What is your favorite Shoot-em-up?

Beldar

My brother had an NES when I was very young and I kept it for a number of years as I grew up. I loved Gradius and Gun*Nac. There are some other really great shmups on the NES too.

My real gaming loves were the SNES and the Genesis/MD. So so many good ones. For SNES I would say my favorite is Gradius 3 (despite it's slowdown issues) and for Genesis I would have to say Advanced Busterhawk Glaylancer (import.) Glaylancer is really something special.

SuperFromND

I've played far too many to pick just one favorite, but I always really liked Recca for the Famicom.
Despite it's rather high price point (excluding the rerelease on the 3DS eShop), it's definetly worth checking out for just how technically impressive it is.

Clyde

@supercatfooz Looks nice and I like the music. 😎

UDb23

@bobharris said in What is your favorite Shoot-em-up?:

My favorite is Raptor

Agree. Played that great game a lot too!

thelostsoul

@supercatfooz This one is interesting. I will check it out. In Wikipedia stands it uses sprites for effects every 30 frame of 60 frames. So, it is a fast flicker technique, which is awesome.

Clyde

@thelostsoul Did you also read that it's known as one of the hardest shooters out there? ;)

thelostsoul

@clyde Yes, that makes it even more interesting for hardcore shmuppies. :D (btw, just created the word shmuppies and I like it a lot)
I have a friend, a hardcore shmuppie and he definetely don't know it. This will be big suprise. Just tried it out for several minutes. Thats awesome!

I wish they would have used same technique on a different game I like on the NES. The slowdowns and audio music cut while sound effects breaks it really. Its Over Horizon, with likeable music and an editor for the placement of options.

Clyde

@thelostsoul I like shmuppies, too. Especially those who actively live their shmuppiness. :D

barbudreadmon

Radiant Silvergun 1 & 2 (2 being known as Ikaruga but its name as a project was Radiant Silvergun 2).

AndersHP

Just a heads up for those Ikaruga lovers out there:
It's just been released on the Nintendo Switch, in all of its original glory; it has TATE mode, that lets you play it with the monitor upright, 2 player local co-op, and even sports the original end-boss-slowdowns. Plays very well I think, and no remake mumbo-jumbo :-)

katsudoro

Some of the ones I end up replaying the most:
1 - Guwange (this game is a gem, great gameplay mechanics and soundtrack)

2 - Esp. Ra. De

3 - In the Hunt

thelostsoul

@katsudoro I only touched them and they look gorgeous . About ESP Ra.De. I expect a lot, especially because its from Cave and I heard so many good about it. Guwange is on my radar for long time, as it looks good. And about In The Hunt, so many recommend this and its plays so well and so different. I never was sure if it stays like this on later levels or gets boring.

I wanted bring up a game for the original Game Boy. Do you know Solarstriker? Its made by Nintendo, Gumpei Yokoi involved! It plays pretty well, but its very simplistic. But for what it is, its a cool game with good soundtrack. I don't know why, but I like it a lot.

pjft

@katsudoro I noticed I don't have In The Hunt in my curated arcade games list. What emulator do you play it on, so I know what to seek?

Thanks for the tips.

My favorites are DoDonPachi, R-Type (arcade) and the Thunder Force series (3 and 4) on the Genesis.

Yesterday I ran into GigaWing and I'm enjoying it a lot so far.

mitu

@pjft In The Hunt works very well with lr-fbalpha, but it might work with others. There is also a PS1 version working fine with lr-pcsx-rearmed.

pjft

@mitu thanks. FBA it is!

thelostsoul

@pjft If you like Giga Wing, check out Mars Matrix, the spiritual successor to it.

chizzer

For me, it's a toss-up between R-type and Truxton 2

grant2258

the might flying shark!

mediamogul

@thelostsoul said in What is your favorite Shoot-em-up?:

Do you know Solarstriker? Its made by Nintendo, Gumpei Yokoi involved! It plays pretty well, but its very simplistic. But for what it is, its a cool game with good soundtrack. I don't know why, but I like it a lot.

It's a good game in it's own right, but it's also fairly unique in that it stands as one of the few times Nintendo ever ventured into the popular space shooter genre. It's also a great example of how Nintendo would add specific color palettes into the GameBoy Color BIOS for certain R&D1 games. Brilliantly, they included a photo negative palette for 'Solar Striker' that makes all the empty space black and the ship, enemies and stars lighter colors. The result is a very nice effect that makes the game feel almost as if it was colorized all along. Of course, as an added bonus, this palette can be applied to any similar-type shooter to get the same effect.

thelostsoul

@mediamogul I was wondering about the palette. I thought this would be an emumator specific feature.