Best 2D V-Scrolling Shoot'em Ups Query???...

[VitaminX]

Hi, I have just got through playing Banshee for the CD32, awesome, absolutly awesome. If you haven't already played it, you should get it. It was released for the Amiga A1200 and CD32 in 1994 by Core Design.

My question is, Do any of you guys know of any other legendary 2D V-Scrolling Shoot'em Ups that I should add to my collection???...

Please I need some more suggestions...

[CartCollector]

Supposedly DoDonPachi, Radiant Silvergun, Irakuga, and the Raiden series are really good. DoDonPachi is really expensive though.

[DefaultGen]

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[Jorpho]

Bangai-O?
Tyrian 2000?

[XYXZYZ]

Supposedly DoDonPachi, Radiant Silvergun, Irakuga, and the Raiden series are really good. DoDonPachi is really expensive though.

Don't you mean Radiant Silvergun?

VitaminX. if you dig vertical shooters, do yourself a favor and get a Sega Saturn that can play Japanese discs. It's got everything you need; Dodonpachi, plenty of Psikyo games like Strikers 1945 and Gunbird. Batsugun, Kingdom Grandprix, Layer Section... so many I can't possibly list them all. The Sega Saturn is THE system for shooters.

The Dreamcast also has good vertical shooters, don't pass up Under Defeat.

[roushimsx]

I love Dodonpachi as well. It's a hell of a lot of fun and I love the difficulty balance in it. Daioujou was a good bit harder, but it really helped me get a shit load better at Dodonpachi :)

Gigawing was one of those games that I never really cared for back when it came out, but sometime in early 2004 I got caught up in an informal competition with a dude at an arcade to see who could get the highest score and/or 1CC it first. Played the fucking shit out of the game and totally got into it. There's a whole lot of fun to uncover in that sucker from learning the tempo of using the reflect force thingy. Much easier learning curve than say, Mars Matrix (which I also love!). The sequel is also fun and damn the haters, Gigawing Generations wasn't too bad (though it was a step down from the first two).

Raiden Fighters 2. Raiden. Fucking. Fighters. 2. Tough as nails but insanely addictive gameplay. I enjoy it more than Raiden DX, and I loved Raiden DX. Hell, I like it more than Raiden Fighters Jet and I sunk a shit load of change into that game back when it came out...somehow, RFJ2 is the one that's managed to hold my love for longer.

Guwange is a bit of an oddity since you control a walking dude instead of a flying ship (or flying dude). A bit like Gunsmoke, but with a little demon thingy you can whip out there like in Shikigami no Shiro and all sorts of other. A bit easier than everything else on my list, but no less awesome. Super fun co-op, too. Fire it up in MAME with a friend, tilt your monitor 90 degress, and rock the fuck out. I'd take this sucker over ESP RaDe, Dangun Feveron, Ibara, or Mushihimesama any day of the week (and I enjoy all of those).

There's a bunch of others that I really dig, but I'd hate to ramble on pointlessly about all of the vertical shmups that I adore :(

[Sweater Fish Deluxe]

Well, you're getting a lot of suggestions, but here's one more: Under Defeat on the Dreamcast. It's a total classic blast-a-thon without so much of the emphasis on technique or gimmicks that most other modern shooters have (sometimes I love techniques and gimmicks, but sometimes I just want lots of explosions).

Oh, actually, I can't get away without also mentioning the Compile's whole line of vertical shooters. They have a lot of different names and appeared on almost every major system from the MSX to the SNES (Playstation?), but they all share some common themes and gameplay styles.

They're pretty much all very good shooters, so you should just try out any of them that are available for a system you have. In my opinion, though, the 8-bit ones like Gun*Nac and Power Strike suffer because the systems weren't quite up to the challenge of the games graphically. However, Blazing Lazers on the TurboGrafx and Space Megaforce on the SNES are both just mind blowing experiences. MUSHA on the Genesis is good, too, but a bit harder than the others, I think, which may be good or bad depending on how good *YOU* are.


...word is bondage...

