How long have you been playing shmups?

[MachineAres 1CC]

Man, this forum's average age seems SO much higher than I ever imagined it was, lol. Sometimes I feel old as hell, but seems like most of those who replied here are in the same boat and started in the late 70s or 80s! Guess it's not too surprising given when the genre was in its biggest heydays, but still comes as a little bit of a shock

[To Far Away Times]

I guess this is where all the tech savy boomers hang out. Makes sense though.

I'm 34, I thought I'd be one of the oldest ones here, but I guess not.

[Lord British]

First true shmup I played in the arcade was either Scramble or Super Cobra, cant remember.

For home it was Parsec on my TI99/4A.

The real deal was Astro Warrior on SMS and the Life Force on NES.

I got Galactic Attack when it came out on Saturn and imported Radiant Silvergun when it came out.

All this being said I didnt really get really into the genre until about 5 years ago. Didnt play a Cave game until then even.

[Martinov]

I don't recall what actual arcade shmups I played first, but I got into gaming via LED handheld knockoffs of Space Invaders and such in the 80s. I also received a the tabletop Afterburner LCD game, circa 1990, if that counts. I would then graduate to a UK Mega Drive in 1991, and a relative bought me a copy of Thunderforce 3 in 1992. Because NTSC-J MD carts didn't fit into a a UK MD I had to wait a couple more weeks to track down an independent game shop that sold an adapter so I could finally play it. The anticipation was crushing. Haha!

[steveovig]

Since 2002. I had dabbled in them as a kid but always thought they were too short and easy. In 2002, I was going through some bad stuff in my life, isolated at home, and I kinda just discovered them, starting with Strikers II. From then on, I just played whatever I could get my hands on. I've gone through my periods where I haven't played them much but I've recently returned to playing them a lot with the Switch. Hell, I've been here since the first boards before the re-set too. I think I discovered shmups.com back in 2002. It really felt like an awakening, back when shmups weren't as mainstream as they are now.

[el3m]

First memories of shmups around ~92 for me, my local swimming hall had Truxton cabinet at the cafeteria where I played after practice. How wild it would be if you'd still find hardcore shmup cabs around like that? I was a Sega kid in 90s with Megadrive, but unfortunately did not have any of the great MD shmups. I had some obscure JP imports that I got from someone that included Atomic Robo-Kid which I remember playing a lot.

I think I really got into shmups only after 2000 or so with the emulated Dodonpachi. Played everything like a binge eater: PS2, PS1, DC, Saturn, Arcade, 360 cave ports but never really stuck around to properly practice games, managed to 1cc few. My interest always been from 16-bit upwards, only with few exceptions like Truxton and Gradius.

I had this long break after 2011, but something good came out from Covid working from home and I started playing again. Good thing with shmups is you can return to the same games even after ~10 years! Now I'm falling to the rabbit hole once again, ordering arcade stick parts and controllers left and right.

[Gamer707b]

How long ago for my first one? Defender in the arcade, about 1987, long after its prime and for about 1 minute before it ate my lunch. 33 years ago!

How long until I played one a lot? Thunderforce III on Sega Genesis right when it came out, 1990. 30 years ago!

How long until I'm good at shmups? Not sure, still pretty bad at all of them! But I was able to eventually beat TF3 and 4, UN Squadron and Axelay (SNES), and make a dent in Gradius III. I never could get far in one of my favorites, Gaiares!

It looks like you have a love for 16-bit shooters as I do. Love all those games you mentioned. And YES, Gaiares is very hard for a game in that era. Took a while to clear it. Really like the look of it. Bosses are amazing.

[forsakensquishes]

I've played them on and off since i was a kid, but only recently got really into them with Crimzon Clover, and after discovering Electric Underground's youtube channel.

[ShamefurDispray]

I got into the game quite a bit later. As a kid (I'm 32) I mostly cut my teeth on stuff like Ocarina of Time and N64 in general. We had a SNES and not a Genesis before that so I didn't really even know about them and honestly I wouldn't have had the patience as a wee lad. I really got into them in 2014 and started collecting them for my 360. I have played them on and off since. I've mostly just gotten 1cc's in 16 bit era stuff like Compile. Managed to get some high scores on the Raiden Fighters Aces leaderboards though which was neat. I figure once I master the 8 and 16 bit eras a bit more I'll shift my focus more to arcade stuff and scoring.

[scrilla4rella]

I always enjoyed Raiden in the arcades and Life Force on the NES but I never played them seriously.

I was in my second year of high school when Einhander came out and that kind of made me stop and think, 'I remember these types of games! I wish they still made them.' I didn't get too hardcore into Einhander or anything but I did play a lot of G Darius and R-Type Delta.

