Shmup Junkie Ranks Every Mega Drive STG

[Sengoku Strider]

A couple of months ago, the ever-energetic Shmup Junkie put together a massive video ranking every PC Engine shooter. Now he's done it once again, with a marathon 3 hour 20 minute epic going through every* Mega Drive STG, including the Mega CD & 32X. I definitely recommend watching the whole thing if only out of respect for the volume of effort this must have taken, even if doing so in one sitting is not in the cards.

As with the PC Engine video he never displays the rankings all at once, so for the sake of posterity & discussion I've recorded them here.

S+

Spoiler

Atomic Runner/Chelnov (Better than the arcade)

Gaiares is#1!!! (Says it's a top 5 STG on the system, about as good as 16-bit horis get, even beating Thunder Force IV in some ways)

Musha Aleste (Says only equalled on MD by Thunder Force IV, but has even better technical performance)

Thunder Force IV

S

Spoiler

Battle Mania Daiginjō

Darius Extra Version (Calls it the best home version of the game)

Elemental Master (Says god-tier music elevates it from A to S)

Eliminate Down (Calls it the Mega Drive shooter that you need to try. Only the music holds it back from an S+.)

Panorama Cotton (Calls it the best rail shooter of the generation)

Ranger X (Compares it to Alien Soldier)

Slap Fight MD

Thunder Force III

A+

Spoiler

Air Buster (Puts it even over the PCE version to which he gave an A, for better graphics & gameplay)

Super Fantasy Zone

A

Spoiler

Advanced BusterHawk Gley Lancer (Perfect beginner shmup, but still good for most skill levels due to weapon options)

After Burner Complete (32X)

Battle Mania

Biohazard Battle

Fire Shark/Same! Same! Same!

Granada

Gynoug

Hellfire

Keiō Flying Squadron

Lords of Thunder (Says it's too easy compared to the PC Engine version, unbalanced)

Omega Blast (As far as he knows it's the only dedicated caravan shooter on the Mega Drive)

Raiden Trad (Says the graphics suck but they nailed the gameplay & SFX)

Robo Aleste

Space Harrier 32X

Sub Terrania (Makes really good case for it too long to summarize here, but calls it one of most fun & unique games on MD)

Truxton/Tatsujin (Awesome, but still prefers PCE version)

Twinkle Tale (Calls it the Mega Drive's Pocky & Rocky)

Undeadline

Zero Wing (Music brings it up to an A-tier)

A-

Spoiler

Grind Stormer/ V-V (Toughest game on the MD next to Twin Cobra)

Space Invaders '91 (Good tunes, high tension. "Actually made me have fun playing Space Invaders")

Thunder Force II MD

B+

Spoiler

Silpheed

Steel Empire (A good novice STG)

Twin Cobra/Kyūkyoku Tiger (Stupid hard even compared to arcade, you basically have to no miss the entire game or get chain-killed)

Whip Rush (R-Type-ish quality strategic shooter)

B

Spoiler

After Burner II (Not as smooth as PCE version, prefers the chiptunes there)

Arrow Flash (Says it's one of the best STGs out there for beginners)

Cursed Knight

Darius II

Forgotten Worlds (Not on the level of the PCE version)

Sol Feace

Soul Star (Says the rail shooter sections are fantastic, the exploratory sections a drag)

Twin Hawk (Calls it a "chill out shooter")

B-

Spoiler

Burning Force

Dangerous Seed

Darwin 4081

Kolibri

Viewpoint (Says the Neo Geo version is an S, this doesn't match it but is still better than the PSX version)

C+

Spoiler

Atomic Robo Kid (Gave PCE version a B, that one's less frustrating. Says Mr. Heli did the same concept better.)

Bio Ship Paladin

Mega SWIV (Grating sound, bleh graphics)

Phelios (Held back by inconsistent stage design quality)

Vapor Trail ("It only has one song")

Verytex

C

Spoiler

Battle Squadron (Bad changes from Amiga version, added parallax obscures bullets. Hit box is massive.)

Fire Mustang

Heavy Unit

Insector X

Space Turtle Battleship (Interesting Samsung Korean MD exclusive, Toaplan & Compile-inspired)

Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair

C-

Spoiler

Galaxy Force II

Master of Weapon (Sound is physically painful)

Night Striker (So pixellated it's nearly visually incomprehensible. Soul Star shows there's no reason it had to be.)

