The Self-Introduction Thread

[dancinghorses]

Hello everyone. Finally got around to making an account here. I've been looking for more excuses to talk about STGs since I don't want to bother my usual friends too much but I can't help bringing them up! I would hopefully like to make more friends that have an interest in this genre I'm currently fixated on.

I got the magic click after playing ZeroRanger, and then I felt compelled to just start trying all sorts of games after that. I'm pretty big into CAVE titles and I've even managed to get the 1-ALL for Don and DoDonPachi. I'm currently brushing up on some dodging with some Touhou games, and occasionally playing some other indies in-between. I'm still not very good but I'd like to see where I can be in another year or so.

[paul_]

Hi all, I've been an occasional shmuper since the 2000's and used to frequent this forum. Also used to be in the German shmups scene and have done quite a bunch of meetup's back then.

I'm a hobby game artist next to my desk job. Besides that I either play games (2000's shmups/ RPGs/ Survival Horror, among others) or do the occasional trip back to Germany, since I currently live in the NYC Metro Area.

[water_kooler]

New member here, and I've had a passive interest in shmups for a while. Earlier in life, I experienced Axelay on SNES. After a few years it was Blazing lazers on the Wii virtual console. Later it was Donpachi on a handheld emulation device(Dingoo A320). Emulation has peaked my interest in recent years. First I explored the rest of the Compile catalogue. The most impressive titles were Spriggan, MUSHA and Super Aleste. That lead me to the Mame and Final Burn romsets. I have scoured the library enough, I think.

These are my hot takes:
Sorcer Striker
Grind Stormer
Same Same Same!
X Multiply
Gunbird
Dragon Blaze
Soldier Blade
Progear
Salamander 2
Thunder Force A.C.

[MovingTarget]

I'm back! After a really really long break from shmups, and still just as bad at them
Some here may remember me, I was fairly active, went to a meet in London once too.

Decided to dedicate time to really improving, and sticking with one game and really learning it. I think it will be Strikers 1945 2... with a sprinkling of Cave

[keyInkRobo]

Greetings,

I am new to this forum and eager for MagFest. I have created a post for this year's event and hope to see everyone there.

I enjoyed Raiden in arcades and later Geometry Wars. Recent shoot 'em ups, especially Zeroranger, brought me here. I aim for a one-credit clear of DDP DFK and possibly Kaikan.

Ginga Force, Natsuki Chronicles, and Kaikan were fantastic to complete. I may also pursue a one-credit clear of Battle Traverse.

Thanks to the wiki for Barrage Musical; it was very helpful.

Thank you.

[Attila]

Hi There! I'm mostly here to read what you guys like and not like about a lot of bullets on screen. I've first checked out things on this forum like 5-6 years ago when I started doing gamedev as a hobby and I quickly discovered I like mixing other genres together with bullethells. As I player I play all sorts of games now and again but I wouldn't say I'm truly a hardcore player of anything (except for mmos).

[Hail Sadako]

Hello!

I grew up in the 80's playing games like Gradius, Star Force, Xevious & Life Force on the NES, and Truxton on the Mega Drive. The Mega Drive was the last console I owned, shmups kind of fell off my radar after I bought a PC.

It wasn't until a few years ago that I rediscovered the genre when a coworker of mine recommended me the game Drainus. I fell down the shmup rabbit hole looking up Drainus videos on youtube, and I learned about all the amazing games that I have missed out on. So now I am thoroughly enjoying this immense backlog.

[Kobold]

Hello,
I am Kobold, a shmupper from Finland.

I started out with touhou games october of 2024, clearing all of them on lunatic before starting to play some cave games. Now I have a DoDonPachi 2-all, a ketsui omote 2-all, and an ikaruga clear with a score of 32.3 million.

Curently I am learning DOJ WL scoring, ultimate goal maybe 1,5 billion 2-all.