[NoahsMyBro]

I haven't played many shooters on consoles, but one of my favorite arcade games was Xevious.

I tried Mars Matrix and Ikaruga briefly on my Dreamcast, and found both of those very, very hard.

Question for those of you replying in this thread: Compared to Xevious in the arcade, how would you rank the difficulty of the shooters you're discussing here?

[Ed Oscuro]

Vert shooting is one of my favorite game genres.

I'd like to second Roushi's Raiden Fighters 2 suggestion, and add the original and the sequel - RF and Raiden Fighters Jet, all three great games. Might be coming out in Japan on disc for the 360 sometime.

A great game that's easy to get into but hard to master is NMK's Thunder Dragon 2, from 1993. The first game is crap, but the second is totally different and awesome.

Some of my other favorites - Twin Cobra, Flying Shark, Fire Shark (Genesis, anyway; arcade version's pretty tough), both Truxton/Tatsujin games - comprise most of the classic Toaplan back catalog. The original Truxton is a very hard game, with some pretty in-depth memorization needed all throughout each level as groups of big, tough enemies pop up with frequency - the game's basically a string of miniboss battles. Truxton II's levels feel too long, but has easier minibosses (as far as I've gotten, which isn't far) and a much harder first boss (especially if you're using the blue weapon, as its beams tend to obscure some nasty little arcing spark shots from the boss).

Raizing/Eighting/Etcera-ing (so many name changes) put out a fair number of well-regarded shooters. We're playing one over at SHMUPS Forum in Macaw's shooting tournament, Mahou Daisakusen / Sorcer Striker. They also released the legendary (tough) Battle Bakraid, which is insane. Haven't given it a lot of time, myself.

Irem put out some quality shooters, lots of horizontals, but among verts Image Fight stands out as one of the best, easily. I also like Air Duel, though most people hate it.

I also like Visco (Video System) games, although I don't play them often. Some are easy, some are harder: Turbo Force, the Aero Fighters games, Vasara 1 & 2, and Sengoku Ace which isn't by Visco but by a designer who left (so it's kind of like the Aero Fighters games, but with a different setting and much awesome).

Sengoku Ace's new developer was Psikyo, still going strong I think. They released a few games in the Strikers series, good fun WWII-themed shooters. I stay away from Strikers 1945 Plus, however, since it's running on the wrong system (Neo Geo hardware) for this sort of game.

Konami and Capcom put out some quality verts like A-Jax and 1941, but I haven't really gotten into those...

There's also similar games which don't have forced scrolling, like Ninja Emaki (at least it isn't forced most of the time, except for a flying scene and a boat ride).

[vintagegamecrazy]

I'm going to recommend Galactic Attack for Saturn, truly amazing. Though it scrolls both v and h, Abadox is superb.

[cyberfluxor]

Galactic Attack is a great Saturn title to keep an eye out for. What systems do you have in mind? Games could be listed from all over the place and don't generally see too many "epics" residing in one place. As XYXZYZ said, the Saturn is full of win, just get import abilities and region switch is the best route.

[Ed Oscuro]

Galactic Attack is a great Saturn title to keep an eye out for.
That reminds me; the choice for Mr. Macaw's shooting tournament before Mahou Daisakusen was Guardian Force. You need a fairly good computer to MAME it though, because it's on ST-V.

Turns out a laptop format Core 2 T7700 will do the trick.

[DefaultGen]

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[RPG_Fanatic]

M.U.S.H.A. for the Genesis, you'll love it. :rocker:

[RPG_Fanatic]

M.U.S.H.A for the Genesis, you'll love it. :rocker:

[Haoie]

Moving onto the SNES, I nominate Space Megaforce, otherwise known as Super Aleste.

Also, Pop n Twinbee, although that's more along the lines of the super cute.

[Tep]

About a year ago I began playing a game known as "Twinkle Star Sprites". Supposedly it's a vertical versus shooter with puzzle elements. After about 3 hours, I quickly realized that I was a fool and had no idea what I had been missing for the past 12 years. It deserves every single bit of hype it has received.