Space Harrier II

Task Force Harrier EX

Thunder Bolt II

D+

Spoiler

X-Dazedly Ray (Says it's not nearly as bad as its reputation, just not good)

D

Spoiler

Adventure Boy

Curse

Gadget Twins

Magic Girl

Super Airwolf/CrossFire

F+

Spoiler

Divine Sealing (The game is a failure but it gets a plus for naked boobs)

F

Spoiler

Super Thunder Blade ("For masochists only")

The Earth Defend

Xenon 2 ("The worst shooting experience on the system")

*Technically he missed a couple, After Burner III jumped out at me out because ABII is the first game in the video. But I don't think he left out anything good.

[Steven]

Slap Fight MD got robbed. I would have given it its own special Slap Fight MD tier that's placed above everything else on the system because it's just that good and it deserves it. He also missed Parasquad/Zaxxon on 32X.

[Jonpachi]

I've been slowly marathoning this for the last couple of days. Lots of fun and absurd amount of work on his part!

[Sengoku Strider]

Slap Fight MD got robbed. I would have given it its own special Slap Fight MD tier that's placed above everything else on the system because it's just that good and it deserves it. He also missed Parasquad/Zaxxon on 32X.

Yeah, Zaxxon was another one - it was an obscure late release that skipped North America, and from what I understand wasn't very good, so I think it's one of those things only collectors worry about. There were some Sega CD shooters from that era that could've made the cut too, if he's including games like Burning Force & Soul Star. Stuff like Nova Storm...I think there were others but I've never owned the Sega CD so I don't know all the ins & outs of that part of the library.

The one that I thought got a bit of an unfair shake here was Darius II. I think he felt constrained by his PC Engine ranking - he said the PCE CD version of the game was his favourite, and gave that one a B in his other video, so gave the MD one the same rating here. But if he's giving Darius Extra an S, I don't think II is that far behind it. It's certainly better in some respects. I haven't played the PCE Darius games yet, but I'm guessing both the MD & PCE versions might more properly belong in the A tier.

I think his Phelios criticisms were valid, but I would've bumped that game up into the lower B tier, it still does a lot of fundamental things well and is fun to pick up & play.

[BrianC]

Yeah, Zaxxon was another one - it was an obscure late release that skipped North America

? Zaxxon's Motherbase 2000 was released here and is the US title. It has a different name in other regions with some US copies on ebay. EU version is called Motherbase and seems to be extremely rare.

[TransatlanticFoe]

Mercs? I think if you're stretching the definition of shooter as far as to include Ranger X, Mercs needs to be in there. And there's probably a case for Gain Ground too.

Arrow Flash and Empire of Steel I think each are about two grades too high. They're both too easy, with some fairly dull bits in both. Likewise Thunder Force II seems way too high given how awkward the top-down stages are.

Twin Cobra deserves to sit alongside the bulk of the other Toaplan ports, I can see why it might give off a bad first impression but I don't think it's unfair next to the arcade game.

Darius 2... I dunno, it's good but having spent more time with the SMS and arcade versions, it doesn't look that much better than the SMS version.

Also - there's a lot in A, I think it'd be more fun trying to split some of that up and down

[Sengoku Strider]

Yeah, Zaxxon was another one - it was an obscure late release that skipped North America

? Zaxxon's Motherbase 2000 was released here and is the US title. It has a different name in other regions with some US copies on ebay. EU version is called Motherbase and seems to be extremely rare.

You're right, I went and checked the 32X release list and I was getting my wires crossed with DarXide.

