STG's you're happy you got when you did

[XoPachi]

Specifically in the sense of obtaining something before they became hard to find.

I've been playing SDOJ a lot lately and that's the main one that comes to mind. I'm SO happy I've got this, seriously. I was a teenager when I preordered and eventually got this in 2013. I was so excited to just get a DoDonPachi with no real hassle at the time and play it as intended. DOJ was region locked. DFK was region free for Europe but I remember the DLC being a pain in the ass to get so I went without the complete experience. And Cave is allergic to DDP1 for some goddamn reason.

But SDOJ was just perfectly playable in the states as long as you found a way to buy it. And gripes aside with it, I love the game and am really happy to still have it even if I need to go back two generations to play it. Now I look at it online and used copies go for over $150 at the lowest. So I'm glad to know I have it complete. I've grown accustomed to this genre just being extremely difficult to get the more coveted stuff, or rather the stuff I really wanted. Even now, I'm still a bit surprised I have certain games that I do despite the genre getting far more ports today.

[BulletMagnet]

With the way things have gone in recent years I doubt there's much in my collection that I'm not glad to have picked up "back in the day" - I haven't researched in depth or anything, but especially when you limit the discussion to shmups I would guess that specimens which are cheaper/easier to get now than ten or more years ago are very much the exception...and I've only ever dealt with console releases, I can only imagine the sorts of numbers attached to arcade boards these days...

[subcons]

With the way things have gone in recent years I doubt there's much in my collection that I'm not glad to have picked up "back in the day”

Same. I took a break from games to do other life stuff for a while, but kept my modest collection of SS, DC, PS2, and 360 stuff packed up for almost 15 years. Been slowly getting rid of some select games or replacing them with newer, better ports, and the price all of this stuff is worth now is surprising. Definitely kicking myself for getting rid of certain things right before I took the break too.

[Steven]

R-Types and R-Type Delta on PSN before they got delisted. Also the Retro-Bit R-Type III + Super R-Type release (although I wish there was an SFC release since I don't have a US SNES, just 3 SFCs) and the Toaplan Retro-Bit Genesis/MD box set, as those releases are definitely more economical than buying them all separately, although having fixed audio in Hellfire is also nice for playing it on the Nomad. Hopefully they get Slap Fight MD the rerelease it deserves someday, or even better, put it in a new box set with the rest of the Toaplan Genesis/MD games, as they only released like half of them.

[Sengoku Strider]

R-Types and R-Type Delta on PSN before they got delisted. Also the Retro-Bit R-Type III + Super R-Type release (although I wish there was an SFC release since I don't have a US SNES, just 3 SFCs)

There is. Suruga-ya's got it used for $35: https://www.suruga-ya.com/en/product/167003543

[Steven]

R-Types and R-Type Delta on PSN before they got delisted. Also the Retro-Bit R-Type III + Super R-Type release (although I wish there was an SFC release since I don't have a US SNES, just 3 SFCs)

There is. Suruga-ya's got it used for $35: https://www.suruga-ya.com/en/product/167003543

How the hell did I miss this? Time to go to Surugaya tomorrow and see if they have a copy in the store that I can check out! They always send me some pristine stuff when I buy from their online store, though.

[davyK]

Pretty much every shmup I bought since the early 90s. I've kept them and many of them now are silly prices. But in particular:-

RSG, Souky, Game Paradise,DDP for Saturn
Gunbird 2 (PAL) for Dreamcast (also Cannon Spike - sort of shmuppy).
Pinksweets/Muchi, SDOJ , Espgaluda II for 360 (Have Futari but it still doesn't seem to be too expensive in platinum??)
Super Aleste, RType III, UN Squadron (all PAL - play at 60Hz) for SNES
Raiden III, Dragon Blaze, Samurai Aces, Tengai, Homura (PAL with 60Hz mode) for PS2
RTypes, RType Delta (PAL) for PS1


More recently I've bagged Bangai O for N64 (financed by selling 3 CIB PAL games) + JP Raiden Project and Raiden DX for PS1 as they will likely climb in cost.


Main regret is not getting into Megadrive sooner. Mad prices now.

[XoPachi]

Christ Gradius V is no cheaper than $60. And prices jump dramatically. Good thing I have 3 copies.

[Hana]

SDOJ for sure. The premium is quite a bit if you want a physical copy now.

I sort of wish I bought the Cave collection when it came out though.