Edit: I forgot; this was a NeoGeo game, which made its way to the Saturn, which made its way to the PS2 eventually. It was developed by Alpha Denshi.

(Hello everyone.)

[Julio III]

Do any of you have any suggestions on how to play the Saturn in TATE mode? I have an LCD TV so cannot move that. On my Dreamcast I use a VGA box to connect it to a CRT PC monitor that I turn on its side. I would love to get into some Saturn shooters but vertical shooters not in TATE just seems not as good after being spoiled by the Dreamcast ones.

Anyway, my favourite Dreamcast shooters are:
Psyvariar 2 - the aim here is to skim as close as possible to as many bullets as you can
Ikaruga - utilises colour switching to absorb bullets/power up your bomb
Under Defeat - more straight forward shooting action.

[Wraith Storm]

The best verticle sooter I have ever played?!?!?! This is an easy question. It would hands down be Silpheed on the Sega CD. The game doesn't look like much in screenshots but is pure bliss in motion. It came from Game Arts just before they hit their prime.

The game has the enemy wave patterns of Galaga with a score based weapon upgrade system. The classic shooter gameplay is set on top of mind-blowing FMV backdrops (No... Not like Novastorm) that draw much inspiration from Zaxxon.

I have yet to see the level design in this game be surpassed in another verticle shooter. This game is truley one of a kind. It took the best of the classics and refined it into something truely special.

[VitaminX]

Guys Guys, Your knowledge is unpresedented, thankyou, its really appreciated. The list is getting very long, time to start collecting...

What do you guys reckon to The Raiden Project (PS1)???... I hear this a 2D V-Scrolling Shoot'em up game, supposed to be pretty rare. Should I add this to my list???...

Best 2D V-Scrolling Shoot'em Ups… Thus far...

Banshee (Amiga A1200, CD32)
DoDonPachi (PS2)
Daioujou (PS2)
Radiant Silvergun
Raiden Fighter
Raiden Fighters 2
Raiden Fighters Jet
Bangai-O
Tyrian 2000
Irakuga (Dreamcast)
Under Defeat (Dreamcast)
Psyvariar 2 (Dreamcast)
Mars Matrix (Dreamcast)
Gigawing
Guwange
Blazing Lazers (TurboGrafx) and Space Megaforce (SNES) are both just mind blowing experiences.
The best verticle shooter I have ever played? This is an easy question. It would hands down be Silpheed (Sega CD). I have yet to see the level design in this game be surpassed in another verticle shooter. This game is truley one of a kind. It took the best of the classics and refined it into something truely special.
M.U.S.H.A. (Genesis) you'll love it.
Thunder Dragon 2 (The first game is crap, but the second is totally different and awesome)
Twin Cobra
Flying Shark
Fire Shark
Truxton/Tatsujin
Mahou Daisakusen/Sorcer Striker.
They also released the legendary (tough) Battle Bakraid, which is insane.
Image Fight stands out as one of the best, easily.
Air Duel
Turbo Force
Aero Fighters games
Vasara 1 & 2
Sengoku Ace
Ninja Emaki (at least it isn't forced most of the time, except for a flying scene and a boat ride).
Konami and Capcom put out some quality verts like A-Jax and 1941.
Guardian Force. You need a fairly good computer to MAME it though, because it's on ST-V.
TouHou Project 8: Imperishable Night is a FANTASTIC bullet hell shooter with a great range of difficulty levels.
Space Megaforce (SNES), otherwise known as Super Aleste (SNES).
Pop n Twinbee (SNES) There's also similar games which don't have forced scrolling, like
Galactic Attack (Saturn), truly amazing.
Abadox is superb.
About a year ago I began playing a game known as "Twinkle Star Sprites" (Neo-Geo, Saturn, PS2). Supposedly it's a vertical versus shooter with puzzle elements. After about 3 hours, I quickly realized that I was a fool and had no idea what I had been missing for the past 12 years. It deserves every single bit of hype it has received.

