Keatah Posted September 9, 2020 Share Posted September 9, 2020 SHMUPS, while popular on the PC, were always best in the arcade and some home consoles. But the PC has a few really excellent ones. Raptor Tubular Worlds StarGunner Tyrian VAX 11 DemonStar + secret missions 1 & 2 + level packs ..were among my favorites. What would you add to this short list and why? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanooki Posted September 10, 2020 Share Posted September 10, 2020 Japanese made, seems to love older windows but they did attempt a patch to make it be nice on modern Windows, and currently hanging in purgatory on their blog site as coming with a modern re-release, it's called Idinaloq from Namikaze Project, a fantastic vertical 3D (object) shooter in space. Has a few choices in ships to use too to add a little variety. DOS era I used to love another vertical shooter, seeing a pattern here, that isn't listed above called Galactix, and that one is kind of like galaga in design yet has a defined set of stages and a plot around it too which is kind of rare. It's not overly deep or advanced, a good arcade late 80s level style shooter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatPix Posted September 10, 2020 Share Posted September 10, 2020 Galactix or Galacta? Or maybe it was renamed. Galacta : the battle for Saturn for MS-DOS. Released in 92 or 93 apparently, but a very early 80's feel. I had it, enver got far, but a friend of mine deeply into shooters (they made a few "10 top world records" on obscure - obscure in Occident, that is - Japanese shooters from Cave, to situate the player level ) knew of it and said it was a very decent shooter, so that's enough for me to say it's worth checking Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KeeperofLindblum Posted September 10, 2020 Share Posted September 10, 2020 I've always really liked Tyrian (and similar style SHMUPS), and I remember playing the shareware of Raptor from an odd "100 games for PC" disc. I think you get Tyrian 2000 for free with a GOG account. Not to mention Tyrian has been ported to like every single system under the sun. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanooki Posted September 11, 2020 Share Posted September 11, 2020 (edited) 12 hours ago, CatPix said: Galactix or Galacta? Or maybe it was renamed. Galacta : the battle for Saturn for MS-DOS. Released in 92 or 93 apparently, but a very early 80's feel. I had it, enver got far, but a friend of mine deeply into shooters (they made a few "10 top world records" on obscure - obscure in Occident, that is - Japanese shooters from Cave, to situate the player level ) knew of it and said it was a very decent shooter, so that's enough for me to say it's worth checking Never heard of it, trust me, it's Galactix. https://www.myabandonware.com/game/galactix-343 Edited September 11, 2020 by Tanooki 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
youxia Posted September 12, 2020 Share Posted September 12, 2020 Back in the day I was crap at them, and played mostly RPGs, adventures etc. Now I've rediscovered this genre and even despite being an ol'dog seems I can do much better than when I was a kid. Here's a freebie I've just found:https://mix256.itch.io/twin-tiger-shark Very competent tribute to Toaplan classics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonGrafx-16 Posted September 13, 2020 Share Posted September 13, 2020 Overkill is neat... early 90s shooter with some cool Adlib music. On modern PC there's so many good shmups on Steam... Deltazeal is one of my favorites. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
empsolo Posted September 13, 2020 Share Posted September 13, 2020 OP I can't believe you've omitted Jamestown. It's a really wacky bullet hell type game that combines SHMUPs with a martian colonization backstory that includes references to the original Jamestown colony in 1610. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted September 13, 2020 Author Share Posted September 13, 2020 SHMUPS is a genre I always liked off and on throughout the decades. Finally finding time to explore it. So my knowledge of what's out there is limited. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanooki Posted September 15, 2020 Share Posted September 15, 2020 Same here, but it fell out of favor for me when the idiots who decided bullet hell or the highway took over quite a few years back. I detest games that require rote memorization to survive and that's about what those are, just overkill. I don't mind hard, but blah... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted September 15, 2020 Author Share Posted September 15, 2020 I'm currently playing DemonStar. I recall buying the game way back in the Windows98 days. And for some reason I set it aside till now. There's enough levels between the base game and add-on packs. I liked seeing more special effects and antics in the two packs. Each level has its own flavor and there's 36 altogether. Plus 4 levels of difficulty. Not saying it's the best. I'm sure there's better available. Just enjoying working through the levels. I have a bunch of user-made, semi-official levels to try too. It's easy to avoid memorizing patterns, just take a different route or combination of power-ups. There's only so much that can be done with SHMUPS, so the onus is on the player to mix it up. When I'm done with this I'll try out DeltaZeal or that Crimson one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Pendleton Posted September 15, 2020 Share Posted September 15, 2020 I have a few games I'd like to mention. The first is the 1998 version of Asteroids. I really liked this game as a kid, and it was one of the first games I played on PC since I had a Mac as a kid. Maybe it actually sucks because I was a kid and didn't know better, but maybe try it! The other might not count, and it's Descent. I loved this game as a kid, as well. I tried to play it several years ago on my modern PC, but I wasn't satisfied with the results. I think it was mostly the controls since I think I used a PS4 controller and didn't really like it like that. Again, not sure if this counts, but it's definitely a shooting game on PC and it's also definitely awesome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted September 15, 2020 Author Share Posted September 15, 2020 Descent isn't a shmup in the traditional sense, no vertical scrolling, no top-down view. But it is very good, right from the DOS gaming era. And it's on my gaming & emulation PC awaiting playtime. Eventually I'll circle around to playing it in-depth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanooki Posted September 15, 2020 Share Posted September 15, 2020 (edited) Well if we're going to widen the pool to not just the standard definition I think it's time to throw out the likes of Terminal Velocity (which is like starfox64 in all range mode mixed with descent) and also Zone 66 which is a 2D but 360 degrees of freedom shooter. Both are DOS games, the first is up on GoG. Edited September 15, 2020 by Tanooki Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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