What are some good *newer* shmups that aren't the classics?

[team_andromeda]

I'm wondering if it's just the rose-colored goggles ruining everyone's opinion on newer games or if the art of making a good shmup was lost. I'm sick of being recommended Ikaruga, Radiant Silvergun, Battle Garegga, etc. I have them, play them, love them, but I want more.

[amdiggywhut]

Resogun for PS4 is a lovely game on many levels.

[mastermx]

I love Resogun too, I would definitely recommend it. I would also recommend Crimzon Clover too.

But from which year do we draw the "classics" line. Because we could even recommend Eschatos as a modern shmup, maybe even SDOJ.

[Shepardus]

How new are you looking for? CAVE's more recent games might count. Most shmups being released nowadays, though, are doujin or indie games.

Crimzon Clover: World Ignition's one of the most well-loved around here; in my opinion it does CAVE-style shooting even better than most CAVE games, and it's hard not to like it. Eschatos is also relatively recent and well-liked. Alltynex Second is also very good, as are Siter Skain's other games, Kamui and RefleX (though those are significantly older). Mecha Ritz is a great freeware(!) game released earlier this year, definitely worth checking out. Revolver360 Re:Actor looks pretty good but I've barely played it so I can't say too much about it. There are also a bunch of doujin releases like the Touhou games, ring^-27, Hellsinker, and Akashicverse -Malicious Wake- that are really good.

In addition to that there are a number of games still in development. Someone compiled a list of them for PC (some of which are already available on consoles) on NeoGAF, and a number of them such as Final Boss and Blue Revolver have dev threads on these forums.

[The Armchair General]

jamestown legend of the lost colony is very fun!

[ACSeraph]

Eschatos - One of my favorite shmups of all time

Caladrius - Way underappreciated with very deep scoring

Crimson Clover - shmup porn

Bullet Soul Infinite Burst - Incredibly addictive and fun reworking of BS, almost completely ignored due to the bad rep of its predecessor

[Stevens]

Valkyrius.

[chum]

Fairy Wars is the greatest game of all time, and it is only 5 years old.

Double Spoiler is also only 5 years old. Shoot the Bullet is 10, so I'm not sure if that counts as newer in this context, but there you have another masterpiece.

Get to it.

[To Far Away Times]

Double post, sorry.

[To Far Away Times]

Crimzon Clover is probably the best shmup of the last five years or so. Fucking incredible game.

Darius Burst Another Chronicle is also fantastic and is getting a home port soon.

I also really enjoyed Eschatos for what it's worth, and think it's worth a mention, even if I wouldn't put it quite up there with those other two.

[Squire Grooktook]

Mecha Ritz was released at the start of this year, and it's one of my favorite games ever already.

Others:

Eschatos
Crimzon Clover
Valkyrius
Hellsinker
Akashicverse
Final Boss
Satazius
Sora
Suguri
Ether Vapor Remaster
Alltynex Trilogy
Kaikan
Aero Chimera
Yakouga 4

[Obiwanshinobi]

Hydorah, but then I don't know how "new" is new enough for you.
Sideline has resurfaced lately but I have yet to play it.

[Legendary Hoamaru]

Personally:
Eschatos bruh.

I also really enjoy REVOLGEAR II Ver.D REVISION+EX so I'll recommend that as well, especially on Maniac mode.

Others:
Didn't see Blue Revolver mentioned so that too even though it's not the full version.

Strania was fun for the bit of time I played it. Trouble Witches Neo too but that is delisted .

People have enjoyed the Platine Dispositif games (Gundemonium Recollection, GundeadliGne, Hitogata Happa).

QP Shooting - Dangerous I heard was decent.

You have a lot of choices to sample from either way.

[KAI]

Any Milestone game (except Chaos Field and Radirgy Noah).

[qmish]

No love for Astebreed? (or, at least, it's older brother Ether Vapor Remastered?)

Any Milestone game (except Chaos Field and Radirgy Noah).

Still... Dat Chaos Field Sountrack, maaaan.

[Elaphe]

Battle Traverse is the best I've seen and played this year. Valhellio is also excellent. They both play very well and have fantastic graphics. Some of the examples mentioned in this post do not even have scenario graphics and I hate that.

If you like old style shmups you could also take a look at Neo XYX. It's for Dreamcast and Neogeo, with real low res graphics.