[PerishedFraud ឵឵]

Vapor Trail ("It only has one song")

Now hold on there brother. There's the titular song, bloody road, and the ending song as well. You better ammend this!!!!!1

[ShmupJunkie]

Just came across this thread and figured I'd throw in my 2 cents, as some of the observations are spot on. Now that I've made two of these, there are always a few games I would go back to and amend. It's a byproduct of replaying so many games and ranking them in bulk. It's hard to keep perspective as it's own game vs what I just played. In retrospect, Vapor Trail and Darius II are the 2 games I'd easily go back and amend. Darius II simply deserves a better score as a good port and I was absolutely constrained by my under-ranking that game in the PCE video. They both deserve an A or at least an A- from me. Some even strongly dislike the PCE port as it scrolls up and down whereas the MD port doesn't. Vapor Trail should have been a B and was me playing that after a couple other really good games, so it suffered a bit by comparison. I actually own it and it's a very fun, solid shooter with a great music track. I didn't give it a C for only having one song as I'd rather have one great one than uninspired music in general. I gave it a C as it felt very average coming off some other games, but it deserved better. Much better than Verytex which came after, a game that only has great music going for it and is otherwise a cheap PC Engine caravan knock off with boring gameplay by comparison. Vapor Trail is a tier above at a minimum.

I didn't include the GLOC and After Burner III as it felt they dipped too much into action flight sim territory, but really just a judgement call to not overpack even more games. Same with Jungle Strike and that series. When I am putting in things like Ranger X, you can make a case for many other games. Even SmashTV and Xenocrisis etc. I just had to cut it at some point. Same with the FMV games which are technically more shooter than anything and I could've included, though they would've just ranked pretty poorly. But games like Ranger and Atomic Runner I go out of my way to justify, even Subterrania, as they just need to be known and played by more people. So it's a great chance to expose them to a new audience.

I absolutely missed Zaxxon and it's bugging me. Just totally spaced on it as it belonged. I'm not as naturally familiar with Mega Drive as I am with PC Engine so it took a lot more research on my part for the more obscure games. I was bound to miss something.

[Steven]

Yeah, I noticed the Strike series wasn't there, but they're kind of their own thing and I don't really think skipping them is a problem. I forget if you had Battle Ace in the PC Engine one, but if you skipped Battle Ace, no problem with skipping G-LOC, I think. I'm suddenly reminded of those old reviews for Herzog Zwei where the reviewers tried to review it as a shooting game and not as a strategy game. I do need to go play Herzog Zwei some more.

As for Zaxxon... honestly I haven't watched the entire thing yet, as I watched a few sections, mostly the ones with Toaplan games, so I checked out the Z section and I was like "...is Zero Wing really the only Z shooter on the system? Oh yeah, Zaxxon exists." Too bad Youtube got rid of that video reply thing they had like a decade ago or whatever, as maybe you could reply to yourself with an addendum for Zaxxon if that feature still existed. I wouldn't worry about Zaxxon too much. I don't think I've ever played it myself, but I'm kind of too lazy to set up my Mega Drive tower to check it out since that thing's annoying to deal with.

[Sengoku Strider]

Just came across this thread and figured I'd throw in my 2 cents, as some of the observations are spot on. Now that I've made two of these, there are always a few games I would go back to and amend. It's a byproduct of replaying so many games and ranking them in bulk. It's hard to keep perspective as it's own game vs what I just played. In retrospect, Vapor Trail and Darius II are the 2 games I'd easily go back and amend. Darius II simply deserves a better score as a good port and I was absolutely constrained by my under-ranking that game in the PCE video. They both deserve an A or at least an A- from me. Some even strongly dislike the PCE port as it scrolls up and down whereas the MD port doesn't.

Well hey, changing one's mind over time is a sign of intelligence, and being able to admit to stuff like that is a sign of maturity. If nothing else it gives you grist for a future video down the line, I know Game Sack has done similar things revisiting older opinions.

Vapor Trail should have been a B and was me playing that after a couple other really good games, so it suffered a bit by comparison. I actually own it and it's a very fun, solid shooter with a great music track. I didn't give it a C for only having one song as I'd rather have one great one than uninspired music in general. I gave it a C as it felt very average coming off some other games, but it deserved better. Much better than Verytex which came after, a game that only has great music going for it and is otherwise a cheap PC Engine caravan knock off with boring gameplay by comparison. Vapor Trail is a tier above at a minimum.

One other game I wondered about, but can't comment on because I've never played it, is Task Force Harrier EX. The criticisms in the video were fair, but I was also watching that footage thinking "The art design on that shooting animation looks pretty cool and kind of ahead of its time, I wonder if it's still worth checking out despite the flaws."