[Nirgends]

Hey, long time lurker here. Although I'm not primarily a shmup guy (I mainly stick with the simple Compile stuff) the R2RKMF thread is one of the best threads on the internet and was instrumental in opening my eyes to the greatness of classic video games. Hoping to contribute in the near future.

[ivansirijillo13]

Hello everyone my name is Ivan, Ive been playing shmups for one year approximately and your list of the best 25 shmups helped me a lot to discover some really cool ones, Ive been playing for survival and so far I only 1ccd Battle Garegga and Ketsui, of the ones that I have tried maybe I will try to clear Mushihimesama Futari 1.5 next, I really liked that one, thank you

[RSProject1986]

Hello guys, Gianluca from Italy.

An old shumps collector back in the days (until 2017) but still in love with this.

Addicted to Japanese cars i choose to go with this way and give up with collecting games.


Happy to see that this forum is still damn alive and healty!!!



Cheers!!

[Typelex]

Hi there,

I’ve been in and out of this forum and recently created a new account.

I’ve been a cave PCB collector for 10+ years and getting back into building classic systems, really fun these days as there are more and more accessories available, currently working on a NeoGeo AES collection and will soon get back to CAVE collection.

[Nemz]

Hi everyone!

I'm a newbie shmupper from Germany. As we have virtually no arcade scene here I just recently found my love for this genre. I have gotten my first 1CCs in Crimzon Clover Novice Original and Boost and have then dabbled into different shmups to get a feel for the genre on a broader scale. Currently I'm pretty hooked on Mushi Futari; I really like the style and music, plus the scoring system comes close to what I would consider perfect for my preferences.

Other than shmups I'm always down to chat about my other interests in Off-Topic, mainly martial arts, music, and philosophy.

I'm stoked to interact and get to know y'all!

[AGermanArtist]

Hi Nemz. Futari is excellent. The M2 arrange is stellar.

[Mute]

Hi !
I got my first 1CC with Blue Revolver Double Action.
And I'm making my own bullet hell game.

[ToxorAxiom]

How long does it take for mods to allow a new user to post?

[neist]

I suppose I should reintroduce myself, as I haven't visited in quite a while.

Not much other to say, than hello! Seibu Kaihatsu fan as well as other generally odd games.

[Angelo85]

Hi, new member to the Shmups Forum. I recently got back into playing retro games that I grew up playing; mainly on the PS1, PS2 & PS3. The first shmup I remember playing was Nemesis on the Game Boy. I always had a love for shmups even though it wasn't until recently that I learned there was a name for one of my favorite game genres. I always called them shooters or scrolling shooters. Some of my favorites are the Raiden series, Defender, Metal Slug series, Space Invaders, Galaxian/Galaga, Xevious and many others. Even though I’m nowhere near great or even decent at playing shmups I'm always willing to learn how to play better; and I look forward to connecting with fellow shmup fans.

[airplane mode]

Hi there! My main genre is adventure, though I competed in fighting games for years. I still want to give shmups a shot, because I’ve hardly played any of them. I’ve never done a 1CC nor a score attack, but since I started playing a few days ago, I’m enjoying the process. I’ve never read a strategy guide, tutorial, or wiki, nor have I watched a top player in action. I know if I want to improve in this genre, I’m going to need to start from scratch, read, and practice a lot. After all, that's what I'm here for.

Some of the shmups I played in the past:
River Raid
Sonic Wings 1 and 2
Darius Force
Giga Wing
Blazing Star

What I've been playing lately
Cho Ren Sha 68k (mostly)
Sonic Wings 3
DonPachi
DoDonPachi
DoDonPachi DOJ

DOJ seemed far beyond my current abilities, though I felt very drawn to it.

[acab420]

I play shmups occasionally and poorly. I was in the top 50 on the PSN scoreboard for Ikaruga Easy Mode, once. I got bumped.

I'm working on a Deathtiny survival run now.

I just set up an account because search is now hidden if you don't log in.

EDIT: got the 1cc while this post was waiting on mod approval. That mode is really forgiving for survival.