[XoPachi]

SDOJ for sure. The premium is quite a bit if you want a physical copy now.

I sort of wish I bought the Cave collection when it came out though.

CAVE COLLECTION?

[pablumatic]

MUSHA and Space Megaforce.

Though really all my retro collection. Prices are too crazy to engage with collecting them anymore.

[Hana]

SDOJ for sure. The premium is quite a bit if you want a physical copy now.

I sort of wish I bought the Cave collection when it came out though.

CAVE COLLECTION?

The Cave Shooting Collection on Xbox 360.
It was released in Japan many years back. Contains a bunch of Cave Shmups.

[drunkninja24]

Pretty much all the Cave releases I bought as they released on 360, I suspected certain ones especially would spike in value (looking at you Pink Sweets/Muchi Muchi Pork) so definitely grabbed them asap, luckily that era was when I was comfortably in young adult life with income to support it all lol, sucks for those getting into it now who want copies of games

On the flip side, a regret I have was selling my very first Cave PCB, which is a full kit Ibara that was only $300 at the time, which would be utterly unheard of now, iirc I ended up selling it for like $400 or something

[Rastan78]

Don't feel bad I did the exact same thing with Ibara. Plus Garegga, Batrider, Bakraid, Raiden DX JPN ver. and so on down the line. Back when a lot of those PCBs were around 150 USD or something like that.

It's a bit depressing to see what they're worth now, but I got out of the hobby and quit playing on PCBs. So in a sense I'm glad I sold them and they ended up in the hands of players rather than mothballed in my attic forever.

I got to enjoy a lot of great PCBs for a while and then at least break even when I got out of that part of the hobby. So can't really complain.

But man, I do miss the days when you could impulse buy MVS carts for around 20 or 30 USD.

[Tarma]

Probably Harmful Park for the PSX and Hyper Duel for the Saturn.

[XoPachi]

The Cave Shooting Collection on Xbox 360.
It was released in Japan many years back. Contains a bunch of Cave Shmups.

I have literally never heard of this but looking it up I didn't miss much. I have all of these releases in some manner minus DeathSmiles, but I don't give a fuck about DeathSmiles so I'm good.
I was about to be furious if it was like some stuff from them I really wanted to play properly in the States like DOJ, DDP1, or something.

[Ed Oscuro]

It'd be faster for me to answer in the negative: One of the few STGs I'm ambivalent about having gotten is my Stratovox. Its innards have been strewn about multiple boxes for nearly 20 years now. It does make a surprisingly convenient decorative and functional side table, but needs some TLC (legs need to be chromed again, glass top needs to be sandblasted or something). There's also that giant collection of X68000 games I still haven't got a working system for. And also the gigantic collection of random bits of X68000s and Xbox era consoles all over. And various other things that are in a state of disrepair. Beyond that, everything's going great. I do have a few other boards that need repairs but they'd be more expensive to get today even counting in the fixes, I think.

[Gamer707b]

More like, "what shmups am I not happy I got years ago". RSG, Gallactic Attack, Darius Gaiden. I could go on. I did bite the bullet on a couple, namely R-Type Delta which cost me a good chunk. But most of the shmups I got were way less and easier to find than they are now. I think I paid $20 for a complete copy of Gaiires back then and $15 for a complete Axelay at a local retro shop I used to go to. They would routinely have boxed games for dirt cheap. Now, those 2 normally sell for around $100 That doesn't apply to just shooters, but really my whole collection. I honestly feel bad for those just getting into the retro stuff now.

[To Far Away Times]

Mushi Futari's X360 launch happened a few months after I discovered shmups existed outside of Gradius, R-Type and Ikaruga. A friend took me to an arcade and showed me Futari and convinced me to give it a shot. I played a few credits and was hooked. Took the plunge and imported the game and I've been a shmups guy ever since.

[Udderdude]

Uh, everything? Yeah, let's go with that.

[SuperDeadite]

R-Types and R-Type Delta on PSN before they got delisted. Also the Retro-Bit R-Type III + Super R-Type release (although I wish there was an SFC release since I don't have a US SNES, just 3 SFCs)

There is. Suruga-ya's got it used for $35: https://www.suruga-ya.com/en/product/167003543

How the hell did I miss this? Time to go to Surugaya tomorrow and see if they have a copy in the store that I can check out! They always send me some pristine stuff when I buy from their online store, though.

My local Sun Music (Hyper Books) still has brand new copies of this lol.

