Whats the shmup that inspired you to get into this hobby.?

[neorichieb1971]

For myself, it was the interest in hardware, PCB's and such that got me into buying shmups.

As videogames go, I don't hold a passion for shmups. I remember the first time I fired up ESP ra.de, it was probably the most giddy I ever got playing a shmup.

[davyK]

Being of an age (I was 11 or 12 when I first played Space Invaders when it appeared in the arcades) videogames equalled shooting games for an awful long time, even when other genres such as maze games and platformers arrived.

So I've always been into the genre. The first shooter that really got the adrenalin pumping was Phoenix in the arcade. The sights, sounds, colours and the mothership level made for an eye-popping experience.

I've never fallen out of love with shooters and have always looked for them. It's why I got a Saturn in the mid 90s as I couldn't really get a shooting fix from the other 2 consoles of the time. And its why I got a 360 as well.

[Aldnox]

Embodiment of Scarlet Devil. Still one of my favorite shmups.

[Illyrian]

I saw the infamous "HARDEST VIDEO GAME BOSS EVER!" video and decided I needed to try these games.

A friend of mine hooked me up with MAME with dodnpachi, progear and guwange and I went on from there.

I remember literally game overing on the first level of dodonpachi's boss in my first ever credit.

[BrianC]

Galaga. Grew up playing it in arcades before it had well known home ports.

[The Armchair General]

Touhou Koumakyou ~ the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil (Touhou 6)

Got into it thanks to its soundtrack and fell in love with it shortly after I first played it because of its cool looking bullet patterns and immense challenge.

[Kollision]

As a kid I always liked them, no special game whatsoever sparking my attention.

As an adult, my mind shifted and was totally blown away the moment I had to fight that boss in the meteor stage of Gradius V.
That, my friends, was the kind of rush I wanted to have most of the time if I were to play video games for the rest of my life.

[MaXXX]

I remember reading about bullet hell games somewhere, specifically Dodonpachi. That got me interested

[Leandro]

Mars Matrix or Garegga, I don't remember, or both

[boagman]

While it didn't start my love of shmups, View Point for the Neo-Geo was certainly the reason I got into the community.

[Guardic]

The Guardian Legend, R-Type and Bio-Hazard Battle. Played all three around the same time. TGL is my all time favorite though.

[AxelMill]

DariusBurst, the original.
I did play many shmups beforehand, including DoDonPachi, R-Type (via Dimensions) and the ones that are part of Taito Legends 2, but that one really sparked my interest in the genre.

[KaizaCorp]

Jamestown.

One holiday season I got it unintentionally as part of bundle. On a whim decided to try out the co-op with 3 friends. I was pleasantly surprised by how fun it was to survive for the first time in a shmup and vaunt to save my friends! Jamestown opened my eyes to thrill of dodging bullets. Afterwards I had great fun with Crimzon Clover. Unfortunately, due to my skill and the difficulty the fun was only for brief periods. Over the following years I played shmups intermittently, but without much success. It wasn't until a couple months ago that I stumbled upon an episode of STG Weekly which reignited my curiosity in the genre.

[Rayge]

My first shmup was 1943 as a little kid back in 1989. I remember really loving the game. That and Mega Man 2 really stick out to me in my youth. Then I remember seeing Raiden in the arcades when I came to the states and thought that it looked amazing compared to similar games I played before. But I didn't get heavy into shooters until I imported my first batch of Saturn games back in 1998 which included Soukyugurentai. And then I was like "OHHHHHHH!!!!!" To this day it remains my most memorable gaming purchase ever because of how amazing the gameplay was and how fantastic the aesthetics were for the time. The soundtrack also sounded and felt SO good while playing.

Thus... Why I'm excited as hell about the new DARIUSBURST 8ing DLC.

[svensonson]

I remember that my older brother placed me in front of his c64 when he had to babysit until mom comes back from work. several hours of blue max, katakis (denaris) and r-type together with the awesome commando (btw best music ever created for a game) and rambo. of course I had to buy the original boxes of all these games for my c64

[Wolfexer]

For me it was Xop. I played it as a kid.

[tomwhite2004]

My dad was a fan of Gradius and Parodius so grew up with a basic awareness of the genre playing NES and Gameboy versions.

But it wasn't until I started collecting for the Saturn around 2002 and bought Batsugun on a whim (thought the cover art looked cool) and couldn't believe what I had been missing in terms of gameplay and spritework. And nothing much has changed since then, still love em!

[wgogh]

There was some kind of Shmup collection for the ps2. It had Mushihimesama, Ibara, Homura, Gunbird and others.
I would be playing Strikers 1945 most of the time though.

Before that collection I did played Silpheed, but wasnt a shmup pilot yet..

[maximo310]

As a kid, the only experience I had w/ shmups was Aero Fighters 2 and a flashgame called Raiden X, which is a much easier flash version of Raiden 2.

