Bestest console ever for shmups?

[Gilbert]

Originally Posted by Steril707

R-Type 3 is shitting on most other Shmups on the SNES from the top of the Mt. Everest.

It's the best game in the series for me. And I am a huge R-Type-Fanboy..

Hard to believe there wasn't an arcade machine this was ported from.

Yes great game. I forgot about that. It's better than R-Type 2 but not as good as the arcade Rtype 1 IMO

[Mikerochip]

Depends on what kind of games you like. (or from what era, really)

I'm a massive fan of vertical shooters in particular.
(Though, I'm not great at them, mostly)

Esp. Ra. De is one I play on MAME constantly. (And I even bought the T-Shirt!!)
Discounting the Arcade (even though we shouldn't!!)

The XBox 360 has loads of Cave shooters.

The Dreamcast has a nice amount of shooters too. Mostly Naomi ports, but not always.
Rez springs to mind for a non tradtional shooter that's amazing.

The PC Engine always amazed me with what it could produce for it's size.
I just finished R-Type CD (using savestates because, fuck that last boss!) on it last week.

The Saturn had some great shooters, but so too did the PSX.
Radient Silvergun on the Saturn, and Raiden DX on the PSX.
The PSX also had Ray storm and Ray force.
But the Saturn had all 5 thunderforce games!

The only game that amazed me on the PC was Raiden II. It was near arcade perfect in my eyes, and in some ways better!
(I found out much later that the PSX has 2 variants of it!!)

I never really rated the Neo Geo except for Viewpoint, and maybe ASO II.
Strikers 1945+ was riddled with slowdown, and Pulstar was a poor R-Type clone.

My fav site for reviews, even if it hasn't been updated in an age:
http://www.shmups.com/xenocidefiles.html

I've found so many games I'd never heard of on there.
Whatever system you have it's worth checking out their list.

The system I remember most fondly is the SNES, the parodious games were superb! So was Cotton. Cybernator disappointed me. Everyone seems to adore it though. (If we're counting those run and gun games)
And the R-Types on it, I loved too. Even though Super R-Type slowed down more than the Neo Geo :/

And Llamatron deserves a special mention. It's the first time I really believed a home computer could compete with the Arcades.

[Shatterhand]

My fav site for reviews, even if it hasn't been updated in an age:
http://www.shmups.com/xenocidefiles.html

I still am a moderator at the forum of that site And some of those pages had lots of help from me to be filled. (Well, the MSX one at least was nearly fully compiled by me, but that was like....20 years ago or something. Yeah, it's a shame Malc basically dropped the site. At least he still pays for the hosting and domain)

[roondar]

Originally Posted by Shatterhand

Sorry, but no. They can't compete. Super Startdust is a glorified Asteroids clone. It's good, but not amazing. The other 3 games...eeeh...

The other 3 games are better than most SHMUPS out there. They're all competent or plainly good games.
Project X gets tons of rather undeserved hate. It's competent. Best SHMUP ever? No. A bad game? No.

For the other games, let's look at shmups.com:

Originally Posted by shmups on Banshee

Excellent 194X type of game. The graphics are slightly in the Chaos Engine/Steel Empire vein. AGA chipset only.

Originally Posted by shmups on Disposable Hero

Very nice gameplay. Excellent graphics.

Seems not everyone feels those games are bad

[Mikerochip]

Originally Posted by Shatterhand

I still am a moderator at the forum of that site And some of those pages had lots of help from me to be filled. (Well, the MSX one at least was nearly fully compiled by me, but that was like....20 years ago or something. Yeah, it's a shame Malc basically dropped the site. At least he still pays for the hosting and domain)

That's amazing!


I debated on mentioning the MSX page, just because, when I found the site, I'd never even played *ONE* MSX game before!


It was such fun to learn and play all those games.


OH! How could I forget: On the PC, Jamestown.
I adore that game.
That seriously wow'd me.

[Shatterhand]

Whoever wrote that Amiga section knows nothing about shmups....

