Your favourite non-R-Type Irem arcade shooter(s)

[Perikles]

...as a complement to the Konami thread. This time, 10 options are barely sufficient, I only had to left out Youjyuden (I picked this one since it's a hybrid between multi-directional and straightforward vertical gameplay; figured it'd be appropriate to include all the "pure" specimens instead). I'm expecting Kaitei Daisensou to win by a large margin, but I'm interested in any case!

[Shepardus]

X-Multiply has great atmosphere and I've barely played most of the rest, but I have to pick Mystic Riders. Such fun and flexible mechanics, and a lovable aesthetic!

[Mortificator]

The game where you manipulate tentacles inside a woman's body, or, X Multiply.

Gallop's cool too, and ends up part of R-Type's story. That may have been the intent all along, or maybe the guys at Irem didn't have anything in mind beyond making a hori out of Blade Runner's aerial police car. I'll give my third vote to Image Fight.

[Vludi]

Even when I still haven't put much time into it I quite dig Image Fight, it proved that it's not necessary to make a Toaplan-style game to make a solid vertical shooter.

[chum]

I like X-Multiply for its feeling if nothing else, but perhaps it's like Metal Black in how it's not very rewarding/interesting/engaging to learn to play... I guess I'll see if I sit down with it at some point. Mr. Heli & Mystic Riders are both games that I've enjoyed but I need to play them more to say if I like them more than X-Multiply. Mystic Riders especially is lovely looking, but I'm not sold on actually playing it. As for Thunder Blaster, I only played "Lethal Thunder", the easier version and possibly the easiest arcade shmup I've ever played, a free clear if there ever was one. Nothing offensive aside from its lack of difficulty (and possibly broken scoring...?) but that is pretty damning, so unless you're a complete beginner looking for an easy time I wouldn't recommend it. I disliked Image Fight for the most part but always open to reevaluate with further playing.

[MathU]

Tough call, I'm a big fan of just about everything of IREM's. I've really come to love and respect Image Fight the past few years though, with the World version being the best version. I used to think it was a game that outright demanded autofire, and I thought the Penalty Zone was the biggest load of garbage in any game. But it turns out it's in fact really easy to avoid getting sent to the Penalty Zone, and I got good eventually and learned the satisfaction of mastery without autofire assistance. The difficulty in the Japanese release is a little excessive but the World version hits the right balance between reward and frustration. Any checkpoint can be recovered from in the first loop and if you've got the guts even in much of the second.

My only complaints with Image Fight are the stage 3 boss (I guess you're intended to fight it by maneuvering on slowest ship speed?) and the pod attack mechanic that requires far too precise of a simultaneous shot+speed button press to ever really be helpful in a pinch. Think it's one of IREM's top games otherwise.


Always felt like Gallop/Cosmic Cop was a really underrated gem of theirs. It is pretty memorization-heavy but it is incredibly satisfying to zip through everything at top speed. The first time I played Super R-Type I always wished someone would make a whole game around the very fast scrolling/obstacle-dodging mechanics of the mining stage boss. Imagine my delight when I finally find out IREM had the same idea! Very unique and innovative title, and I really wish there were other shooters like it. We need more games that let you directly control the scroll rate combining speed running with shooting and especially that reward score based on how fast you beat something. Less boss milking!

[Squire Grooktook]

Really tough choice between Dragon Breed and X-Multiply. I think I like Dragon Breed slightly more, but I ended up voting for both of them.

Image Fight is just a slight notch behind them.

[Perikles]

Always felt like Gallop/Cosmic Cop was a really underrated gem of theirs. It is pretty memorization-heavy but it is incredibly satisfying to zip through everything at top speed.

I'm currently playing Gallop again since it's the only one where I don't got the 2-ALL (if applicable) yet. I would tendentially agree, but I'm feeling quite ambivalent towards it.

As you pointed out, it is memorization-heavy even by Irem standards. Due to the brevity, that's not a detriment in my eyes. I've been having some good fun looking at tricky sections in the second loop and trying to figure out how to approach them best. There are usually a couple of solutions, one of them involving staying to the left to methodically take out enemies, another, much more dangerous approach would be to fly past several foes by staying to the right. I quite respect how this comes into play during the more demanding boss fights, manipulating the scrolling speed is essential during the 2-3 encounter. It strikes an apollonian balance between controlled aggression and the risk that appertains it which is also a classic Irem trait.

