I finally finished my write-up on why I chose each game in my ranking. It's a bit long, so I put it in a spoiler tag :
[15] [Dangun Feveron]
With its frantic pacing, low number of bullets on screen, funky soundtrack and straightforward scoring, it is difficult to believe this is a CAVE game. And yet, for me it is easily their best one.
Dangun Feveron is one of my favorite shmups because it successfully pushes the player to do three different yet very fun things at the same time : shooting everything on sight as fast as possible, macro-dodging fast bullets, and collecting every single item OCD-style. Every one of those aspects reinforces the others, thus making every run an engaging one.
The fast bullets, the items and the caravan-style enemy spawning all make you move all over the place, which is great. With those systems in place, even the first stage can be interesting as you try to squeeze every potential enemy out of its waves before the boss appears.
The rather high difficulty is a bit of an initial barrier, but once I managed to put my initials on the in-game scoreboard, I was hooked. I still haven't 1CCed the game despite having played it for the first time a few years ago already, but I never got bored of it.
If I had to tweak it a bit though, I would make enemies destroyed by bombs still drop discomen, and remove the few enemy waves that spawn from behind in stage 4 and the Time Attack mode.
[15] [Radirgy]
Milestone didn't produce a ton of shmups unfortunately, but Radirgy, Illvelo and Karous are outstanding, with a strong aesthetic, cool music and mechanics that favor quickly destroying everything.
Radirgy is the shmup that showed the general direction Milestone was headed for, and it is a treat to play. The scoring system may appear complicated at first, but in the end is mostly about destroying everything with either your sword and shot while regularly firing bombs and using your shield. Every run is welcoming thanks to fresh and colorful visuals and an excellent, upbeat soundtrack. Stage 5's 24/7 is probably the best shmup song out there.
The game flow is also very pleasant and fast-paced with wave after wave of enemies (both small and big) to destroy. The sound effects when slashing a bunch of enemies is very pleasing and makes it even more fun to zip around the screen to beat the crap out of everything. That aspect doesn't seem that crucial but I can't think of a shmup where enemy destruction sounds are more satisfying than this one and this is one of the key reasons playing Radirgy is always a pleasant sensory experience.
It's such a shame that the sequel couldn't hold a candle to Radirgy and removed many elements that made this one so great.
[15] [Illvelo]
Illvelo is mostly notable for its crazy visuals and wacko enemies, but that would be just scratching the surface of what makes Illvelo so great.
Illvelo features the same kind of shot/sword/shield weapon system as its predecessors but with a twist that adds a lot of strategic positionning : the sword equivalent is actually a module that detaches à la R-Type and can be remote controlled with terrific accuracy.
Offensively, this increases your range of action, and because those modules can also act as shields, it is also possible to use them to cancel bullets near dangerous enemies without having to get too close to it ourselves.
Such possibilities wouldn't be fun to play if the levels were too easily broken by this but the bonus stages where you have to destroy everything to get a key and increase your multiplier will demand you to fully make use of the modules and their destructive ability.
The bosses also tend to throw everything and the kitchen sink at you, so you'll have to master positionning your modules. Stage 5 and its array of mid-bosses can get very crazy for instance, as do the last boss and the TLB.
Compared to Radirgy and Karous, the bonus stages and the TLB requirements imply a bit more memorization, but it feels more rewarding than punishing or annoying, even though it can still be frustrating to be a few keys short of the TLB. And as KAI explained it in a discussion in this forum, keys also steal the focus away from raw destruction, for better or worse. There were indeed many cases where I refrained from finishing a large enemy simply because the entrance to a bonus stage was about to leave the screen.
On the other hand, that new focus also gives Illvelo more measurable longevity and increasing the key counter is something to continuously look forward to. The whole strategic aspect of correctly managing the weapons to uncover the bonus stage entrances and then using the module to clear them is a new layer of fun and interactivity with the enemies and bullets, so I like it a lot even if it is a slightly different Milestone shmup.
[15] [Thunder Dragon 2]
When I first played it, I was mostly having fun listening to the cheesy/awesome voices, but never expected this game to end up being one of my absolute favorites. Thunder Dragon 2 may not look very flashy (aside from the narrator, and....the bullets unfortunately) and the game world is rather unoriginal, but beneath the appearances, there is a very solid game system.
The core of the game is to simply clear waves after waves of enemies, and TD2 also gives you tons of bombs to help you along the way. No extends are granted, the bullets are mostly fast and aimed and dead air doesn't exist so you're always focused and ready to bomb. There is a great flow from one wave to another and most of the stages have specific themes in the way their waves behave, which help differentiate every level from the other. It even manages to have enemies spawning from behind and not make it a horrible trainwreck, notably by having those not immediately kill you on contact when they spawn.