In 2001 I went to Japan on a cultural exchange program and bought a bunch of cheap PS1 shooters like Strikers 1945 II, Raiden DX, Sonic Wings Special, and Gradius Gaiden partially because there would be no language barrier. I also saw Zanac X Zanac but passed because it was the equivalent of 50 USD (stupid me). I also wanted some games to play with my one gamming buddy back home. He didn't like fighting games so shooters were a good alternative. It also helped that we could credit feed them as we got deeper into the beer count. The running joke was, 'damn, we're hella good at these games!'

But what really blew my mind was going into this 50 yen arcade in Shinjuku around 2001 and seeing dozen of shooters from '96 onward that I never knew existed (Psyvariar, DOJ, Shikigami, Progear, Garegga, etc...) That's when I realized, "holly shit, Japan never stopped making 2D shmups". The proverbial scales fell from my eyes.

It was around this time that I started lurking on this message board and reading about other shooters. I studied the Xenocide files list and poured over Sheep's Shooting Tribute sites http://www.world-of-arcades.net/index.htm. Things escalated quickly. My friend and I both put $50 down to get a disc only copy of Radiant Silvergun. I also quickly tracked down the Capcom shooters on Dreamcast and put in a preorder for Ikaruga on NCSX.com as soon as it was listed. Ikaruga was the one that made me flip my CRT for weeks at a time. I eventually got a 1CC on easy mode (don't laugh).

At that point I was playing shooters almost exclusively. During my college years it worked well to have these games that I could focus on for just 20 minutes and walk away satisfied. My uni also had a Raiden Fighters cab in the bowling alley. I pretty much missed out on the PS2 era completely (other than R-type Final, Gradius V, and Raiden III of course).

I consider myself lucky that I got into the genre when I did because you could still get a lot of stuff for a reasonable price. They seemed expensive at the time but I picked up a lot of great PCB, PCE and Saturn games with what I made working a crappy service job. And we were still getting occasional new releases on Dreamcast and PS2.

I still have a preference for the shooters from '96 to 2001. It really seems to me like this lost era as it's in-between the 16-bit generation, that gets so much attention, and latter Cave releases like Futari and Deathsmiles. I guess it's just a matter of accessibility (or lack thereof). Maybe modern ODEs for Saturn and so on will change that.
32-bit till I die !

[Sengoku Strider]

Ikaruga was the one that made me flip my CRT for weeks at a time. I eventually got a 1CC on easy mode (don't laugh).

Nobody with any sense should laugh at that, it's still quite difficult & requires knowing the game well. I can't do it yet.

[scrilla4rella]

thanks man. It's no 2-all on DDP or anything but It meant a lot to me.

[ZPScissors]

uhh... 2017

[scrilla4rella]

uhh... 2017

Damn! how man 1cc's per month does that average out to?

[NMS]

Started playing casually in like 2002 thanks to MAME, but never trying to go very far and often taking breaks of several months between two credits. I spent quite some time on the Toaplan games, not even noticing they were made by the same company, and even today they're among my favorite games in the genre. I also tried random games all the time, spent one hour or two on them, and moved on to the next one after some credit feeding.

I started really enjoying it and playing more seriously for clears in 2019. Before that my only 1cc was a 2-ALL on Flying Shark, it was pretty much the only game I knew well.

[ZPScissors]

uhh... 2017

Damn! how man 1cc's per month does that average out to?

3.2 if my math is correct but if you only count arcade shmups because i have a ton of touhou 1ccs specifically it goes down to around 0.7 apparently (that's only since july 2018 though)

[neorichieb1971]

My arcade had Scramble, Galaxian, Galaga, Moon Cresta, Phoenix, Moon Patrol and some game called Astro Blaster. So I played all those, I gravitated to platformers though at the time, mostly Donkey Kong and Amidar since that was drawing the crowds at the time.

Those were the good days.

In the home it was Terrahawks on a Philips console.

[PooshhMao]

I have been playing shmups for four decades now. Yes.

My dad was an early adopting computer geek and used to own a Radio Shack Tandy TRS-80.



He had a bunch of games for it, which were mostly clones of popular arcade titles.

I remember enjoying these the most:

Galaxy Invasion - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEDBq4B9R_k
Cosmic Fighter - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpZ1jD4av28
Defense Command - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Y6yrroiRjg

And yes, that's what the thing sounded like. You may want to turn down your volume.

[davyK]

I guess this is where all the tech savy boomers hang out. Makes sense though.

I'm 34, I thought I'd be one of the oldest ones here, but I guess not.

Yeah.. I will be turning 55 in April this year. But you have to think about someone like me who was a teenager at the height of the arcade era. It's that era and the 2600 that really got me into gaming and my career in IT - as I wanted to know how they worked.