As for myself. Just about everything I suppose, but some stand outs I will never forget:
Coryoon : 6,800yen
Twinkle Tale : 8,000yen
Eliminate Down : 5,000yen
Vajra Ni : 10,000yen

But I don't think there is much I own that hasn't skyrocketed. PCBs, NeoGeo, X68000, MSX.... even the shit nobody ever cared about like PC-FX is now lol priced.

[davyK]

Mushi Futari's X360 launch happened a few months after I discovered shmups existed outside of Gradius, R-Type and Ikaruga. A friend took me to an arcade and showed me Futari and convinced me to give it a shot. I played a few credits and was hooked. Took the plunge and imported the game and I've been a shmups guy ever since.

Futari is the game that got me into modern shmups. I had always written them off as coin eaters that weren't possilble to play properly without continuing. I considered Cave a one trick pony producing just different versions of DDP. While they could be criticised for that to some degree, I pretty much have eaten every word since getting a 360 with Futari and DFK.

[XoPachi]

I've always loved this genre since I picked up a Super Nintendo controller. First ever game was SuperNova and I was like "yup, this is peak gaming". But I wasnt super fluent in them.

Then in 8th grade, years ago, I remember seeing a video when YouTube was new...

https://youtu.be/IL5CS8AssE8

My fucking head? Gone.
Just blown RIGHT the *fuck* off.

I have played better games than DOJ, but unlike any other game in my life did I have a fervor to play something. I knew that STG's were sort of hard but I wouldnt in my wildest dreams have thought a game was even allowed to be that insane. The feeling of "I HAVE to play this" was the strongest I've ever had that need.

For years, DOJ eluded me. And while I still have no official means to play it now, the day BareKnuckle helped me get it working in MAME? Done. It was like when I rented Sonic Adventure 2 from Blockbuster as a kid. I played it until sunrise. I'm beyond happy I can play it in any capacity still. It's become a comfort game. I'm only just now realizing how much of an impact it had on me really. It's stayed in my top 10 games for years.

[davyK]

I've always loved shmups. I'm old enough to have played a lot of Space Invaders, Gala(xian/ga) et al in the arcades. Shooting games have always equalled video games to me - it was certainly the case for the longest time in the arcade even when Pacman, Donkey Kong etc. appeared there.

I've always played them but I remember looking at footage of DDP and the equivalent and I simply wrote them off. Of course I didn't have a chance to play them being in the PAL region and being pretty ignorant of the import scene. The most manic games I had played at that point would have been something like Super Aleste and Smash TV on SNES or even Robotron way back in the arcade. I just extrapolated from those games and having no knowledge of hit boxes etc. just wrote them off as coin eaters.

The 64/32bit gen saw me go from SNES to N64 and while I enjoyed it, I started to hanker for arcade shooting. I saw Darius Gaiden and Galactic Attack on Saturn and got a pre-owned PAL console cheap to play those. Then I started to become aware of JP imports. I bought a JP Saturn that came with a copy of DDP - I played it briefly (in ugly yoko mode) and simply put it on the shelf, but I built up a decent collection of shooting games for it. Then I was encouraged to try some modern shmups by folk on the UK Edge forum. Futari and the DDP:Res were going really cheap at the time so I bought them before I even got a 360 which I got very late in its life - I got the final E series version which runs practically silent with no red ring nonsense. My first experience with 360 was a weekend with those two games and the scales fell from my eyes. I even went back to DDP on Saturn, and I know the high level players hate the port, but as a game played at a semi-casual level, I saw it for the work of genius that it is. And that was that.

shmups would take up 90% of my play time now. In a way I have come full circle.

[sunnshine]

I don't have any of these (physical copies) now but I'm old enough to have been able to own and enjoy Gaiares, Gynoug, Thunderforce IV & Truxton on the Mega Drive and R-Type Delta on the PS1 which I think might have only been a fiver or so from Blockbuster in an ex-rental clearance bin or something. There was something really special about those imported Mega Drive carts, the artwork on the Japanese boxes was amazing. I did have a mk1 Saturn when they came out ('95 in the UK?) but sold it (like a moron) to buy a PS1 (ffs...)

Video games (for me) have always been about putting 10p (or 20p if the game was worth it (unlikely), or 50p in the case of Sega Rally and Daytona USA! ) into an arcade machine and getting my backside handed to me for 5 minutes or however long it took me to die and shmups and fighting games bring those feelings right back.

Werthers, anyone?