One noticable cool thing about its caravan-style enemy spawning is the addition of a recurring large enemy at the end of every stage that only spawns if you speedkilled enough waves and grants a 50k bonus when defeated, which makes this short fight a very rewarding one and makes you feel good about your performance. If you still have spare time to trigger even more waves after it, that's even better.
[14] [Karous]
Despite sharing many similarities with Radirgy's weapon system, Karous introduced a level-up mechanic that simply boosts your weapon based on its usage and a score multiplier that is based on the sum of all three weapon levels, which changes the way you play even though the objective is still to destroy everything on sight.
Radirgy pushed you towards balancing both the shot + sword and the bombs + shield usage, but the weapons's strength remained mostly static. Here in Karous, the differences between a basic and a leveled-up weapon are drastic and this means you'll need to route your “upgrade path” a bit.
The routes are not too rigid but the whole multiplier mechanic kinda restricts you if you simply want to specialize in one weapon. This is especially true when you upgrade the sword to level 50+. It gets simply so much better than the shot that using the latter to increase the multiplier feels kinda forced and artificial to me.
The game is also rather easy, and the easily unlockable TLB is not very satisfying due to having to be cheesed. For both of these reasons, I tend to play it less than Illvelo and Radirgy, thus the slightly lower rank.
That said, the game still features a very fitting Drum'n'bass soundtrack as well as a very different color scheme compared to Radirgy, and the upgraded sword and shield are enjoyable to use. The sword slashes feel powerful and visceral and the shield's ability to completely turn the tables when faced with a dense pattern and launch a counterattack is pretty cool (if not required to defeat the bosses on time)
[10] [Darius Burst ACEX]
Before the PC version was a thing, I had the pleasure of playing this game in the arcades until Paris' Arcade Street closed, and it is such a great experience! The super widescreen play area! The rumbling seats! The warning klaxons! The huge bosses! The lasers! The otherworldly yet fitting soundtrack!
But underneath that spectacle is also a competent game in the arcades or at home, with a more focused stage branching set-up than the 7-stage Darius games which allows you to directly plunge into the hardest levels if you wish without wasting any time. Add to that a bunch of ships with their own mechanics that allow for diverse playstyles and optional additionnal challenge and you have a game that is happy to let you play a few different credits whenever you have time to kill.
Speaking of the mechanics, the Burst system is actually not the reason I like playing the game that much, oddly enough. Counterbursting feels really cool especially because of the timing element involved; however the regular burst is mostly used for scoring purposes and doesn't feel too good compared to its actual devastating power. Furthermore, if scoring is not your main priority (and in Darius games, it isn't for me) the detachable burst module overshadows the burst by letting you stay safe for prolonged amounts of time.
That's why I prefer playing Darius Burst ACEX as Gaiden, Second or Origin. And it's pretty cool that the game can be played with those ships and the level design holds up with them.
Compared to the previous Darius games, it took the best aspects but unfortunately ditched aside some of the coolest things about G-Darius : the cinematic sense of scale and the liveliness of the world around you. G-Darius's stages and bosses felt much more alive than the generic space environments here. The short boss introduction cutscenes were stylish as fuck and paradoxically, the smaller screen made the bosses feel much bigger than DBACEX's.
You can totally see that the game was made with an editor that can copy-paste stuff and swap waves and bosses the way they want (aside from Great Thing at the end of Zone Z, I guess) to create missions for "modern" gamers who favor raw quantity no matter what, whereas G-Darius had nice little touches such as Fire Fossil leaping out of the lava in the cavern, or Eclipse Eye's eye eclipsing the actual sun in the background. None of those things are here in DariusBurst, though its massive swarms of ennemies kinda make up for this.
[10] [Zanac Neo]
I usually can't stand Compile shmups. They are way too long, way too boring and way too repetitive. However, their swan song Zanac Neo manages to extract everything that had potential in the Compile formula and removed all the trite repetition and boredom that plagues most of their other games.
Zanac Neo is around an hour long, but the numerous stages and various backgrounds never overstay their welcome and finally give you the sense of journeying that previous Compile shmups tried to provide. Featuring a k.h.d.n. soundtrack is also a big plus.
The scoring system is mostly easy to grasp and intuitive (do not let anyone escape!), but most importantly, it does an excellent job at keeping you focused and engaged. For instance, the game gives you a bunch of weapons to play with until you find what matches your preference but none of that would have been very interesting in the long run if survival was the only goal.
Overall a fun game, especially on the higher difficulties, but Normal was still enjoyable. Hard and Very Hard really make the power-up invincibility important and relevant given how crazy some of the boss patterns can get.