[Zaarock]

General:
Eschatos - X360, PC
Dariusburst AC - arcade (port on Vita, PSN and PC soon)
Strania - XBLA,nesica
Caladrius Blaze - PS3, arcade(?)
Kamui - PC (not really new)
Aero Chimera - PC
Satazius - PC

General - high quality gamemaker/STG builder (PC):
MECHA Ritz
Zenohell

CAVE style danmaku:
Crimzon Clover WI - nesica,PC
Battle Traverse - PC
Ring^-27 - PC
Blue Wish Resurrection - PC

Experimental / untraditional:
Ginga Force - X360
HellSinker - PC
Akashicverse - PC
Sora - PC
RefleX - PC
Valkyrius - XBLIG, PC
Sagittarius A-Star - DSiWare

Experimental - scoring focus [1cc is trivial]:
Astebreed - PC,PS4
Revolver360 RE:ACTOR - PC,PS4
(these two seem fairly popular outside this forum)

Unfinished (PC):
Final Boss
Imalice
Blue Revolver


semi-kusoge but interesting:

Spoiler

Space Invaders Infinity Gene - XBLA,PSN
Radio Zonde - PC (experimental)
Project Repliser - PC (experimental)

Really if you count PC games there's too much good stuff to keep track of, or for most people to try out.

[Xyga]

Brütal DOOM

[M.Knight]

Any Milestone game (except Chaos Field and Radirgy Noah).

Agreed.
Not to say Chaos Field is bad, but it isn't as great as Radirgy/Karous/Illvelo. Its soundtrack is top-notch, in any case.

I also second the Darius Burst AC recommendations. Playing this game is a real treat, even if I am a bit bummed it does not have the same "cinematic" feel of G-Darius. Bosses truly felt alive and out to murder you in that game, and DB tones that a bit down IMO.

[AquiEstou]

Ad Nauseam 2

[Satan]

Strania +DLC

[STG4WD]

No love for Astebreed? (or, at least, it's older brother Ether Vapor Remastered?)

Mad love for Astebreed, that is a very fine game that deserves to be included on any modern classics list.

[Vexorg]

Border Down is a pretty good for a "modern" shmup, although it tends to be a bit obscure since it never got anything more than arcade and a limited Dreamcast release.

[evil_ash_xero]

Well, a lot of the CAVE titles. It doesn't seem like you are counting those, from the looks of your first post.

Also, Crimzon Clover and Caladrius Blaze are good.

[qmish]

This doujin? Called "Rapid-Fire Striker"
http://www.freem.ne.jp/win/game/10180

[HydrogLox]

Experimental / untraditional:
Valkyrius - XBLIG

and PC
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... /151089139
http://www.greenmangaming.com/s/ca/en/p ... lkyrius/#b
http://www.iridescentgames.com/valkyrius/buy.html
http://www.desura.com/games/valkyrius

Really if you count PC games there's too much good stuff to keep track of, or for most people to try out.

... and in this context MAME isn't a factor.

PS: noticing an absence of Shoot 1 Up and Chronoblast in the topic.

Border Down is a pretty good for a "modern" shmup, although it tends to be a bit obscure since it never got anything more than arcade and a limited Dreamcast release.

Released in 2003 it is only 2 years younger than Ikaruga and while it may not have the general notoriety of the games featured in the opening post it's hardly obscure within the STG community where it most likely would be counted as a classic Darius-style STG.

[broken harbour]

Nobody has mentioned Danmaku Unlimited 2,

I will say I'm not a fan of the ipad/iPhone version because I don't really like touch controls, however the game is now available on Steam and can be played with a controller.

Also, that OST..... crank it.

[Bonus!]

Nobody has mentioned Danmaku Unlimited 2,

I will say I'm not a fan of the ipad/iPhone version because I don't really like touch controls, however the game is now available on Steam and can be played with a controller.

Also, that OST..... crank it.

Danmaku Unlimited 2 is horrible. I felt ripped off even though I got it for 1.99 EUR. I wrote a lengthy negative review on Steam, which I'll gladly post below. This game is complete trash, designed to cash in on hipsters who've seen that HARDEST VIDEOGAME BOSS EVAR video, but who otherwise have no appreciation for the genre.

Spoiler

Given the high praise this game received, particularly as a smart phone game, I was curious to check it out on the PC. Sadly, I fell rather disappointed by this game, and consider it to be severely lacking. Even among independently developed games it can’t measure up.

The game itself seems okay at first sight. You get a modifiable fighter plane with weapons — straight shot, homing shot, wide shot — that you can mix and match. There are two scoring modes, Burst and Classic, and four difficulties each. Following STG convention, the game has five stages, with mid and end bosses, and if you finish the game on one credit on at least hard’, you’ll face a ‘true last boss’ as well. As a bonus, there is a boss rush mode, and a free play mode for those who like to credit feed through the game.

