shmups.system11.org

Hey everybody, I'm new here and I'm looking for a great new shmup to purchase, download, and play. Help me out please! I have an iPhone 4s, an Xbox 360, a Wii, and a PC. I'm in the US with no mod chips or region-free hardware. I already own and love Ikaruga, Geometry Wars 1 & 2, and Lords of Thunder. Particularly interested in finding the best iOS game; I downloaded all the free Cave game demos and think they're great. What should I get?

Blue Wish Resurrection + (PC)
Cho Ren Sha 68k (PC)
Warning Forever (PC)

All of the above are full, free games. No demos, time limits, or other BS. Just awesome fun.

You can check the link in my sig for more free/pay shmups for almost all systems.

Solid State Survivor!

The Hyperspace Invaders sequel looks good too.

There's good stuff that can be found in Development although they're in Development for a reason (incomplete). The XOPs are good if that's to your taste as well.

http://www.acid-play.com/download/g-type

G-Type is my fave. Fun mashup of Gradius and R-type.

Hydorah is an original in the same vein:

http://www.locomalito.com/hydorah.php

Also:
Genetos
Dan Da Dan
Leave Home

Make sure you check the development board too!

There's a Gradius-like(practically ripoff) on Steam called Satazius that I enjoyed way more than I expected to.

If you ever get a DSi or a 3DS, be sure to get the DSi Ware title Aa Mujou Setsuna / Metal Torrent by Arika. It´s a pretty fun portable shmup. Gradius Rebirth on Wii Ware is great too.

If PSP was an option, I'd recommend Zanac Neo off the Japanese PSN store.

You can get DariusBurst: Second Prologue on the iOS for not too bad a price. It's got a lot more content than the PSP port, and about 70% cheaper, too!

RSG HD.

Sine Mora

/troll

Tyrian 2000 as it is now Free Ware.

And if you don't mind not having the extra episode + other ships OpenTyrian allows you to run the original Tyrian on any new OS without having to use DOSBox. In addition OpenTyrian has been ported over to several platforms including the Wii.

"Downloadable" is a quite broad concept (after all, you can download DUO iso and genesis ROMs, right?)

Anyway, maybe not the best out there, but I can't help but to sing praise for Warhawk DS:

http://headsoft.com.au/index.php?category=warhawk

I'd recommend Raiden Fighters Aces from Xbox on Demand. You get Raiden Fighters, Raiden Fighters 2, and Raiden Fighters Jet. 3 awesome, classic shooters. They don't get too hellish but the bullets are FAST. Best to play in Arcade Mode for the right difficulty. Also, the scoring system in Raiden Fighers 1 and 2 is very very straight forward. Haven't tried playing Raiden Fighters Jet much. I know the scoring in that game is a little different. Anyway, 20 USD for 3 games is a steal. I'm personally getting into Raiden Fighters 2 and loving it.

If you call 1 and 2 easy then JET is easier still.

1. Pick up a slave
2. Medal from airborne enemy will waggle around with slave
3. waggle the medal into other medals to increase value till it gets really really big
4. pick up medal and then get 8+ medals to appear on screen at same time (ie. Discover a miclus)
5. all medals afterwards are yellow ones like RF1 and 2.

Note that it's not available in PAL though.

Except most of the score in Jet comes from the chains which can get really tricky. 1 and 2 are way simpler in that department.

Ah yes, I forgot about the chaining. I recall Alluro was quite happy about being able to chain the DX Bonuses in Sim Stage 5 thanks to the Raiden MK-II when he did his super run - apparently that's not as easy to do with the other ships.

Radio Zonde is pretty great, but my nod goes to Eden's Aegis.

This game is fantastic. Reminds me a lot of Crimzon Clover, but the patterns are a bit more dense and mid/large enemies will cancel, which is pretty crucial.

Score!

you should grab gate of thunder off the vc

Trigonometry Wars 4 is by far the best. Obviously.