I didn't include the GLOC and After Burner III as it felt they dipped too much into action flight sim territory, but really just a judgement call to not overpack even more games. Same with Jungle Strike and that series. When I am putting in things like Ranger X, you can make a case for many other games. Even SmashTV and Xenocrisis etc. I just had to cut it at some point. Same with the FMV games which are technically more shooter than anything and I could've included, though they would've just ranked pretty poorly. But games like Ranger and Atomic Runner I go out of my way to justify, even Subterrania, as they just need to be known and played by more people. So it's a great chance to expose them to a new audience.

"Because it makes for interesting discussion" is as good a reason as any. And I know a few people, Mark MSX included, have been making the case for run & guns as natural siblings to shmups and belonging in the same conversation for a while now.

Excluding the Strike series as sim-ish I can understand. With G-LOC, I just figured you were excluding games with 1st person perspectives, otherwise StarBlade would've been a fit with the other rail shooters involved. G-LOC does bring your fighter in front of the camera for some stages, but otherwise it's more in the same category of cockpit arcade shooter with Air Diver. After Burner III I believe lets you select either view.

From footage, I don't think Nova Storm and Microcosm are really much different from Galaxy Force II in gameplay. While they do use FMV backgrounds, I think they're more in line with how Silpheed handles it in that regard.

I absolutely missed Zaxxon and it's bugging me. Just totally spaced on it as it belonged. I'm not as naturally familiar with Mega Drive as I am with PC Engine so it took a lot more research on my part for the more obscure games. I was bound to miss something.

Well, this is the Mega Drive we're talking about here, bolting on another video is only appropriate. "Every Mega Drive Shooter Reviewed and Knuckles, with lock-on technology" or something. But really, after putting all that together there's no reason you shouldn't feel that it was a job well done.

Twin Cobra deserves to sit alongside the bulk of the other Toaplan ports, I can see why it might give off a bad first impression but I don't think it's unfair next to the arcade game.

I believe it's been observed that the bullet AI is nastier than the arcade's was in how it targets you.

Yeah, I noticed the Strike series wasn't there, but they're kind of their own thing and I don't really think skipping them is a problem. I forget if you had Battle Ace in the PC Engine one, but if you skipped Battle Ace, no problem with skipping G-LOC, I think. I'm suddenly reminded of those old reviews for Herzog Zwei where the reviewers tried to review it as a shooting game and not as a strategy game.

EGM were completely flummoxed by it back in the day:

Spoiler

[Steven]

I know Game Sack has done similar things revisiting older opinions.

Most notably, Joe said 1941 Counter Attack on the SuperGrafx is awesome (and it is, and yes, it is still absolutely my favourite PC Engine shooter) and then later he was like "yeah, this game exists or whatever and nobody cares" and I'm like WTF?

But yeah, Herzog Zwei got some pretty interesting reviews ~30 years ago. Half of them loved it, half of them hated it, and half of them didn't know what the hell the game is even supposed to be. Yes, that's right, 3 halves make a whole, just like in M2's Tiger-Heli and Hishouzame.

Speaking of Lock-On Technology™, you totally should have mentioned that Slap Fight has it. Lock-On Technology™ 9 years before Sonic & Knuckles existed... good shit, Toaplan, as usual. When I played Slap Fight MD 2 days ago, I totally put my Slap Fight MD in my Sonic & Knuckles and then put that in the Super 32 inside my Mega Drive on top of my Mega-CD. Is that sufficient use of Lock-On Technology™? I certainly hope so because I don't have anything else to add to that tower!

[Bar81]

"Shmup junkie", riiiiiight. When will we be finally free from the Gaiares is no 1 guy (hint, not in this thread):

[Sengoku Strider]

Darius 2... I dunno, it's good but having spent more time with the SMS and arcade versions, it doesn't look that much better than the SMS version.

The Master System has less than half the stages, which is one big advantage:





But what really does it for me with the Mega Drive Dariuses is the crunchy-sproingy SFX. They did a really good job with them, makes for a really visceral shooting experience. I'd certainly put them over the squeaky arcade shooting in that dept.

[Samildanach]

The 6 Darius II games are hard to rate, especially against each other as all are good and flawed in different ways.