If you dig vertical shooters, do yourself a favor and get a Sega Saturn that can play Japanese discs. It's got everything you need; Dodonpachi, plenty of Psikyo games like Strikers 1945 and Gunbird. Batsugun, Kingdom Grandprix, Layer Section... so many I can't possibly list them all. The Sega Saturn is THE system for shooters. As XYXZYZ said, the Saturn is full of win, just get import abilities and region switch is the best route.


Anymore recommendations or games I may have missed???...

[CosmicMonkey]

Armed Police Batrider. I cannot find the words to explain how incredible this game is. Unfortunately it never got a console port, and remains a PCB only title.

Cyvern is quality, as is Dragon Blaze. Again though, Cyvern is PCB only while DB received a PS2 port. No idea what the port is like, I only have the PCB.

Under Defeat is another absolutely incredible game. The game looks absolutely amazing and plays really well. Best shooter on the Dreamcast? Probably....

Radiant Silvergun and Ikaruga are certainly... different to your 'average' shooter. They're like Marmite; you'll either love them or hate them.

If you're gonna have a Saturn on the go, then you want Soukyugurentai Otokuyo (the rerelease of the game), Battle Garegga and the awesome Layer Section.

[Jorpho]

Raptor: Call of the Shadows and its sequel Dmonstar also seem to get mentioned regularly.

And perhaps Xenon, from the Bitmap Bros? (Xenon 2000 is actually freeware, I think.)

Or Esp.Ra.De?

[ubersaurus]

My favs are spread throughout systems and eras.

Zanac and Recca are favs for the NES. Zanac can be had domestically pretty easy, but Recca's japan only and pricey. I just had a repro cart made-hell of a lot easier, and cheaper!

MUSHA on Genesis is fantastic. So was Power Strike on master system, if you liked getting your ass handed to you. But probably my favs are Galactic Attack on Saturn, and Under Defeat on Dreamcast. None of those ridiculous bullet hells that seem to be so prevalent nowadays; just good ol shoot, dodge.

Soukyugurentai is fantastic, too. And I did like Dodonpachi...just not a huge fan of it like everyone else ;p

[Ed Oscuro]

What do you guys reckon to The Raiden Project (PS1)???... I hear this a 2D V-Scrolling Shoot'em up game, supposed to be pretty rare. Should I add this to my list???...
If you have MAME, find out whether you like regular Raiden first. As far as I know, Raiden 2 and DX (which I supposedly played but could barely see due to a dying monitor or something) play quite a bit like it. Unfortunately, those aren't working in MAME, not yet.

The Raiden Fighters is a whole lot different from those earlier games - puts them (certainly Raiden) to shame in fact, in terms of visuals and in the amount of fun scoring stuff to be done.

Jorpho mentioned Raptor; I played the demo very briefly back in the day, should load that one up again sometime. Somebody voted for it in a recent poll at SHMUPS Forum, which is pretty awesome. It'll be hard to find, but hopefully not expensive.

I think Xenon is crap. I'm not sure if it was Stuart Campbell or not who put two pictures side by side of the game, with the one showing the ship fully powered up and stuff flying off the top of the screen captioned "this is what xenon 2 pretended to be" and the other saying "this is how xenon 2 WAS most of the time."

The best thing about Xenon 2 MEGABLAST is the MEGABLAST part, courtesy of Bomb the Bass's remix of the Assault on Precinct 13 theme by John Carpenter. How we get from squibs firing off in a jail to shooting ugly aliens while navigating a giant alien's crusty nostrils is beyond me.

Zanac is another game I haven't been able to get, despite having stared for literally years in awe (not all at once) at a great ad for the game in an old Star Trek comic book. The box art looks so damned awesome, and yet the game doesn't interest me much at all.

Oh, yeah, I heard Border Down for Dreamcast is great, but it's import-only and also very expensive.

[Jorpho]

Jorpho mentioned Raptor; I played the demo very briefly back in the day, should load that one up again sometime. Somebody voted for it in a recent poll at SHMUPS Forum, which is pretty awesome. It'll be hard to find, but hopefully not expensive.