Many people stopped after the arcade fad passed but plenty of us didn't - it became part of our entertainment landscape. Books, films, TV, video games - all entertainment to me and I find it strange that plenty still don't see games that way.

I'm not really all that taken with how mainstream gaming has gone with an emphasis on won and done adventure games. They are a perfectly respectable way to entertain oneself but I get no real satisfaction from them and I ultimately get bored with them.

Arcade style games, in particular shmups scratch the itch. Other score based games like Tetris and Time trial racing arcade games do it for me too. And I have embraced the more modern style of shooter after getting a 360 a few years ago. I was able to pick up a nice selection of Cave games before the prices went North.

I also love a spot of local MP gaming - it's what games are all about - family and friends playing together. Shmups are kind of a solitary thing but it's nice to pick up the gauntlet a shmup dev has throw down and get into that challenge. My enthusiasm makes up for my skill. I was a pretty good player in my day but I never stuck at anything so didn't achieve great scores. But now I'm older I find I'm able to stick with a game these last few years and have done a few easy 1CCs like Darius Gaiden with rapid fire and Gigawing - but when I was younger I would probably have been able to do a lot more had I been more focussed.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

I'm a fellow Gen X'er like many other fellow shmuppers here on the Shmups forum. I do fondly recall the "Golden Era of Arcades" -- the early 1980s timeline where the fine art of "jamming" one's quarters or tokens was, indeed, a rite of passage (ol' timer arcade gamer vets will remember those days of lore). Sadly, those days are long gone.

There was a local arcade hangout called Tilt! that'd price every single arcade game & the occasional lone EM pinball machine during the X'mas shopping season -- the cheapest ones would be the black 'n' white Atari uprights like Super Bug & Firefighter for a mere $75.00 & $175.00 usd respectively back in 1982-1983. I'd watch the older arcade gamers hone their ace gaming skills on STG titles like the Atari upright cab of Xevious back in 1983-1984. It wan't until Tilt! had a special going during 1984 with certain arcade games with a green colored star that'd give you two games for a single quarter -- I'd hangout amongst those games & get to play 'em for free if the current person was finished & didn't want play his or her second game. How cool was that?

The very first time I saw Romstar's version of Hyper Dyne Sidearms (Romstar was an American arcade distributor based out of Torrance, California, that got the exclusive rights to sell & distribute various arcade game conversion kits from Capcom, Taito, etc. back in the mid-1980s) in action was back in April of 1987 at Marriott's Great America amusement park in Santa Clara, California -- it attracted a large crowd considering it was a new arcade STG title at that point in time.

It wasn't until April of 1988 that I'd come across a lone Dynamo upright cab running Romstar's USA version of Capcom's classic Hyper Dyne Sidearms (circa 1986) at a local hamburger joint. Eventually, I could reach the end boss Bozon on my first life but it'd require a second quarter to defeat it for good (thus it'd be a 2CC affair at best). It was cool to get on the Top Five Sidearms high score list with my initials but the daily scores would default upon being powered down for the night.

I'd watch the cool Starcade arcade game competition TV show with gameshow host Geoff Edwards (that was nationally syndicated across the USA from '82 through '84) on Saturday mornings on channel 31 -- it was truly a groundbreaking show/concept ahead of it's time. It was cool to see the latest arcade coin-ops being shown for the first time. You might recall watching those wild 'n' crazy tv commercials for The Federated Group (an American A/V speciality chain of stores selling home electronics, audio & video gear -- it was the early 1980s equivalent of today's Best Buy stores nowadays) featuring Hollywood actor Shadoe Stevens during those days.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Yoshi]

My first memories of the genre are Space Invaders, Asteroids, and Galaga in the arcade, so likely very early in the 1980s.

[ReSe2k]

I was introduced to shoot'em ups as a kid with Gradius and Life Force on the NES, but i was just playing them like any other game trying to get as far as possible.

Then in 2010 i bought an old PS2, imported Daioujou and ESPgaluda and Tate'd my old CRT to play them properly Soon after that i got a Xbox 360 and been playing for Score and 1 credit clears since.

[dark]

My very first shmups were probably these ones:

Space Invaders, Galaxian, Laser Gates and Megamania on Atari 2600 circa 1990/1991
Overkill, Major Stryker and Raptor Call of the Shadows on MS Dos around 1992-1994

I'm sure I played a little bit of stuff casually on the snes at friends houses like R Type, but the list above were the ones I had access to at home and played a bunch by myself.

I played and enjoyed Gigawing 1 and 2, Mars Matrix, Ikaruga and Zero Gunner 2 when they were relatively new on dreamcast around 2000-2001, but I didn't know about Dodonpachi or Cave, Rising and Toaplan arcade games until around 2012 or so. I first played DDP DOJ around then and realized it was basically a perfect game by my standards. I've since gone back and enjoyed many 90s and 00s arcade shmups.