No, but seriously, Banshee and Disposable Hero are decent efforts. Not great games, but not bad either.

Project-X in the other hand, I'll stand my ground... it's a technically amazing piece of software used in a very bad game. It's the 2nd most overrated Amiga game ever. Level design (lol) and gameplay are awful. At least is smooth unlike that huge piece of crap named Xenon 2. (Guess what I consider to be the *most* overrated game on Amiga? )

I debated on mentioning the MSX page, just because, when I found the site, I'd never even played *ONE* MSX game before!


It was such fun to learn and play all those games.

Oh, this makes me very heppy to read I sometimes read that page and I am a bit ashamed by some of those descriptions, hehe

[Retro-Nerd]

PC-Engine, Saturn and Mega Drive. That covers the best shmups out there.

[hitchhikr]

The PC Engine (+ SuperGrafx's Aldynes) (+ Pc Engine CD) was called "The queen of shmups" back then.
There's quite a few great shmups on the PlayStation 2 but afaik, they only have been released in Japan.
The MegaDrive and it's Mega CD sported great shmups aswell (and not only the ThunderForce series).

[Shatterhand]

Originally Posted by hitchhikr

.
The MegaDrive and it's Mega CD sported great shmups aswell (and not only the ThunderForce series).

On the Mega CD... I remember Silpheed, Lords of Thunder, Keio Flying Squadron, Android Assault and Robo-Aleste/Dennin Aleste...

Was there any other?

[005AGIMA]

Originally Posted by Shatterhand

Going just a little off-topic, for no reason I found again an image I did and that I always bring up when a couple of friends of mine start saying Axelay is the best SNES shmup or the best Konami shmup ever (both affirmations I *STRONGLY* disagree)

I agree with your stong disagreement.

I remember picking up Axelay in an early game trade shop and taking it home to play.

I remember the day well as I was in a rush and the cat JUMPED ON MY HEAD....CLAWS OUT while I was setting up the SNES in the lounge! NEVER did that before or since.

Anyway.....

Axelay was "ok" but the perspective was just.....odd. The whole game felt like someone didn't understand vanishing points AT ALL.

That kind of shit annoys me. It's almost as bad as phone video...IN PORTRAIT!!!! ...almost.

[hitchhikr]

Originally Posted by Shatterhand

On the Mega CD... I remember Silpheed, Lords of Thunder, Keio Flying Squadron, Android Assault and Robo-Aleste/Dennin Aleste...

Was there any other?

Ah-3 thunderstrike
Ax-101
Android Assault
Afterburner 3
Battlecorps
Keio Flying Squadron
Lords Of Thunder
Microcosm
Rdf Global Conflict
Robo Aleste
Slipheed
Sol Feace
Soul Star
Star Blade
Star Wars Rebel Assault
Stellar Fire
Thunderhawk
Wing Commander


and probably more i forgot.

[Hewitson]

Originally Posted by Gordon

Let's not underestimate the Amiga CD32

Out of the box you got
Project X
Disposable Hero
Banshee
Super Stardust

Yeah, a collection of some of the worst shooters ever created. Fantastic.

Esp Ra De and Dangun Feveron are two of my all time favourites. I love the Psikyo games as well. Strikers, Gunblade, etc.

[Coagulus]

Originally Posted by nobody

Pc-Engine. Gradius, Salamander, R-Type, Raiden, Galaga '88 and more.

Agreed. And Tatsujin looked and sounded better than on the Megadrive.

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by Shatterhand

Project-X in the other hand, I'll stand my ground... it's a technically amazing piece of software used in a very bad game. It's the 2nd most overrated Amiga game ever. Level design (lol) and gameplay are awful.

I can only agree with this.

Project X ... in fact most T17 games are completely over rated. I think out of all of them Alien Breed is the only one I mildly liked...and even that started to piss me off with wonky controls.

PX, technically great... and that's it. It's no Hybris, Battle Squadron, Rtype or Apidya

[jotd]

@mcgeezer Body Blows Galactic, Qwak, Arcade Pool were good. I like a casual play from time to time. Superfrog also was pretty good. I agree it was otherwise all graphics & music & poor gameplay.

