with their own distinct ship. Graphics were decent at the time. It was also a CPS2 Arcade release so it had a similar color palette that was present in other CPS2 Arcade titles at the time.

My Region is US by the way.

 

[Vandole]

Looking through a lot of these titles reminded me of a longtime favorite that I had almost forgotten about an arcade shooter schmup I loved - Varth: Operation Thunderstorm.

This came out around 1992 or so, right as Street Fighter II and other fighting games were starting to dominate the arcades, so if you were a schmup fan you had pretty easy access to it since everyone else's attention was more focuses of SF or MK or one of the many knock-offs that was starting to flood the arcades.

As far as gameplay it was more intense than something like 1942 or 1943, but it still wasn't quite on par with later bullet hell games or ones that had tons of super missels and weapons that lit of the entire screen. Varth wasn't about a lot of fancy bells and whistles. You had shields you could use, and of a choice of how they were positioned, and a few weapon upgrades, but for the most part it was player skill against lots and lots of enemies. Plus it was a long game for a schmup too. 30 levels if I'm not mistaken. I never brought enough quarters to finish it either Oh well it's still a favorite.

Oh and just because it wasn't a fighting game that didn't mean it was totally removed from the genre. It was Capcom after all, so guess who shows up as a power-up item? Ryu....

And I'm still in NA.

 

[maxcriden]

Great entries, guys! It's still open for now, I'll pick a winner this afternoon or tomorrow at the latest. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on these intriguing games and compelling tracks!

 

[Celine]

Last Resort
Last Resort was a horizontal shooting game released by SNK in 1992 for Neo Geo.
It was essentially a R-Type clone only very good and hard (how much I sweared at it!).
What set it apart aside from the goodness of the gameplay is that presentation is fantastic and employ a setting heavily inspired by the cult anime movie Akira.

Look at here:

As for a special David Wise track, we all know too well his awesome work on the Doneky Kong Country games.
That's why I single out a track from Monster Max, an isometric action/adventure game by Rare published by Titus for Game Boy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7tp6SE33Xc

EDIT:
Another one since I can't decide:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QjE57pG4oo

I'm from Europe.

 

[Fularu]

The Amiga was full of obscure, great euroshmups that a lot of people around here probably never played, here are a few :

- Disposable Hero (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=S1gID8faNPw)
- Project X (and the SE remix) from Team 17, one of the best looking shmups at the time with a great soundtrack, Gradius like weapons progrssion and an insane difficulty (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gjq-ONi3dZE)
- X-Out and lts sequel Z-Out which were prety much R-Type clones (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TA7r2vqsx1s and https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Yn6YR3uGFWg)
- Hybris and its better known sequel Battle Squadron (which got a Megadrive port by Electronic Arts) (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9QBStOhiIzA and https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4LnzE8Ea3g)
- Agony from Psygnosis, beautiful game, great soundtrack, an owl for a ship and very very difficult game (typical of Amiga shmups really) (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WYxIJxqrv6U)
- Blood Money from Psygnosis (again) very original shmup using various kinds of ships, very slow paced but very Amigaish/British (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qxciUa4YmeY)
- Xenon and Xenon 2 Megablast from the Bitmap Brothers (you fight creatures that are sealike/fishlike throughout) Xenon 2 got a (bad) Megadrive port (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5TBt9CQd6tg and https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DCAUTrgso8k)
- Banshee by Core Design, 1944 clone with amazing attention to détail, great visuals, great sound and good pacing (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-6B8i1IrHkY)
- Shmup sections of the Run and gun game Turrican 2 from Factor 5. Those sections are very "Capcom shmup like" but are only two levels out of the 10 the game has (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ubwuJGS-Jxg)
- Starush very obscure Ubisoft game for the Amiga where your ship is a "hoverbike" like the ones from Return of the Jedi (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=x5Kb7ecS_lo)
- Saint Dragon (you guessed lt, you're a dragon). You could form a shield using your tail to protect yourself from incoming damage (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MeY9kOot9iI)

I could list tons more! Sorry for the lack of pictures, I'm on my phone right now, I'll provide links instead

 

[RobRSG]

My favorite under-appreciated shmup is Jamestown.