Darius II (AC) has the best visuals and interesting stage transitions that the MD version does not have. It, and it's two other arcade brethren have the joy of the 2 or 3 screen wide setup for the wow factor. On the downside, the player ship hit box is big and its movement is slow, so the game becomes very memorization heavy as you can't survive on reactions alone.

Sagaia Ver. 1 (AC) has less numerous and shortened stages. To balance that they are more intensive, especially towards the end. This could be a good or bad thing depending on whether you are looking for the quick adrenaline hit or prefer the less constantly intense original. The bosses also go down a lot quicker, often before they can get off many attacks.

Sagaia Ver. 2 (AC) also has short stages and high intensity, but in my opinion is a more interesting variation from the original compared to ver 1 due to its selection of completely new levels. The bosses still die too easily and as with the other two arcade versions your player ship moves too slow. I think these three arcade games would have a much higher standing among shmuppers if the player ship had the size and maneuverability of the MD version, but this one key flaw makes them all a little frustrating to play at times.

Darius II/Sagaia (MD) is often touted as the favourite, probably due to the better ship maneuverability and size. Unfortunately unlike the arcade games, the ship moves faster diagonally than it does orthoganally, leading to unexpected deaths when you seem to suddenly jerk into a wall or bullet. I find this pretty intolerable, much more than lag for instance, but others may not even notice it. This issue is true for ALL the Darius console releases for that generation. The stage transitions and variations are less interesting than the arcade, but you at least have a full set of levels unlike the shorter Sagaia AC games. As for bosses, you have the very lackluster nehonojia replacing the much better Killer Hijia of the Arcade games. I seem to be ragging on this one a bit and it is still a good game, especially as it can be played well without having the heavy route memorization of the arcade games. Junkie's initial B Tier choice I agreed with.

Sagaia (SMS) is a A or S Tier shmup on the SMS, as it is very impressively coded despite a little of the diagonal vs orthogonal movement jank and some sprite flicker. Against the other Darius II games it suffers simply from being on the least powerful machinery and therefore being the most basic version.

Super Darius II has the benefit of its impressive roster of unique minibosses and bosses, though some are better than others. Stage 6's Dark Modon for example looks less impressive than the Grand Octopus of the Arcade/MD games and can be slain with no effort if you just park just above him. Others are great like the monstrous Revenge Shark. The stages look closer to the original arcade game and the transitions and intra-level variations are included too.
The bigger sprites look impressive but one often feels the view is too zoomed in and there is too little room. Compared to the perfect spacing and sizing of Darius Extra MD and Darius II MD, Super Darius II, along with its other PC Engine Darius brethren, falls short in this regard. The music is banging, but some may prefer the more mystical Zuntata music of the other games. My biggest dislike is the dreadful sound effect of enemies exploding. The same sound is used for ALL enemies and it is really grating.

I've really enjoyed all of the Darius II games, but they all have irritating flaws that stop them short of greatness. B Tier? A tier? Hmm, probably A- or B+ Tier in the end.

[Lord British]

EGM were completely flummoxed by it back in the day:

Spoiler

Put that review next to their review for Curse for a real hoot.

[FRO]

"Shmup junkie", riiiiiight. When will we be finally free from the Gaiares is no 1 guy (hint, not in this thread):

NEVER. The answer is NEVER. We will never be free from the hold of Jamie Bunker. His presence shall loom large above the shmup scene until long after his death. May Jamie bless us all.

[To Far Away Times]

Having to push scroll the screen up and down to fit the arcade game's resolution is an abomination. I wouldn't torture my worst enemy with that.

Any port that has that is automatically F Minus Tier.

[Samildanach]

Having to push scroll the screen up and down to fit the arcade game's resolution is an abomination. I wouldn't torture my worst enemy with that.

Any port that has that is automatically F Minus Tier.

Darius R is the worst for that. An absolute abomination of a game. The other Dariuses have enough other merits to rescue them for me.

[Sengoku Strider]

The 6 Darius II games are hard to rate, especially against each other as all are good and flawed in different ways.

It's really one of the best things about the 16-bit era, that the machines all had such distinct identities stamped on their games, but weren't as constrained as previous platforms. It often allowed you to get several games with unique characteristics out of a single property. In subsequent generations differences tended to just revolve around technical limitations. Lower poly count here, missing effect there, lack of animation frames over thataway.