I'm still not quite convinced of the necessity to have a colossal hitbox that the game seems to constantly mock by sending out the tiniest of projectiles. Having a gargantuan ship explode because a microscopic crescent shot or a toy missile barely grazed the hindmost pixel of it does not feel satisfying. It reminds me more than a little of Uchuu Senkan Gomorra, however in that one you have a health bar and you're usually hit by appropriately large laser beams, the game is honest enough to embrace its shlocky nature. Gallop on the other hand constantly cuts it extremely close to a point where the excitement starts to fade and the annoyance begins. This is not as pronounced in the first loop, but I find the second loop to be rather aggravating, especially since enemies have considerably more health.

[MathU]

The hitbox is actually much smaller than you might think. It's basically a horizontal thread along the middle of the giant ship graphic. You can test it out sometime by seeing just how close you can get to a wall before it bumps you back. As a single-loop game I think Gallop is great. I usually quite dislike multiple loops but IREM games sometimes get me to play longer because they often did a bit more to make the 2nd loop a different experience than other developers. Unfortunately for Gallop it's different in a negative way. If anything, a 2nd loop of Gallop should have expanded on the base game making things more dangerous by scrolling even faster, rather than slow things down by giving things more health.

[Barba]

In the Hunt is a nice example for artwork that worked well on CRTs but turns into fizzling visual noise on TFTs.

[tizerist]

X Multiply.
Despite the fact it has only one ship, a linear playthrough path, not that many weapons, and is not that spacey, everything else it does, it does it with impressive flair. I hold it in the same regard as something like Thunder Force 3.

[Herr Schatten]

Mr. Heli is my favourite by quite a margin.

I adore what X-Multiply tries to achieve regarding setting and atmosphere, but it couldn't have hurt assigning the task of creating the art to an artist who actually knows what he's doing. Don't get me wrong, it's imaginative as hell, but it's technically not very well done, just look at all that pillow shading.

[Klatrymadon]

I'm a huge admirer of Image Fight, and my 1CC with it was possibly my proudest gaming achievement, but I voted for X-Multiply because I've always been in love with a lot of the things it does. Its uncomfortable bio-horror premise, its stark, eerie soundtrack, its experimental player ship and the consequences it has for the rote-memoriser formula, etc. It has a heaviness and a downbeatness to its atmosphere that even most of the R-Type games rarely touch - it's genuinely gloomy, sombre and bleak from the outset, and only gets more unsettling and oppressive as it goes on. It's great fun to play and quickly rewards a bit of practice, too.

[APB]

Another (closeted) In the hunt fan here

In the Hunt is a nice example for artwork that worked well on CRTs but turns into fizzling visual noise on TFTs.

Yes, the art looks less stellar today, but I still like it.

[Perikles]

The hitbox is actually much smaller than you might think.

Sure, the hitbox is considerably smaller than the sprite of the ship, otherwise it would've been impossible to squeeze between the laser beams of the third and fifth boss (which admittedly works splendidly despite the incredibly tight space you have to work with). However, homing missiles and collisions with enemies are extremely severe, especially so if they come from behind, below or above. It wouldn't be so bad psychologically if it wasn't for the incongruous image, I think. Getting sniped by one of the inanely small regenerating turrets during the final boss fight because you couldn't see their off-screen shenanigans is just infuriating even though there are strategies and methodologies that consistently work. I definitely agree with you that all these issues aren't nearly as problematic in the first loop.

Mr. Heli is my favourite by quite a margin.

That's great to see, I'm surprised that it has comparatively few votes, it was also one of my own picks. Incredibly well-made game that partially reminds one of an action platformer, I also love how essential rank management is (in such an early game, no less). Scoring is obviously suboptimal but I don't consider that to be the strength of most Irem games, anyway (it would've been a great touch if they had the Dragon Breed bonus in Mr. Heli already; the former still rewards milking, but at least not checkpoint milking). Can't quite decide whether I prefer the arcade game or the arcade mode of the PCE port with its classic two-loop format, they're both magnificent.