Where are my Arcade shmup fans at?

[Viviana Santos]

what would be some shoot em up games you would recommend to someone new to the genre?
the only shoot em up game i distinctly remember playing was gradius iii on the super famicom and that game was pretty neatzors

Ikagura

 

[Varyag]

I may have a ton of personal recommendations, but I'd suggest you check out this video by ShmupJunkie where he goes through several good games with reasons for each. My favorite out of the bunch that he recommends is easily Batsugun (Special) though.

In the end though, you should really just go for whichever game really caught your eye. If you like the game a lot, you won't really mind how hard it may be to learn.

what would be some shoot em up games you would recommend to someone new to the genre?
the only shoot em up game i distinctly remember playing was gradius iii on the super famicom and that game was pretty neatzors

I mentioned this a few posts ago, but there's a lot of cool shmups that are nice to get into. If you liked Gradius, try Parodious! Darius Gaiden is also really good. Gleylancer is not hard to get through, and Drainus is a great modern hori shmup. I'm not too into those ones, usually preferring bullet hells, but there's plenty of options.
Oh, I also forgot to mention Thunder Force!

 

[bigstinkie]

thanks to you two, i will put these on my to do list

 

[SkaaTerminator]

i enjoy psyvariar 2

 

[Your_Homie_Gale]

Only played a few but those games to me were definitely special. The first obvious one is Touhou Project because of the music and charming visuals. Before I discovered that I remembering seeing an old video of this other SHMUP for the Famicom called "RECCA Summer Carnival '92" which intrigued me enough to give it a shot. It even came to the 3DS eshop one day and I instantly bought it. As for the SHMUP that left the biggest impact on me it has to go to Einhänder on the PS1. Always played the demo growing up and finally gave it a shot when my brother got a physical copy. It was harder than I anticipated but definitely satisfying to play and beat. There's also Gradius V for the PS2 but I honestly didn't play that one as much. Only at my uncle's house and I could never find it anywhere.

 

[sadgrrly]

Always love a shmup. I got the chance to play Cave's Deathsmiles on an actual cabinet a few months ago with a friend and it was a borderline religious experience.

 

[SpcDaicon]

I've been playing some Psikyo's shmups but I keep truggling. These bullets are just so damn fast and I can't keep up.

I'm trying some of Cave's library now.

 

[Varyag]

Psikyo games are cool, but they're really hard and have some design elements taht aren't really explained. Like how in some of them, powerups have an invisible ammo counter(!) that depletes if you fire too much before picking up the next one, reducing your DPS significantly. Or how after the 4th stage they stop being nice with life ups and respawns. Still, good games, just need to keep that kind of stuff in mind. I came close to 1CCing Samurai Aces.

CAVE is a whole another universe, they're very very hard in different ways but they're some of the best in the whole genre.

 

[SpcDaicon]

Just finished couple of runs of ESP Ra.De. Psi for Switch. It was on Super Easy tho, but it counts to learn the game

Awesome game with great music and incredible presentation.

 

[Amakuchi]

I really enjoy the Darius series (pretty much all of them), although Gaiden has a special place in my heart since it was a childhood game, I've been thinking of attempting to 1CC it one of these days.

Other ones I really enjoy are the Raiden Fighters series, the Mahou Daisakusen series and the Strikers series. I also have a soft spot for CAVE bullet hells.

 

[Leon]

I really enjoy the Darius series (pretty much all of them), although Gaiden has a special place in my heart since it was a childhood game, I've been thinking of attempting to 1CC it one of these days.

Other ones I really enjoy are the Raiden Fighters series, the Mahou Daisakusen series and the Strikers series. I also have a soft spot for CAVE bullet hells.

I personally consider darius gaiden: silver hawk to be one of if not the best side scrolling shooter ever made, period.
Not technically my favorite but it's definitely in the top 5, not to mention the amazing music.

 

[Amakuchi]

I personally consider darius gaiden: silver hawk to be one of if not the best side scrolling shooter ever made, period.
Not technically my favorite but it's definitely in the top 5, not to mention the amazing music.

I still haven't found a side-scroller that has quite captured the vibe of Gaiden, even its peers/competitors of the time didn't quite match up to it. I remember the arcade and console ports both being on par with each other.

I am really glad they added the Gaiden ship on the newest Darius title, it was really cool seeing it have the same power up route as it originally did (although the Black Hole Bomb was a pretty nerfed visually lol).

Definitely a Top 5/Top 10 for me as well!

 

[Ikagura]

I really enjoy the Darius series (pretty much all of them), although Gaiden has a special place in my heart since it was a childhood game, I've been thinking of attempting to 1CC it one of these days.

I really should get more into Darius myself. I love G-Darius.

 

[Varyag]

Yeah absolutely, Darius Gaiden and G-Darius are the best in their franchise, and some of the few horio shmups I actually really like (even if they're still hard as balls)

 

[Amakuchi]

I really should get more into Darius myself. I love G-Darius.

Absolutely! I think most of the games strike a good balance of difficulty imo, the newest entry Chronicle Saviours is also really solid and pretty beginner friendly as well. They are much less daunting 1CCs than other shmups.

 

[nattybohman]

Gradius and Ikaruga! I love the Gradius ports on almost every console it was ported to, even Ikaruga on Dreamcast is great!

Ikaruga on the Dreamcast is the best port of the game! It's the closest to the naomi arcade version.