Having to push scroll the screen up and down to fit the arcade game's resolution is an abomination. I wouldn't torture my worst enemy with that.

Any port that has that is automatically F Minus Tier.

I always find it odd that this hits some people so hard. Like I said I can't speak to PCE Darius, but with R-Type and Gradius on the same platform which have similar scrolling, I don't notice it at all. These games become so memorization dependent past a certain point that it really doesn't matter if a turret is slightly below the display field; if you're not already anticipating it you're probably not getting super far regardless.

NEVER. The answer is NEVER. We will never be free from the hold of Jamie Bunker. His presence shall loom large above the shmup scene until long after his death. May Jamie bless us all.

*Adult Jamie has entered the chat.*

[gray117]

Good stuff.

Shmup junkie ...personality wise not for me ... but he does good work and most importantly; his opinions are mostly spot on.

You can't call him a faker either - his act is who he is - it's pretty authentic... I think my main problem is that from most of his other videos I really want to be the bully who tips his cap off his head. I think that I feel bad about that, makes it ok to want to do it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIk4RkjEOAc

[Jonpachi]

Finally finished the whole thing. Did I hear him say, "Contra Hard CORPSE" there at the end? Yes.

[To Far Away Times]

Junkie always makes good content.

[Herr Schatten]

I’ve only watched bits and pieces of the video yet, but it already has inspired me to give Gaiares another chance. The cart’s been sitting on my shelf since forever, but I never played it to any extent, as it didn’t strike me as anything too special when I tried it briefly.

I’m also going to check out Chelnov. I love autoscrolling jump'n'shoots like Wonder Boy: Monster Lair, so this should be right up my alley. No idea why I had passed it by so far. By the way, are there any more games of this style on any system?


EDIT: I just have Gaiares another try, but I’m still not feeling it. It’s nice, but there are too many little flaws, be it the many swirly formations, the difficulty of determining what is background and what is scenery you can crash into.

The appreciation for it seems largely a US thing? I remember it getting decent reviews around here, but none of them were exactly raving about it.

[Despatche]

In general, having +/- is a bad idea. It raises too many questions and allows people to handwave whatever they want.

Imagine putting Musha Aleste in S+ and Verytex in C+ even though they're the same fucking shit.

Darius II needs to be at least a bit higher.

I would say Sol-Feace needs to be higher also, but I need to do more research into the different versions of the game. I'm beginning to have questions about the Mega-CD version.

Zaxxon 2000 is one of the best games on the entire Mega Drive everything. People sleep on that game hard. Play it.

[Martinov]

I’m also going to check out Chelnov. .

Once you get used to the weird controls it's an incredible game. I have to admit it's one of those games that would have frustrated me as a kid, but I love it now - it's in my top 10 on the MD.

[Steven]

Zaxxon 2000 is one of the best games on the entire Mega Drive everything. People sleep on that game hard. Play it.

I've never really liked the camera angle of these types of games, but I have been curious about this game for some time, so I'll be sure to check it out.

[Despatche]

Actually wait, why is Bio-Hazard Battle so low? Game's godlike. One of the best Mega Drive games, one of the best games of that entire generation, etc. Right up there with Gate of Thunder.

[xxx1993]

Zaxxon 2000 is one of the best games on the entire Mega Drive everything. People sleep on that game hard. Play it.

I find that game criminally underrated myself. Yeah, it's a bit confusing at first, but I got used to it. Whoever thought you could jump into enemies, hijack them, and gain their weapons Mega Man-style?

[Sengoku Strider]

Actually wait, why is Bio-Hazard Battle so low? Game's godlike. One of the best Mega Drive games, one of the best games of that entire generation, etc. Right up there with Gate of Thunder.

If you watch the video, he speaks incredibly highly of it. He just puts it down a notch because the visuals and a lot of the stage backgrounds are bleh, which is fair. But looking at the review average on SegaRetro, he's put it higher than most reviewers (CoolGamer.Ru were vicious):

https://segaretro.org/Bio-Hazard_Battle/Reception

The appreciation for it seems largely a US thing? I remember it getting decent reviews around here, but none of them were exactly raving about it.

I'm with these guys.