H-scroll Amiga shmups that came closest to 1985 Gradius arcade?

[saimon69]

For me the golden standard was R-Type arcade

[jotd]

Originally Posted by gimbal

I am going to predict that by the time this thread hits around page 3, people will start listing just any horizontal shoot em ups that pop into their heads

Saint Dragon !

[stevelord]

Originally Posted by gimbal

I am going to predict that by the time this thread hits around page 3, people will start listing just any horizontal shoot em ups that pop into their heads

Saved everyone a trip down memory lane


Aside from the obvious already discussed R-Type (and er... *cough* Katakis) I'd say Menace, while not a great game has a bit of a Nemesis feel to it. Inviyya and possibly Reshoot R (which is closer to and better than Vulcan Venture IMHO) would also be good shouts. I'm not convinced ImmortalA1000 would try Reshoot R as it's an AGA game and he's convinced there aren't any good ones (j/k!)

[ImmortalA1000]

Right now my A1200 isn't working, might need a new drive and my A4000/040 needs some work and the high density floppy drive swapped out so there's that Right now I only have an A1000 set up and I need to get the Gotek working in one of the external drive cases for a faulty drive so I can write out some disks. I do have Project X and Agony but nothing else loaded last summer.

Just curious to see what h-scroll shmups people thought were cool. I know the obvious ones like Disposable Hero, Project X etc but there are 140 or so listed as a category and I don't fancy trying them all out using PC cursor keys on an LCD via emulation, ruins the experience for me. Like I said I had the main 3 consoles of the late 80s/early 90s so I didn't really buy any Amiga shmups.

[sokolovic]

Honestly I thought your OP was waiting PROJECT X as an answer just to dismiss it because it was a "arse shitted game made by arse people" etc...

(I personnally thinks that Project X isn't that good as it is praised by some. Still it is better than Xenon 2 which is almost unplayable with modern standards)

[Megalomaniac]

I've played Gradius / Nemesis in the past but can't remember exactly what sets it apart from other horizontally-scrolling shooters, though I guess the sheer 'waves of enemies, then a boss, with power up tokens to collect' style was pretty new.

I preferred Project X 93 to Apidya, which seems to be equivalent to preferring tinned sardines to caviar, the way some people talk about them. Uridium 2 and Datastorm are a couple of other less well-known games which have their fans. Ziriax is also very technically impressive, though rather tough. This is one genre where a game needed to be designed around the Amiga rather than with an ST version in mind - beyond Silkworm and the R-Types I'd struggle to think of any above-average shooters of this type that are on both systems.

[ImmortalA1000]

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

I've played Gradius / Nemesis in the past but can't remember exactly what sets it apart from other horizontally-scrolling shooters, though I guess the sheer 'waves of enemies, then a boss, with power up tokens to collect' style was pretty new.

I preferred Project X 93 to Apidya, which seems to be equivalent to preferring tinned sardines to caviar, the way some people talk about them. Uridium 2 and Datastorm are a couple of other less well-known games which have their fans. Ziriax is also very technically impressive, though rather tough. This is one genre where a game needed to be designed around the Amiga rather than with an ST version in mind - beyond Silkworm and the R-Types I'd struggle to think of any above-average shooters of this type that are on both systems.

It's not that Gradius was better than say R-Type or Salamander, I actually much prefer the Salamander power up method and dual player gameplay myself, but Gradius marks the turning point between things like Scramble/Vanguard 8bit shmups and a new generation of 68000 based 128+ coloured quality shmups in the arcade that's all. It's not that it's better than R-Type as such but it was the first game I can think of which you would prey would get a conversion to the Amiga back then as it was the only computer that could have done it justice, as TinyUS brilliant port proves.

My actual fav' shooter of that 68000 based era personally is either Salamander or Vulcan Venture but there were a few nice ones back then for sure.

I always thought project X was nice but a bit difficult. Like I say I didn't have many as I just went ahead and got a PC Engine when it was clear Ocean/Konami had zero interest in porting my fav' Konami shmups to Amiga. I think playing R-Type at the PCW Show with Julian Rignall on the CVG stand was such fun I got one on import soon after that. I had Gradius and Salamander on the PC Engine but Vulcan Venture was CD only release.

[idrougge]

I would say that "back in the day", Apidya was the closest to the Gradius/Nemesis experience. Project X has many superficial similarities but doesn't really play the same, but it is obvious that Gradius was a major inspiration for Apidya and it feels more Japanese than European.

Come to think of it, it's a shame there wasn't an Amiga version of Insector X.

[Kagesan]

Apidya is the best horizontally scrolling shooting game on the Amiga bar none, and it even utilizes the Gradius power-up system. Z-Out is of similar quality, but channels R-Type rather than Gradius.

For more games that use a Gradius style power-up bar, you can try Sarcophaser, Ziriax or Zynaps, but none of them are exactly great. For more R-Type style action you can try Katakis/Denaris, which is okay-ish, but hasn’t aged gracefully.