[Spydar05]

Hey everyone! Not exactly sure what a self-intro message should be, so I'm just going to nerd out and you can read as long as you'd like

I first played shmups in the bowling alley arcades back home in rural Oregon 2 & a half decades ago when I was a kid. Which was basically the Strikers games. I have mostly only played similar type shmups in my life whenever I may see them in the arcades while out with friends. I live in the city now so I get the chance every once in a while.

That was, until about a year ago when I decided to deep dive a new sub-genre of games and found this forum & Electric Underground.

Normally, I like playing 2 types of games: 1) punishingly difficult + rewarding, examples of this (for me) are games like Slay the Spire, Hades, Fire Emblem, Spelunky 2, Cuphead, Celeste, Hollow Knight, Shattered Pixel Dungeon, Clash Royale, etc. or 2) any game of any sub-genre (same with music and TV) as long as it is 'strong', examples of this (for me) are games like Outer Wilds, Disco Elysium, & Baba is You. Which I usually find by a couple of ways. One of those ways is by finding hyper-specific and dedicated communities who enjoy critiquing those things, and then I steal all their recommendations.

Originally, I was going to use your 'Top of All Time' list as a way to explore some new games, find some ones that I like, and move on. Then I learned that this genre of games (and, really, I'm slowly learning every genre of everything) is an art and has tastes and sub-genres inside the genre that pull from elements of previous shmups and I kept playing a bunch of them. So I decided to mix them in with workouts to make me feel more productive. Every-time I make it through a full section of a shmup, I do a set of pushups or situps or squats. Then, I started tracking my opinions of them (without even thinking about voting for this) to submit a post on Reddit to give other people suggestions and tiny reviews with links for others to come into Shmups like I did. I happen to noticed just a few days ago that your community was doing the final 'Top Shmups of All Time' list and I decided to make a process on my Google Sheets where I went back through every one I've played + some new ones

Now, I did create an account to vote in the final 'Top Shmups of All Time' post. So a great way to intro my Shmup experience in the last year would be to talk about how I went about this voting process.

I'm ~62 Shmups deep. I should note, I don't feel like an expert in Shmups at all, I just did my best to respect this process so that I can put in a meaningful vote and create a useful post for others to find ways to explore the genre like I did.

---

I came into every single one of those 62+ Shmups with an open opinion. My rating / ranking can almost boil down to 1) my personal assessment of the strength of a game + 2) my pure enjoyment of the game (my willingness to come back and play it and play it continuously). I started playing games that I knew through previous playthroughs was a game that didn't stand out to me. I used those as guidelines for what I would rate a 1 (possible honorable mention) or 0 (not show up in my Top 25 or 10 honorable mentions, but still post about on Reddit).

Then, after getting a solid idea of what constituted a 1 (possibly worth an honorable mention), I worked out what a 2 was (games that have something special to them that truly stuck out and worked + I enjoyed + I would want other shmup nerds to try). These were games like RayForce / Layer Section, Eschatos, Salamander III, Sol Divide, Eco Fighters, & Gunvein. Only RayForce / Layer Section & Eschatos have made System11s top 25 All Time, and I was the only person (I believe) to vote for Salamander III, Sol Divide, & Eco Fighters. As I went through the Shmups 1 by 1, while still avoiding the ones I knew were my favorites (I wanted to save the best for last in order to understand how high I wanted my scale to go), I got a better idea of how I wanted to compare these games against each other.

With that, the rest of my list can be explained simply. My [3]s ended up being 3 games that feel really solid to me, I just couldn't stick my teeth into. Easily recommend to any shmup player to at least look up a trailer or review and see if you may like it. Akai Katana, Shikigami no Shiro II, & Ikaruga.

