Gaming Discussions > March is Shmuppreciation month
I've never been very good at shmups and, as a result, never became a big fan of them. I've tried quite a few over the years but nothing has every really clicked with me. Superstardust HD is good fun and looks incredible when played in 3D. I've been enjoying small chunks of Nano Assault Neo on the Wii U, as well as Sine Mora on the PS Vita - that game is drop dead gorgeous on that little screen, but can be very tough.
Bill
The two that immediately come to mind for me are PixelJunk Sidescroller and Radiant Silvergun. Sidescroller is an absolutely gorgeous game, and I love the retro approach to the visuals Q-Games went for, and Radiant Silvergun is obviously a classic, but my god is it tough :D
xanthangun
been a minute since i played Geometry Wars 2. i did like the extra modes, but also loved the endless(HAH!) nature of the original Evolved.
a year ish or so ago i got into the touhou shmups. i guess most if not all of the main ones were made by one guy. Bullet hell shmups at their finest, no game throws out wall of deaths like touhou. they're all pc games i think. you can look up youtube videos of high score runs online, and be amazed at how little you know what's going on in the videos. good stuff.
as for console games, played SSHD for the first time in years, and remembered why i was able to play the game so much to have a top 500 rank at the peak of my goodness. now it's at like 2000 or so. not bad for five years later. to add a little to my bragging, pretty sure i still have a top 50 rank in mutant storm reloaded on the xbox. Anyways, sshd is one of the best ever. Live Arcade ended up scoring a bunch of Cave shmups, as well as ikaruga, the one before it(?), and even a bangai-o game, which is freaking nuts. i scored me a retail version of Death Smiles, that for 30$ new(as in just released) came with a soundtrack cd, faceplate, and arcade versions as well as black label and xbox versions. killer deal. to get back the the PSN side of shmupage, the other two games i have that are really good and unique are pixeljunk shooter and everyday shooter.
You know what i just realized? we didn't get a single gradius or contra game this generation. sad freaking face, considering that Contra Shattered Soldier and Gradius V are the best in the entire series imo. the gradius devs did make one of their wacky spin offs for the 360, but was nothing compared to the classics. PS2 was the best with Gradius V, COntra SS, the Raiden games(maybe also on the 360?) and R-Type Final. damn, almost forgot about that one. yeah, pretty sure the ps2 had all of the shmups.
EDIT - forgot to mention the two shmups i got when my ps3 had died, and the first i played when i got another one. Umm, Soldner X and Soldner X2 Final Prototype. solid games with a cool chaining system. part two is definitely the one to pick if you had to choose one. graphically it's just on a whole nother level.
cuddlyknife
So in honor of shmup month, what are your all-time favorite shmups?
I'm spinning through my catalog trying to choose the couple I'm going to focus on this month. Big Sky Infinity (PS3/Vita via PSN) is pretty cool but I'm not yet sure what I think of it overall.
Ikaruga has been getting some play specifically the version released on XBOX Live Arcade a few years back.
Geometry Wars Evolved 2 (XBL) and Super Star Dust HD (PS3) are my favorite shmups from this gen for the respective consoles. Still have some score chasing to do in GeoWars2 so that's a consideration for this month as well.