I became a huge collector a few years back, and during a tough semester of sophmore year of college, I kinda got more invested into watching shmup replays, especially since I wanted to get into 1cc'ing arcade stuff.

And then I found Rayforce and grinded on that pretty hard for my first clear.

[Tigershark]

Been playing games since the Atari (that dates me!) and in those days followed by the Megadrive shmups were fairly plentiful and I played lots of them (can't remember the names) but at that point of time shmups were not a hobby because it was just part of what you had. Then came the PS1 and everything went 3d. 2d platformers and shmups were not fashionable anymore (if they ever were) and if it wasn't 3d you didn't buy it (I didn't buy it). Then came the DC. More 3d. But I bought Gunbird 2 and BAM! I couldn't get enough. Games had become fat and overblown and took too long to play. This I could play for as long or as short as I wanted to. The deal was sealed when I bought Ikaruga. I then had a lot of catching up to do

[Squire Grooktook]

And then I found Rayforce and grinded on that pretty hard for my first clear.

I'll say. That game is fucking rough. Takes some determination to get that as a first 1cc, congrats.

[Xyga]

Playing video games has always been a natural thing, all the kids around me did as far as I can remember (80's and on).

I think a more pertinent question for me would be "why are you still playing?", and today I can safely answer;

"Because it's one of the least silly occupations I know, and the shmups genre never gets old".

[borislaw]

First, let me give credit to the first shmup I ever played -- UN Squadron, for the SNES. Back then I was pretty young and its unlikely that I actually identified that game as a being part of a larger 'shmup' genre. It wasn't until playing Einhander and G Darius on PS1 that I got reintroduced to the genre. While I certainly did enjoy playing these shoot em-style up games, they were merely part of a broader video gaming experience. Really, it was not until many years later when I was introduced to Cave games via mame that I truly became a hobbyist. The first shmup I really dedicated myself getting a 1cc and playing for high score was Ikaruga. In fact, I went out and bought a game cube just so I could play that game. I had so much fun with that game. So yes, Ikaruga inspired me to get into shmups

[wgogh]

Games had become fat and overblown and took too long to play. This I could play for as long or as short as I wanted to.

I think thats a common feeling among the shmuppers and arcade fans in general.

[Kobayashi]

River Raid (1982) for Atari 2600 with me. At that time the arcades were in full golden age with titles like Xevious. As a player who lived through this time, I'm an eyewitness that shmups were indeed immensely popular during the golden age of arcade. I miss this time ...

[ardiel]

I would say Touhou got me actually into it, even though I used to play old shooters. I played Zaxxon when it was new and it was the first game I ever looped, and I played some R-Type, Galaxian, Raiden etc back then. I laid off shooters in the 90s because I didn't have the time or money for them, but then I saw Touhou on Youtube and got back into it.

[waiwainl]

For me it was R-Type on my ZX Spectrum.

Eventually I was able to 1cc it, since you needed to load every freaking level from tape, it took me a whole weekend (not shutting down my overheating speccy).
Good memories there


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[DomitorInvictus]

The discovery of Dodonpachi and Crimzon Clover. Getting my hands onto those two games cemented my love for shooting games.

However, oddly enough, I think the first shmup I ever played was Shienryu/Gekioh Shooting King for PS1 at a friend's place! No arcades in my hometown had any shmups.

[reckon luck]

Pretty sure the first shmup I ever played was Spy Hunter on my dad's Atari 800. Played a few more on the Nintendo systems we had growing up. Spent most of my arcade time on Metal Slug and Raiden DX (purple laser was/is impossibly cool). Got into roguelikes in a big way over the last 7-8 years, which lead me into rogue-ish Nuclear Throne and Enter the Gungeon. Ikaruga and Radiant Silvergun soon followed, and now I'm hooked.

[WelshMegalodon]

I think thats a common feeling among the shmuppers and arcade fans in general.

The first Might and Magic starts off your party in the middle of nowhere with some wimpy clubs and absolutely no gold. The first-person view is disorienting and the area is quite vast, so you are required to map each individual space on grid paper and spend some time grinding if you hope to get anywhere. All this after powering on your extremely slow microcomputer and going through the process of perusing the manual, studying the maps, using a copy utility to create your player disk, and creating six characters if you don't like the pre-programmed party. Saving involves disk swapping and painful loading times that make the PlayStation look fast. This was in 1987. Go back even further and you have lengthy adventure games played on mainframes via the command line, which featured tedious trial-and-error gameplay and also required mapping. And then there's that positively ancient Star Trek game from the 70s...

I know, I know, you were talking about console games (though the Master System did receive a mostly complete port of Ultima IV* with winds, moon phases, and even food intact). But I think even now the whole "fat and overblown" thing isn't as bad as people make it out to be. We still get quality action games like Gigantic Army every now and then.

*

Spoiler

The screenshots on that page appear to have some shitty-looking smoothing filters applied, so kindly disregard those.