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by mcgeezer

I can only agree with this.

Project X ... in fact most T17 games are completely over rated. I think out of all of them Alien Breed is the only one I mildly liked...and even that started to piss me off with wonky controls.

PX, technically great... and that's it. It's no Hybris, Battle Squadron, Rtype or Apidya

Have to disagree, you have to remember we had alot of shite back then in various categories that needed improving gameplay wise, Team 17 came along with fast, bright and fun games, yes a couple are overrated (nothing on Psygnosis scale) but there is alot of decent games in their catalogue.

Sure you can’t say they are better than such and such game nowadays, but i fear we are heading on hating overrated games more and more now when we had loads of fun on them back, i.e Kick Off - amazing game back then, nowadays most people can’t play it properly and say its crap because of their inability to control it.

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by jotd

@mcgeezer Body Blows Galactic, Qwak, Arcade Pool were good. I like a casual play from time to time. Superfrog also was pretty good. I agree it was otherwise all graphics & music & poor gameplay.

Ahhh man, i can let some of them slide... but Superfrog!!!!!

One of the worst platform games created... boring to play.

[Shatterhand]

Ah-3 thunderstrike
Ax-101
Android Assault
Afterburner 3
Battlecorps
Keio Flying Squadron
Lords Of Thunder
Microcosm
Rdf Global Conflict
Robo Aleste
Slipheed
Sol Feace
Soul Star
Star Blade
Star Wars Rebel Assault
Stellar Fire
Thunderhawk
Wing Commander

Most of those aren't shmups. Stuff like Wing Commander, Thunderhawk, Rebel Assault or Star Blade belong to another genre.

Agreed. And Tatsujin looked and sounded better than on the Megadrive.

Truxton, Afterburner, Outrun... they were all better on the PCE.

Sure you can’t say they are better than such and such game nowadays, but i fear we are heading on hating overrated games more and more now when we had loads of fun on them back, i.e Kick Off - amazing game back then, nowadays most people can’t play it properly and say its crap because of their inability to control it.

I didn't like Project-X back at the day. Team 17 was a publisher more than a developer (Still is today), so stuff made outside (like Qwak) sometimes was very good. But the games made by the duo Andreas Tadic/Rico Holmes, while usually looked insanely good, weren't very fun to play. Except Alien Breed 2. So I kinda agree with McGeezer, though I don't think Superfrog is *that* bad.

But Project X... urgh.

The thing is, we had better games than the ones made by Team 17.

Robocod > Superfrog
Apidya > Project X
The Chaos Engine > Alien Breed (Hate to give praise to a Bitmap Brothers games, but TCE is great, still is)

Body Blows had no competition back when it was released.... but it was overshadowed later by Mortal Kombat and then Shadow Fighter.


Still regarding Project-X.

R-Type, Dragon Breed, R-Type 2, Z-Out, Apidya.... fuck, I'd give in and say even Agony plays better than Project-X. There was no reason for P-X to be that overrated when the system already had better horziontal shooters. (And of course, Hybris, Battle Squadron, Swiv... vertical shooters, all way superior to Project-X too)

[touko]

The PCE has some impressive shmups .

Gate of thunder(here a hack with TF's musics and some GFX ).
[ Show youtube player ]

sapphire:
[ Show youtube player ]

lords of thunder:
[ Show youtube player ]

Star parodia:
[ Show youtube player ]

The impressive forgotten worlds conversion:
[ Show youtube player ]

And the soldier series .

[Gilbert]

Originally Posted by mcgeezer

I can only agree with this.

Project X ... in fact most T17 games are completely over rated. I think out of all of them Alien Breed is the only one I mildly liked...and even that started to piss me off with wonky controls.

PX, technically great... and that's it. It's no Hybris, Battle Squadron, Rtype or Apidya

I agree with this apart from you missed Qwak and also Battle Squadron sucks. I spend ages playing Battle Squadron to figure out why people liked it so much and I never could work out why.