At this point, there are only a couple games that I rated a 4 or higher without myself having really enjoyed playing the game and wanting to keep it. Although, there are examples, Crimzon Clover is a clearly amazing game to me and I rated it very high (a [6]) cause it deserves to be IMO, I just couldn't get into it. The [4]s on my list are games that I start to feel like represent what I enjoyed about my time with Shmups. My [4]s are all games I would recommend you go physically play the game and try it if you haven't, because even watching a playthrough doesn't do it justice to how it feels to play. NeverAwake, Dragon Blaze, & ESPGaluda II. NeverAwake is the only game on my list that scored above a 2 that wasn't on System11's Top 25 All Time past winners or honorable mentions. In fact, no one voted for it . It has a unique charm system like Hollow Knight and a mechanic of gaining souls from killed monsters to complete the levels faster that I enjoyed a lot. All 3 of these games are true gems to me.

My [5]s are best described as strong recommendations to anyone who enjoys shmups already, and I'd even recommend to some outside the genre. All of my [5]s nailed what they were trying to do and I enjoyed all my time spent playing them. These are Raiden Fighters Jet, Giga Wing, Radiant Silvergun, & DoDonPachi SaiDaiOuJou. Damn. All these games are amazing IMO. Still, only 2-3 of these are staying in my final games list for myself.

Every single game I rated a [6] and higher are games that I had to consider another notch above even those games. Shmups that I would recommend (BASED ON THE INDIVIDUAL) to anyone who plays games, even if they have only barely played shmups before. And that I consider great representations of Shmups as a whole. Crimzon Clover World Ignition, DoDonPachi Dai-Fukkatsu 1.5, & Darius Gaiden. I'll only be keeping one of these games in the long term, they are still all games I can just hand you a controller and you will understand why people love them within moments.

[7]s are just starting to hit a line where I'm going to be talking to some of my friends about these games and playing & practicing them. ZeroRanger & Progear. Progear is a game where I didn't care how brutally difficult it was, it still felt like the failure was on me and the art was like playing inside a Studio Ghibli movie. And while writing out my Reddit post in thought about what games gave me the feeling that I could introduce to someone who doesn't play shmups at all, ZeroRanger is one of my go to's. I also think games like Raiden Fighters Jet work well for that. Worth noting: the only Shmup out of 62+ that my significant roommate asked to play (multiple times) was Hazelnut Hex, which I gave an honorable mention to. And the only other one she enjoyed playing with me in 2-player was Dragon Blaze. And I've got her to explore a bunch of different sub-genres of games already so she is normally down to try new things; most of the top recommended Shmups are really intimidating to outsiders.

Now, my list originally had 4 [8]s and those were the top scores. I decided to tweak it at the last moment and have some of them be 10s. It really doesn't matter. All 4 of these games are games I would recommend to anyone to at least try. Find a way to play them! These 4 would be my first responses for how to experience Shmups as a genre of games, and I'm going to keep playing all of them for a while. Esp Ra.De., Mushihimesama, DoDonPachi Dai-Ou-Jou, & Ketsui. I recommend DaiOuJou & Ketsui to basically anyone for them to at least experience. If there is anyone who actually reads all of this, (or skipped to the end, I ain't blaming ya), I strongly recommend you find a way to play these 4 Shmups, they are all games that absolutely deserve to be played to at least see if you enjoy them:

Esp Ra.De. (Super Easy Mode if you're new to Shmups, it's ok)
Mushihimesama
DoDonPachi Dai-Ou-Jou
Ketsui.

Thank you to this community for showing me all of these amazing games. This was a dope experience getting to play some of the absolute best this genre of games has to offer all at once and find my favorites. As a final note, I'll list out my personal favorites that I've found, thanks to this whole experience + this community:

My Personal Favorite Shmups:
#1 Esp Ra.De.
#2 Mushihime Sama (Bug Princess)
#2 DoDonPachi DaiOuJou
#3 Ketsui
#4 ZeroRanger
#4 NeverAwake
#5 Progear
#5 Darius Gaiden
#5 Raiden Fighters Jet
#6 Radiant Silvergun
#6 Dragon Blaze
#7 ESPgaluda II
#7 Giga Wing
#8 Sol Divide

Something like that.

