Your favorite shmup backgrounds?

[professor ganson]

Great topic and I'll give it some thought, but I want to say right away: great images Feedbacker! Thanks for posting those.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Raiden I-II-DX for me. Honourable mention - Air Gallet.

[CloudyMusic]

Raiden Fighters 2 has some nice stages, stage 2 especially. The reflections in the water get me all excited every time.

[professor ganson]

Formation Armed F
Zanac Neo
Dragon Blaze
Rayxanber III
Harmful Park
Xevious Arrangement
Twinbee Yahho!
Fantasy Zone
Futari
Deep Blue

[Stevens]

I'll add Zero Gunner 2. Psikyo did a nice job with them.

[professor ganson]

And I'll add Shikigami no Shiro 2, one of my all-time favorites.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I you like the Shiki2's or ZG2's take on "2.5D" style, check out ChainDive and The Red Star, which I thought did this kind of thing well. Not so "arcade", but Lost in Shadow/A Shadow's Tale is yet another such obscure looker (on a CRT), doing some rather unprecedented things with its engine.

[The Coop]

I've always liked the Strite stage in Thunder Force IV with all of the parallax scrolling depth, and Stage 4 of M.U.S.H.A. where you start over a city, fly into a thunderstorm, and then come out over the city again with only small bits of it visible below due to shadows from the clouds.