[10] [Darius Gaiden]
Before the advent of DariusBurst, Gaiden was the safe choice if you wanted to play an arcade Darius game whose learning curve wasn't too steep, mostly because it introduced bombs and didn't punish you as harshly as Darius 2 on death. It also helps that it has some nice-looking pixel-art, massive and diverse bosses with some twisted patterns, a wealth of stages with more differences than the previous games, a very peculiar and memorable soundtrack.
All these reasons are still valid of course, Darius Gaiden being a Darius game that is quite easy to pick-up and make progress in, unlike Darius 2 where a death almost means game over (I still like you, D2, but, well...not enough for the ranking, I guess ) or G-Darius where the lasers can't be instantly fired and don't clear the whole screen. So that's why I spent a lot of time on Darius Gaiden.
I can't really explain in details why I liked it as I do for other games in this list, but I spent a significant amount of time clearing various routes and all the final zones, and it was quite engaging.
[05] [Ketsui Death Label]
This portable version of Ketsui may not have as much content as the original arcade game, but what it does have is actually pretty cool.
Due to its nature as a console game, we do have a bunch of easy modes to warm up and lots of lives to clear most modes without breaking a sweat. However, the Death Label mode is still tricky even with 20 lives under out belt, especially given the DS's reduced screen area.
The real treat for me, though, lies in the Doom and Extra modes. That's almost all I ever do when I fire up Ketsui DS. Scoring in the other modes can be interesting especially given how you are not penalized for using bombs but instead encouraged to do it, which is defintely great (and also why many other CAVE scoring systems are annoying). But I still prefer the raw intensity of survival in those two modes.
Doom mode is an intense set of battles against a progressively harder Doom, and not only the challenge is appealing, but the way bonus lives are given is a much better approach than the other modes.
Extra mode is a tough-as-nails version of Ketsui's stage 5, and the relative randomness of enemy spawns keeps things rather refreshing even though general strategies still work.
Both modes are great fun, but still have untapped potential. As Rob/xoxak said it in his video on the game, why not have an equivalent to Doom mode for every single boss? And why aren't there Extra mode variations with the other stages?
Ultimately, it leaves you wanting for more, despite being enjoyable on its own.
[05] [Touhou 12.8 : Fairy Wars]
Touhou games have nice-looking patterns, enjoyable music but the shooting itself often feels basic and lacking something to me. Most of the mainline entries in the series are fine to play, but do not provide the little something that makes them stand out from the others.
Hopefully, spin-offs fill that void, and Fairy Wars' freezing system makes it the most mechanically fun to play Touhou game IMO. That secondary weapon (or is it the other way around and the regular shot would be the actual secondary weapon?) is not only a tool that can be used both offensively and defensively, it also gives an enjoyable flow to the game, making you graze to recharge and time your freezing attacks to maximize their effectiveness.
This is the kind of mechanic that makes playing the game more interesting than your run-of-the-mill mainline Touhou game where even the best patterns can't hide the fact that you are not doing anything particularly interesting or involving when it comes to shooting.
Other contenders for the title of best Touhou mechanic are the camera in StB / DS and PoFV's versus mode (haven't played PoDD so I can't comment on it). In the end, they are all enjoyable but Fairy Wars was the best one for me due to its integration in a game with a classic structure. While others feel like fun spin-offs, this one could actually be seen as an evolution of the main series, with the addition of this fleshed-out mechanic.
[05] [Hudson Selection Vol.2 : Star Soldier (GC / PS2)]
While most Star Soldier games' Caravan modes can get intense, I often wondered why this wasn't reflected in the main modes' level-design. Cue this modern reinterpretation of the FC/NES Star Soldier that features a dozen stages that play like the caravan modes with bonuses all over the place, waves to kill as fast as possible to spawn new ones, tiles to destroy and items to collect. Add a rocking soundtrack and you have a winner.
But this Star Soldier is not without its downsides : a controller with turbo functions is required to really enjoy the game, and the power-down system gets very weird after you maxed out your firepower. If you get hit, you'll have to get hit twice again before collecting a power-up restores you to full power, instead of having the same linear progression/regression as usual. Otherwise, all power-ups collected act as bombs and do not grant you additionnal firepower, which is not intuitive at all.
Still, it is a very fun Star Soldier game, worthy of being in my ranking. From what I've played, the PSP version is not as great, with music changed for the worse and a TATE orientation that makes stage backgrounds scroll slower to compensate for the larger play area.
[05] [G-Darius]
The first 3D Darius game fully makes use of its third dimension by having larger than life bosses, extremely exciting boss introductions and movements, but it loses a bit of visual clarity in the process, which is a shame because it is a true cinematic shmup with varied landscapes, lots of stuff going on in the background, and all that while still having solid mechanics. The capture system allows for some experimentation and using the beam is visually satisfying and encouraged but the scoring system.