Not at all hard to find, actually.
http://www.mking.com/raptor/index.html

[blue lander]

Pretty much anything by Compile is golden. Any of the Aleste games (Aleste I and II on the MSX or GG/SMS, MUSHA on the Genesis, Robo Aleste on the Sega CD, Space Megaforce on the SNES) are all good, as well as Zanac and Gun.Nac on the NES. They also did Blazing Lazers and Spriggan on the PCE, both of which are excellent.

Speaking of Silpheed, am I the only one who preferred the original version to the Sega CD one? The Sega CD might have looked and played better, but it's just not as damn impressive as the original.

[Ed Oscuro]

Jorpho: Expensive, as I feared (no physical media to show for it either). Going the direct route and ordering a CD (or even just the download) from Ap...er 3D Realms seems the way to go:
http://www.buy3drealms.com/rapcalofshad.html Support a game developer, buy direct!

[tom]

Caverns of Mars

[NoahsMyBro]

Do any of you have any suggestions on how to play the Saturn in TATE mode? I have an LCD TV so cannot move that. On my Dreamcast I use a VGA box to connect it to a CRT PC monitor that I turn on its side. I would love to get into some Saturn shooters but vertical shooters not in TATE just seems not as good after being spoiled by the Dreamcast ones.

Anyway, my favourite Dreamcast shooters are:
Psyvariar 2 - the aim here is to skim as close as possible to as many bullets as you can
Ikaruga - utilises colour switching to absorb bullets/power up your bomb
Under Defeat - more straight forward shooting action.

I wondered what TATE meant. I inferred the meaning, but wanted to know what it stood for. For the benefit of others wondering the same thing, I found a pretty cool Shooting Games Glossary - here. (http://insomnia.ac/archive/glossaries/shooting/)

[Tep]

I found a pretty cool Shooting Games Glossary - here. (http://insomnia.ac/archive/glossaries/shooting/)
"BulletMagnet"? Maybe this will help. (http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?t=9665)

[ubersaurus]

Oh, yeah, I heard Border Down for Dreamcast is great, but it's import-only and also very expensive.

Border Down is also a horizontal shooter :P


I agree; anything compile touched was pretty much gold.

Nexzr for Turbo Duo is also really good. You'd do better to seek out the Summer Carnival, version; for some reason it costs a hell of a lot less, and has more content.

Also badass games: Aero Fighters 2 for neo geo, and Beamrider for a bevy of classic systems.

[Ed Oscuro]

"BulletMagnet"? Maybe this will help. (http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?t=9665)
Yeah, forget that Insomnia.ac link, this is the same thing, but actually updated!

No entry for Throw yet, however...

[Rob2600]

Do any of you guys know of any other legendary 2D V-Scrolling Shoot'em Ups that I should add to my collection???

It might be outdated, but how about River Raid for the Atari 2600, Atari 5200, C-64, etc?

[cyberfluxor]

That reminds me; the choice for Mr. Macaw's shooting tournament before Mahou Daisakusen was Guardian Force. You need a fairly good computer to MAME it though, because it's on ST-V.

Turns out a laptop format Core 2 T7700 will do the trick.
That sounds really, intense. Watched some YouTube clips and it doesn't do justice to the game. Never seen ST-V hardware around here and doubt I ever will.


It might be outdated, but how about River Raid for the Atari 2600, Atari 5200, C-64, etc?
I like River Raid a lot and had some modern gaming friends of mine play it, they enjoy it too. I'd say it holds up alright with age and deserves some attention.

[VitaminX]

Bump dis...

[CartCollector]

Supposedly Cho Ren Sha 68k (http://www2.tky.3web.ne.jp/~yosshin/my_works/index.html) is good, but I haven't been able to get past the second level. It's free, so go download it.

[Press_Start]

One of my favorite games for the 8-bit era: The Guardian Legend.

Graphic-wise, it isn't all that spectacular compared to modern games, but it does give you a wide variety of weapons and good amount of difficult bosses to satisfy your shmup needs. If you're still only interested in pure 2D v-shooting, type in "TLG" as a password to play the game's v-shooter levels.

Enjoy! ;)