[Some-Mist]

I played some in the 90s. most notably space invaders, but gradius on a couple occasions too. got super into contra 3 and contra 4 during high school even though those are run 'n guns

then I got hooked on and off with ikaruga near the end of high school (2006) just for the gameplay. around 2010 when going back to it I started doing research on how to be good and found my way here. learned quickly about 1 credit clears and then got DEEP into the genre with both that and psyvariar 2: the will to fabricate which took me a couple years to 1CC. also around that time I started getting into CAVE and made my way to cave-stg.

2012 I went to my first meetup in Chicago that dr boom and zespy hosted at logan hardware which is where everyone started introducing me to the world of PCBs and how easy and relatively inexpensive some of the games were. met a lot of awesome and knowledgeable people through that meetup. pretty sure I met dr boom, zespy, beatsgo, zerst, machineares, jonny5, trap15, drunkninja, majik989, gunbird and a couple of others if not that year then the following year. I think trap had me play dimahoo for the first time there too and dr boom was like, "if you want to get into PCBs this one is only about $175" which opened up a new door for me. that year I bought a super gun, nec xm29, progear, armed police batrider, and dimahoo. That's when I started really getting into scoring systems, posting scores here, and I learned that I actually hated playing ikaruga for score (funny to see a thread about exactly that get bumped on the front page).

I went the following year to the 2013 meetup and then worked with beatsgo to coordinate a few meetups at galloping ghost (he did all the heavy lifting). I fell off a bit a couple years ago but have been getting back into it again recently.

long story short, I started getting hooked into the genre in 2010 and I was deep down the rabbit hole by 2012.

[Some-Mist]

machineares I have your name listed and I see it says you live in Washington, and now I think I might be thinking of someone else??? There's no way. Didn't you use to live in Chicago? I thought you had me play something sick at one of the GGA meets on your xbox one and I thought you had been at the logan meets...

[Klatrymadon]

I always had them around as a kid, starting with stuff like NES Life Force and Super R-Type alongside whatever I could play at the arcades when my family went on holiday, but it was probably around 2000-2001 (when I was 14-15) that I went fully "down the rabbit hole" and became really obsessed, reading everything I could find to do with STGs*, buying up every home port for every system I had and downloading every doujin game I heard about. I've never been the most serious or competitive player in the world but they've been a constant presence in my life that I never seem to grow tired of or feel any less excitement for. Playing Natsuki Chronicles for the first time yesterday was just as fascinating and thrilling as playing Border Down for the first time.

*The Xenocide Files here were incredibly exciting for me around this time, as was the shmups website itself with its screenshot banners, which I'd sit refreshing with F5 just to see if there were any games I didn't recognise. I hope Shmuplations serves a similar function for some newly-infatuated kids today.

[hamfighterx]

I was born in 1978 (the same year as Space Invaders!), so my early shooter memories were the classic arcade games and Atari 2600, which my family had in the early 80s. Thinking about it, I guess my formative shooter years must have been with the 2600. Aside from the obligatory Asteroids, Combat, and Space Invaders, we had Yars Revenge (loved that one), Canyon Bomber (I feel like it's a shooter, even with bombs only!) River Raid, Defender, Centipede, Galaxian, Vanguard.

I played the occasional shooter in the 8/16-bit eras, but was never super into the genre. Probably liked Fantasy Zone more than anything else, played a lot of Sol-Feace after getting it as a pack-in with an early US Sega CD, and really enjoyed Solar Striker on Gameboy.

It wasn't until the Saturn that I started getting really into the genre in a way that has kept up through the years though. Darius Gaiden, the Thunderforce Gold Packs (I pretty much missed that series on the actual 16-bit hardware), Donpachi, Batsugun, Garegga, the Strikers 1945 games, imported Radiant Silvergun at release (and wasn't into it, sold it lol)... Once Dreamcast came around I imported pretty much every major Japanese shooter, same thing for J-360 and any shooters of note for Playstation 2 on.

[Skyknight]

1988 or 1989, I think, starting with Sky Shark (sit-down cabinet, at that). Next on the menu was Gondomania (i.e. Makyou Senshi), then Raiden and A-JAX. Note that I would have been around 11 at the time.

[SpiderNeer]

Since 2016, people here seem to be veterans pls don't judge.
Started with Touhou 16 but now I prefer traditional shmups much more, my first traditional shmup was Daifukkatsu, but I bought it with Deathsmiles and Mushihimesama too, now I play many more STGs.
I've played softcore non-shooter bullet hells before 2016 but idk the exact dates.