The bosses are of course the main appeal of the game and they do not disappoint. Queen Fossil for instance is simply incredible, and it is hard to believe that such a massive boss is only fought on a second stage.
Compared to Gaiden, G-Darius is more unforgiving though, with recoveries being difficult to pull off, bullet visibility that is not great, and boss patterns that are very tricky to dodge with the old-school hitbox you're given. That makes it a bit harder to get into, even though both the beautifully chaotic and distorted soundtrack and the stylish boss introductions are very inviting. As such, I overall played it less than Burst ACEX, Gaiden (or even Darius 2), which is why I rank it lower.
[05] [Shikigami no Shiro 3]
Shikigami no Shiro 2 improved a lot on the first game which wasn't bad in any way but a bit unpolished and unbalanced. The third installment instead takes things in a slightly different direction. Both Shiki 1 and 2 were heavily focused on grazing for scoring, but the introduction of the Hi-Tension Max in Shiki 3 as well as the easier-to-reach extends transforms the game's scoring into a Raizing-like system where you will regularly kill your extra lives to get Hi-Tension Maxes and then use them to score as much as you can and get as many coins with a 10k value, in order to reach further extends that will also be sacrificed, and so on and so forth.
Unlike something like Garegga though, there is no rank control, no boring tick points, the whole suicide-HTM cycle is for scoring purposes only, boss milking exists but is rather minimal, and the stages themselves encourage you to clear waves as fast as you can to trigger as many of them as possible. The caravan enemy spawning mechanic was already there in Shiki 2 but the addition of the HTM makes it even more enjoyable to play as you have a larger amount of freedom when it comes to quickly destroying the waves while staying at a x8 multiplier.
The risk-and-reward gameplay is also on-point as HTM and bombs are the same resource, thus forcing you to forego safety for scoring purposes. Not to mention lives are, as is tradition per the series, capped at 3, making hoarding them to cheese the endgame impossible.
The roster increased from Shiki 2's already quite large set of characters, and as always, every one has very specific weapons and very few play in similar ways.
Unfortunately, the game's atmosphere is not as engrossing as Shiki 2 where the castle looked like an eerie and uncomfortable but majestic place. Here, the third stage has a weird volcano-like background that doesn't make too much sense in context, and stage 4's music is very boring, if not outright sleep-inducing. Stage 1's European landscape and gardens are pretty but I prefer Shiki 2's Tokyo and its cool buildings.
Also, on a more technical level, the first two stages are a bit too easy and long, which hinders repeated credits. However, none of those drawbacks make me rank it any lower than its predecessors.
[05] [ESP Ra.De.]
I am a sucker for games that take place in stylish urban environments and ESP Ra.De. initially caught my attention for this reason. Joker Jun's style is also a nice addition to the game with his cool characters and manga-like universe and plot.
The game itself has a few quirks that take a bit of time to get used to, most notable is the hitbox which isn't where you think it is. The scoring system is also sorta tricky to explain, but once you understand it, firing the bubbles on a big enemy to trigger a x16 chain and destroying as many enemies as possible until this chain runs out is rather intuitive, and viscerally fun, especially when the item boxes fall much faster. Boss milking flat out sucks though, so I never do it no matter how cool the boss theme is .
The difficulty level is also quite high with two demanding and intense last stages. The inability to precisely see the hitbox and its odd placement also accentuates the tension and encourages maco-dodging much more than in DoDonPachi, but for the wrong reasons.
Despite a few shortcomings, this is still one of my favorite CAVE games. ESPGaluda is also neat but is more of a spiritual successor than a true sequel, as the scoring and weapon systems are completely different, and the original modern-day setting was replaced by a universe I am less fond of.
[05] [Star Force (Arcade)]
Despite its age, Star Force aged quite well, most notably due to its simplicity and focus on shooting enemy waves. Even though the music is simplisitic and even though it only plays with one button, this is a game that does what it aims at doing really well.
Star Force lays the foundations for the whole “Caravan-style” gameplay but wasn't completely outshadowed by the games it inspired and remains fun and fast-paced and with enemy waves that are varied enough to not be bored and tricky enough to keep you on your toes.
Shooting enemies and ground tiles in this game feels satisfying with raw explosion sounds that haven't gotten old. Bullet-dodging can get quite hairy when enemies are out of your range and get near the bottom of the screen, which make moving in circles or near the top not that uncommon, and that's another enjoyable aspect of Star Force.
The bosses are underwhelming given how basic they are, but on the other hand, it's much better than having bullet sponges that ruin the pacing. Here, they act more like quick breathers after the onslaught of enemy waves. They work rather well within the context of the game actually, and the jingle when you kill one is pretty cute.
Games that nearly made it in the top :
Shikigami no Shiro 2
Metal Black
Raiden 4
Gun Frontier