[DrPyro]

Hello all,

I am terrible at shmups, but I do enjoy retro gaming. I was recently given a few video scalers to downscale to component video for standard definition CRT TV. I have one working, and haven't had a chance to set up the other two yet. I was wondering if there would be someone more knowledgeable that could help guide me towards getting the best out of the scalers. This might be a chance to add more info to the forum for others trying to do the same.

The scalers I currently have:
Evertz Video Passport HD2012 - This is the one I am currently using. Its big and noisy. Has a decent amount of lag, about 60-65ms per its internal calculations. I haven't done any lag testing at the tube itself to verify that figure, but there is a little bit of a delay when playing games. Resolution is scaling from 1280x1024 down to 525i component. It has a lot of settings, and I would probably be able to get more out of it if I had a bit more knowledge. Running Displayport to DVI input to the unit and then DVI-I to VGA to component (adapter to adapter) to the TV.

tvONE CORIOmaster mini - I saw MarcoRetro do a Youtube video with a different CORIO scaler and figured this might have some promise. Has mostly DVI I/O, but also has SDI

FPS IA-200 video processor - Haven't had any time to look into this one.
Has a variety of inputs, and HDMI, DVI, RGB over VGA out

It looks like the Hardware section might be the more appropriate place to ask about these, but I would differ to the Moderators for some guidance.
Thanks for hosting this forum, look forward to learning from you folks.

[BulletMagnet]

It looks like the Hardware section might be the more appropriate place to ask about these, but I would differ to the Moderators for some guidance.

Yeah, for that sort of info the Hardware forum is the place to go: if there's not already a topic for what you're seeking feel free to create one.

[Skuthus]

Hello everyone. Finally got around to making an account here. I've been looking for more excuses to talk about STGs since I don't want to bother my usual friends too much but I can't help bringing them up! I would hopefully like to make more friends that have an interest in this genre I'm currently fixated on.

This basically describes me too. I think my usual gaming group is sick of me telling them about my 1cc's lol. I did get two of them to try blue revolver and doj, but that was about as far as it went. I usually hang around the various shmup discord servers, but I'm not sure how much longer that is going to last so I thought I would create an account here. Hi everyone!

[mjoldham]

Hiya, I'm a recent convert to shmups!

Growing up in the 2000s I had always been aware of shmups and arcade games as a thing, but they were always kinda alien to me (even though now I realise so many games I grew up with and loved were so heavily influenced by arcade design). Sometime in 2023 I started making an effort to actually play and engage with stuff that I had written off before, partly from curiosity and partly to make myself a better game designer.

The game which really surprised me was Rez! I always thought it looked cool but seeing the fixed rails with no character movement totally turned me off. But playing the game for myself I was so impressed with how it hooked me, even though the game is just painting targets with a cursor with a bomb to bail you out! In fact it's because of those constraints that it worked so well! I had played the Rez Infinite modern add-on with free movement, which on paper sounded like what I would've wanted, but it totally killed that amazing pace and rhythm the original game had!

So skipping forward, sometime in the summer of 2025 I finally decided to dive into shmups! I forget how I found it exactly (think I just googled 'beginner shmups' and found some random reddit post), but I gave Cho Ren Sha a go and instantly fell in love with it! It really inspired me how a solodev was able to make such a constrained, to-the-point game so fun and varied! When I started I was struggling to beat 1-1 without gameovering, but in November I finally managed to scrape a 1-ALL! It felt like I had climbed a mountain!

The only other 1-ALL I have so far is for Strikers 1945 II on Monkey difficulty (still felt great, very humbling). I've dipped my toes into Progear and the Raiden Fighters games, but right now I'm working on my Donpachi 1-ALL (currently grinding the corridor of death in stage 4, it's about 50-50 whether I manage to no-miss no-bomb it in a run lol). So far I've been really enjoying that late-Toaplan, early-Cave style of early bullet hell games, think after Donpachi I'll try out Batsugan! Although I really should play at least one of the Darius games soon considering I love Zuntata's music but haven't touched any of them yet!