I've played the hell out of it on PC and absolutelly loved this game.

It's very challenging,its soundtrack is superb and the art is quite lovely too. It gets inspiration from DonPachi, and this is another game I love.

Region: NA

 

[E-flux]

My favorite under-appreciated shmup is Jamestown.

I've played the hell out of it on PC and absolutelly loved this game.

It's very challenging,its soundtrack is superb and the art is quite lovely too. It gets inspiration from DonPachi, and this is another game I love.

Region: NA

Final level in Jamestown is so good, the song is probably the best one in the game and the level has a nice progression until the boss shows up who is absolutely badass. Took me so long to even get through it on the second hardest difficulty level.

 

[UCBooties]

So, did anyone win this? If so, congrats to the winners but it would be nice for the thread to update.

 

[maxcriden]

So, did anyone win this? If so, congrats to the winners but it would be nice for the thread to update.

Yes. I'm sorry. I will choose winners and send out codes today. My apologies. Very hectic few days.

 

[maxcriden]

Thanks for playing, all! Our esteemed winners. If you didn't win, please try again next time. I loved reading all the recommendations! Lots of cool new games on my radar now, thanks all!

I'm from Italy, EU. I've played a lot of shumps when I was a kid and I loved games like Ikaruga, Radiant Silvergun or the DoDonpachi series. But nothing got me addicted like Star Soldier R, a really underappreciated gem made by Hudson. A WiiWare exclusive (one of the games that launched with the service in 2008 if I remember correctly) that was just perfect for high score seekers.

It was quite short and the level design of some parts of the two available levels (yes, there were only two playable levels) wasn't so great, but the game (and in particular the combo system) was fast and fun. Perfect for short sessions. I spent an entire summer trying to get the highest scores of Italy and Europe and I was always in the top 5 and top 10 at the time, at least in Italy. Well, I guess that it was quite easy, because I think that the game didn't sell very well.

Anyway, Star Soldier R represent one of my fondest memories in gaming.

And, about David Wise, in my opinion no underwater themes can compete against Acquatic Ambience of DKC. It made those water levels so cool to play. I don't know if it was composed entirely by David Wise, but it's my favourite song of his.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mp1BK1MDjRc

Favorite Wise track is a damn hard question to answer, but I'm gonna try.

...and what I came up with was Seashore War - Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. Also known as "Chilly Coast", this is the most emotional song in a video game soundtrack to me. It's so serene, but at the same time so intense. The sounds of I can only describe as "winter noises" (just like I hear them in Christmas commercials from the US and the like, as it's not winter here during that season - or have snow anytime of the year whatsoever) makes for a haunting beginning, which makes me wonder how it would be to interact with snow (people say snow is shitty and annoying, but I always wanted to live in a place where it would snow during winter). When the intermission is over and the rest of the instruments hit I just get floored every time I listen to it. So beautiful. And at the very end, when the amazing percussion and the phenomenal string instrument (I think?) hit, I'm in heaven. Best song in an OST ever, and one of my favorite songs in music.

edit: btw, amazing giveaway! My region is NA (Canada).

UN Squadron (SNES version) will forever be my favourite shmup of all time.

The 3 distinct characters and their abilities. The multiple aircraft and weapon loadouts you could do meant you could go through the game several ways. A fairly balanced difficulty curve that never meant you were too overpowered or underpowered, regardless of what ship/weapon choices you chose.

The super epic and large scale bosses, ranging from a massive desert Aircraft Carrier, a Fortress in the forest to a dogfight against a enormous Stealth Bomber in a storm.

Region: Australia

 

[BooJoh]

Congrats to the winners!