While Danmaku Unlimited 2 follows the STG formula in broad strokes, it sadly goes awry in many, many areas. Let me describe some of the problems I’ve had with it one by one:

1) The music is incredibly bland and does not synchronise with the action on screen at all.

2) There are very few sound effects, not even for basic actions like shooting.

3) The shield system is poorly thought out. If effectively acts as a life bar, meaning that you can take several hits. However, if you slip, you lose the ship. This seems needlessly punishing. As I'll describe later on, there are situations where it's easy to trip up due to design flaws of the game.

4) Bullet visibility is pretty poor. While you can tell bullets from the background, there is not enough contrast. Have you ever wondered why in Cave games the bullets have garish colours, while the backgrounds may even seem a bit washed out? Here, bullets and background are often in similar colors. This problem might have been prevented had there been actual background images instead of mostly static colors.

5) Further, I am not fond at all of how some of the bullets overlap. There are instances where smaller bullets move underneath larger ones, so while you focus on avoiding the larger ones, you may get hit by a small bullet that just emerged underneath it.

6) In many STGs, there is a dead zone around turrets, meaning that if you’re getting close, they won’t fire. In Danmaku Unlimited 2, this is not the case, which means that as you move past a large space ship, you may just get hit without expecting it.

7) What I also find very unfortunate is that smaller enemies don’t get invincibility frames. Particularly in stage 5 it may happen that you get hit because you didn’t memorise yet that you entered a part of the stage where a swarm of small enemies enters from the side. Those deaths through collision punish players who have not yet memorised a stage, and are a sign of poor game design, in my opinion. A good counter example on Steam is Crimzon Clover, by the way, where enemies that fly into the screen can’t hit you for a few frames.

Overall, the difficulty is really uneven. Some boss patterns in later levels are laughably easy, just to be followed by much trickier ones. In a carefully balanced STG I expect something different.

9) I strongly dislike that I have to unlock game features. This means that you start out with an underpowered fighter, and have to earn in-game currency (thankfully no IAP), to unlock more lives, continues, or more powerful weapons.

10) There seems to be a bug: When you 1cc the game, you end up at the title screen, but you don’t unlock any achievements, or get any of your in-game currency. However, if you then enter a new mode, and exit prematurely, then the game records your progress.

11) Minor quibble: I would have appreciated if the game let me skip the credits.

12) The high score boards are hacked, which is always unfortunate, as it shows a lack of support of the developer.

13) The scoring system is poorly thought out, since a few successful actions completely negate the entire rest of the game. Some people are upset because in Cave games it is often the case that you score more in stage 5 than in the entire rest of the game, even though stage 5 normally is a lot longer and has a lot more enemies, so it’s pretty much justified. In Danmaku Unlimited 2, though, your score depends on something like a minute or two of play time in total.

*** added ***
14) The achievements with point values seem broken. I just reached 1 billion in total, but it didn't activate.

15) Some bullets, like the hexagons, are incredibly poorly designed. Those only harm you if you get hit by the center, meaning that the hitbox of your ship can safely sit on a large part of the area of those bullets. Another example are the large bullets in the last phase of the stage 5 boss. However, those have no demarcated center. Just like with the other bullets, if you don't know this, then you think those boss patterns are a lot more difficult than they are.

16) The transition from iPhone to PC should have led to changes in the control setup. On the phone, the speed of the ship is relative to the speed of your finger. In this version the ship has a relatively high default speed, and to slow it down, you have to use the burst shot. This is fine in Classic mode, since that shot is available without limit. However, in Burst mode, you can only slow down by activating a burst shot with a separate gauge that has to be filled. If the gauge isn't high enough, the ship does nothing at all. This means that some boss fights, where you have to weave though tight patterns, are incredibly tedious, and take a lot longer than they otherwise would.

Considering all those issues, some minor, some large, I simply cannot recommend Danmaku Unlimited 2. There are other STGs of much higher quality available on Steam, or on consoles. My personal recommendation on Steam is Crimzon Clover: World Ignition, which is also independently produced, and one of if not the best STG around.

I'd recommend this game to people who think that touch screens are a superior input alternative for STGs, those who think that superplayers can dodge rain, and those who consider Touhou to be the pinnacle of this genre. Danmaku Unlimited 2 is not the bullet hell you need, but the one you deserve.

2/10

[kayakoyaka]

Caladrius Blaze and Akai Katana.

[hermosaguy]

I would say Jamestown, that came out of nowhere and really surprised me. I couldn't put it down for quite sometime.