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Hiya, I'm a recent convert to shmups!

Growing up in the 2000s I had always been aware of shmups and arcade games as a thing, but they were always kinda alien to me (even though now I realise so many games I grew up with and loved were so heavily influenced by arcade design). Sometime in 2023 I started making an effort to actually play and engage with stuff that I had written off before, partly from curiosity and partly to make myself a better game designer.

The game which really surprised me was Rez! I always thought it looked cool but seeing the fixed rails with no character movement totally turned me off. But playing the game for myself I was so impressed with how it hooked me, even though the game is just painting targets with a cursor with a bomb to bail you out! In fact it's because of those constraints that it worked so well! I had played the Rez Infinite modern add-on with free movement, which on paper sounded like what I would've wanted, but it totally killed that amazing pace and rhythm the original game had!

So skipping forward, sometime in the summer of 2025 I finally decided to dive into shmups! I forget how I found it exactly (think I just googled 'beginner shmups' and found some random reddit post), but I gave Cho Ren Sha a go and instantly fell in love with it! It really inspired me how a solodev was able to make such a constrained, to-the-point game so fun and varied! When I started I was struggling to beat 1-1 without gameovering, but in November I finally managed to scrape a 1-ALL! It felt like I had climbed a mountain!

The only other 1-ALL I have so far is for Strikers 1945 II on Monkey difficulty (still felt great, very humbling). I've dipped my toes into Progear and the Raiden Fighters games, but right now I'm working on my Donpachi 1-ALL (currently grinding the corridor of death in stage 4, it's about 50-50 whether I manage to no-miss no-bomb it in a run lol). So far I've been really enjoying that late-Toaplan, early-Cave style of early bullet hell games, think after Donpachi I'll try out Batsugan! Although I really should play at least one of the Darius games soon considering I love Zuntata's music but haven't touched any of them yet!

Give Rez Infinite a spin with a Playstation 4 PSVR setup -- it's awesome! It's the definitive version to play/own (complete with "head-tracking" 1st-person viewpoint perspective) indeed.

Be sure to check out the entire back-catalog of NEC PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 stg titles as well. Easily over 113 different PCE stgs worth glossing over.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[mjoldham]

Give Rez Infinite a spin with a Playstation 4 PSVR setup -- it's awesome! It's the definitive version to play/own (complete with "head-tracking" 1st-person viewpoint perspective) indeed.

Be sure to check out the entire back-catalog of NEC PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 stg titles as well. Easily over 113 different PCE stgs worth glossing over.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

@o@ thanks for the suggestions man! The best and worst thing about shmups is how much commitment they demand! Hopefully I'll live long enough to give them a fair shake haha

[theclaw]

The archetypal difficulty doesn't especially appeal to me either. Though for more forgiving (and less orthodox as stg's go) games, I'm fond of Starfox 64.

An introduction? I've dabbled in various areas. Super Mario World levels, attempting to design and draw characters (mainly for a Pokemon story of mine).

[Sengoku Strider]

Give Rez Infinite a spin with a Playstation 4 PSVR setup -- it's awesome! It's the definitive version to play/own (complete with "head-tracking" 1st-person viewpoint perspective) indeed.

Be sure to check out the entire back-catalog of NEC PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 stg titles as well. Easily over 113 different PCE stgs worth glossing over.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

@o@ thanks for the suggestions man! The best and worst thing about shmups is how much commitment they demand! Hopefully I'll live long enough to give them a fair shake haha

Rez isn't tough to learn, and it's one of my favourite games ever made. It's one of the few early attempts at "video games as art" that really nailed the video game part.

[mjoldham]

Rez isn't tough to learn, and it's one of my favourite games ever made. It's one of the few early attempts at "video games as art" that really nailed the video game part.

Oh yeah I'm right there with you man! It'll be fun to actually play it for score and a 1cc next time, I wasn't into that playstyle when I first played it.