Generally speaking, very few shooting games for the Amiga reached the level of quality seen on the 16-bit consoles of the time, let alone in the arcade.

Maybe you’ll find this interesting, even though it’s not about horizontally scrolling games exclusively:
https://www.racketboy.com/retro/the-...ary-essentials

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by Kagesan

Apidya is the best horizontally scrolling shooting game on the Amiga bar none,

Would agree, but unclear that it would fit the criteria Awesome graphics, awesome music, okay sounds, big bosses, tough as nails like all horizontal shooters.

The only thing that I have against it is that the powerups are a little naff. Games like R-Type give you really cool over the top looking weapons.

[ImmortalA1000]

Originally Posted by sokolovic

Well that's wasn't very clear by reading your OP.

I know, I can't really play new games except on WinUAE at the moment so I didn't specifically mention it because it's not really an option for me. Most people here know I 'live in the past' too lol so I didn't put the typical 'back in the day" bit I usually say in the short initial post.

[DanScott]

Best arcade / console style horizontal scrolling shooter (IMHO) is the middle section in Turrican 2.

Feels a lot like the Air Busters coin-op that it was inspired by...

[ Show youtube player ]

[saimon69]

Create a good shooter is hard, and i know because i did work in one, tried to create the levels and - honestly - failed:
there is a thin line between focus on playability (mean give several styles of game where you could use determinate weapons mainly) and focus on the "story" - as giving a credible setting;
in the press demo of Powder i did focus too much on the second while, in the final version, were the coders instead to gametest and - getting more used to it - did tweak things in a way that increase difficulty so much that become too tough and not differentiate in weapon use
(i did work in the City level, at 6:59 in the press demo).
[ Show youtube player ]

[Megalomaniac]

Forgot about Blood Money which is pretty good too, more methodical in style and needs a slightly strategic approach (do you buy power-ups when low on energy, knowing you'll lose them if you lose a life?), but quite difficult even then. I never quite connected with Apidya, the weedy power-up system might've been part of it, too hard for me as well, but it's certainly well-presented and technically impressive.

It sometimes seems like almost all horizontally-scrolling shooters on the Amiga are considered to be a bit too hard, what would people suggest as some achievable ones?

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

Forgot about Blood Money which is pretty good too, more methodical in style and needs a slightly strategic approach (do you buy power-ups when low on energy, knowing you'll lose them if you lose a life?), but quite difficult even then. I never quite connected with Apidya, the weedy power-up system might've been part of it, too hard for me as well, but it's certainly well-presented and technically impressive.

It sometimes seems like almost all horizontally-scrolling shooters on the Amiga are considered to be a bit too hard, what would people suggest as some achievable ones?

Apydia has also a R-type Beam shot that can help on the short term while in a position of underpowered fire, just keep fire button pressed

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by Master484

Lethal Zone is indeed one of the best examples of dual playfield use in a shmup.

[ Show youtube player ]

Only 7+8 colors, but looks great, runs at 50 FPS, and feels very console/arcade like thanks to the parallax.

This is very interesting, graphically...
I have a weak spot for OCS dual playfield mode.

Would love to create a game for that, but holy shit, it's so difficult to get something working with different color schemes across several levels.

Like shown in this game, explosions using the foreground colors for explosions and having only sprites for shots looks so rough.

[jotd]

My arcade remake of Scramble uses it. And even with such an old game I had to use copper tricks to change palette for the various status bars. 8+8 is just not enough, unless you use sprites for the main ship so people see more colors.

Horizontal shooters have an advantage: colors can be dynamic at least for the second plane. For vertical shooters it's more difficult.

[Coagulus]

If I ever finish Jethunters (moved house and now moving again and laptop died ) this uses ECS dual playfield 8 on 8 with one field for the tiled gfx and one for the bullets, power ups and enemies. But I suspect that won't be my last foray into SEUs.... eventually.

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by saimon69

Create a good shooter is hard, and i know because i did work in one, tried to create the levels and - honestly - failed:

I hear that, this is also usually where I crash. Creating levels is an art. And this is just as true for horizontal/vertical shooters, it needs to be more than just random waves of enemies appearing. It needs to feel like there is some unseen force that sees you as a threat and is trying to wage war with you, becoming more desperate as time progresses. OR feel like you're in a hostile living world, as would be the case for Apidya or Saint Dragon.

[Korban]

For my tastes Z-Out is in contention.
It's very rtype inspired, but so are many arcade machines.
It also has nice gfx (especially as the game progresses), levels with multiple levels of parallax scrolling, multiple rtype style "motherships" on screen at once concurrently with parallax scrolling on another level, a good level of imagination (albeit derivative) and well designed levels.

Its a hard question to answer though, mostly because what quantifies arcade like to some may be different to others.