Shmup goals 2026 – Becoming Lava

[Plasmo]

Shmup goals 2026 – Becoming Lava



A year full of hard work lies behind of us. We have lived under the motto of “Strike while the iron is hot”. But this time, we can’t just wait for this golden opportunity to pop up on its own – sit and wait until the light reaches us. In order to complete the metempsychosis, you must become the all-encompassing lava yourself. You must become the source why the iron is still hot. Press the button, fire up a shmup and… strike!

Here are the links to the previous topics. Have you reached your goals? Failed hard? Tell us!

2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018,
2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025

You know the drill by now, kid!

(1) Personal Favorite Achievements of 2025: As the name suggests, post the stuff you're the most proud of here, whether you're an Easy mode survival player or a Lunatic scorerunner. Anything that stands out to you is what you want here, no matter how silly it may be!

(2) Personal Biggest Screw-ups of 2025: Did a Power-up carrier pick you off or ram into you and ruin the GOD RUN? Whatever comedies/tragedies pop up most clearly to mind go here! These don't have to be specific occurrences but can be generalities as well in your gaming endeavors.

(3) Favorite Achievements by Others of 2025: Whether it's a long-time goal achieved by a close friend or a new WR set in one of your favorite games (or both at the same time!), you can post whatever stuff you enjoyed seeing other people do this year here!

(4) Goals for 2026: What do you have your eyes set on achieving next year? List all the clears, scores, and crazy challenges you want to achieve next year here. Be ambitious!

(BONUS) CHALLENGES TO OTHER PLAYERS: The fun one. Throw down the gauntlet and challenge someone else to something! This might be to beat one of your scores, or a race to a certain clear, or whatever you like. Remember to keep it a little friendly, but on the other hand, go totally nuts!

Alternatively, if you want to be lazy then just post your goals for the year as usual.

Your mission starts now. Are you ready?

[Kobold]

Hello fellow Shmuppers of 2026.

Heres my list:

(1) Personal favorite achievements: Ketsui Omote 2-all, DoDonPachi 2-all, Ikaruga 32,3 million AC Normal, Touhou 12 LNB

(2) Personal Biggest screwups of 2025: Maybe dying to hibachi like 12 times before getting the clear? Overall quite a lot of throwing towards the end of runs, I have had some of the biggest shakes during dodonpachi runs, making me completely unable to follow my routes.

(3) Favorite achievements by Others of 2025: Birb getting the parallel WR in Blue Revolver, Vortexxian getting his first touhou lunatic clears.

(4) Goals for 2026: Learning DOJ WL scoring. Ultimate goal maybe around 1.5 billion score 2-all. Other than that I dont know, maybe I will pick up some other shmup to waste time briefly before returning to the grind.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

I'm certainly looking forward to when pre-orders open up for the highly anticipated Sega Genesis boxed set of Earthion from Limited Run games whenever that may be this year in 2026. I'm sure it'll be at some later firmware revision other than fw4.0 (as of right now on Steam and the various console releases including NSW, PS4, PS5 and Xbox Series S/X platforms).

PC Engine Fan X! ^_^

[locoBro1196]

2025 was definitely a good year in the hobby and it will be very difficult to top it this 2026, but here goes:

(1) Personal Favorite Achievements of 2025:

- 1cc Dodonpachi Daioujou White Label with a superb run
- 1cc every Pulstar version (MVS, NCD, Switch, PS4)
- 1cc Esprade after going at it on and off for like 5+ years
- 1cc Dogyuun, hardest Toaplan title I've beat so far
- Last but not least, spent crazy amount of time on Gradius Origins beating every game in the collection **except** Gradius III (of course), with
an insane last minute run right before the end of year to top Gradius II: Gofer no Yabou.

(2) Personal Biggest Screw-ups of 2025:

This one's easy, I chickened out with Ikaruga on a monthly shmup competition and didn't even dare attempting to make it very far. I love but I hate that game, you all know what I mean.
I really wish I had the skill and brains to get good at it.

(3) Favorite Achievements by Others of 2025:

I've seen some people with crazy good skills do nearly flawless 1cc runs on Garegga, APB and Bakraid (Advanced Modes of course) with pretty much every ship, it's just a sight to behold each time.

(4) Goals for 2026. I managed 103 shmup 1cc's in 2025 so I predict it will be very difficult to top that number, my idea is to have more of a laser focus on a fewer subset of titles that I've wanted to get good at for a long time. I'd be very happy to complete the following:

- Ketsui 1-ALL
- Espgaluda 2
- Battle Garegga (how I wish...)
- Twin Cobra or Fire Shark (2P)

[Creamy Goodness]

(1) Personal Favorite Achievements of 2025: Although I did not have any real difficult clears, this year had the most clears with a couple of blind clears. All were done on default difficulty settings.

(2) Personal Biggest Screw-ups of 2025: Failing to clear Espgaluda. At best I would get to the last boss with like two lives left and just get murdered. I will forever try this one until I get it.

(3) Favorite Achievements by Others of 2025: Not sure about this one.

(4) Goals for 2026: Get back into clearing more difficult games as well as putting more of a focus on scoring. I feel like I have enough clears under my belt to where I need to look towards more than just clearing games.

[XoPachi]

I don't have any notable achievements for the year. I started practicing DDP again because I'd like at least a 1-ALL (I'll never clear both loops) and capture it on video. I've done it before and have the final score up to 2-4, but I never got it recorded. I think it's within reach. I just need to tighten up my stage 5 (you know exactly where) and my Ryuukou fight. Pretty sure I can do it again. It's been almost a decade, but that's what I wanna do this year.

[SquidDude]

(1) Personal Favorite Achievements of 2025:
Getting my first Omote 2-ALL in Ketsui, and then pushing my score up to 350 million. Incredible experience. Also cleared Ura a few times from 2-1, including one run which had 3 lives remaining at the end! Getting a D score in Garegga and a 12M in Dangun was also cool.

(2) Personal Biggest Screw-ups of 2025:
Fluking an Ura entry early in the year when I hadn't even begun learning the loop yet. Game overed in 2-4, what a waste of an entry. (also, CPS groomed me into playing the-game-that-shall-not-be-named, could be a screw-up depending on who you ask!)

(3) Favorite Achievements by Others of 2025:
RZM's Dodonpachi 2-ALL, he had so many close calls but always stuck at it, and he managed to get a pretty nice score in the game too, inspiring play.
PEG's Dangun Feveron Type A WR, very impressive to see a western Cave WR, and in one of my favourite games too.
birb's Blue Revolver Parallel WR, not gonna pretend to know anything about the scoring in the game but birb is a real one and I know that record meant a lot to him.

(4) Goals for 2026:
I keep changing my score goal in it, but I'm finally going to push for the Ketsui Ura 2-ALL.
Currently I'm aiming for >420 million, which should be doable the way my loop 1 routing is going at the minute.
I'd also like to get >250 million in loop 1, but that's ludicrously difficult and probably won't happen this year.

If I clear Ketsui early in the year, I'm planning on playing some other shmups for a change and doing my usual "1CC + as much scoring as I can fit in without making the game painful", here's a few I've got my eye on:
Raiden Fighters Jet
Battle Bakraid
Strikers 1999
Daioujou White Label
some unspecified TOA POWER game

(BONUS) CHALLENGES TO OTHER PLAYERS:
For any survival-only players reading this, I'd recommend trying out a bit of scoring in a game you really like. You might enjoy it!

[DMC]

(1) Zero Gunner 2 community record + cleared the game with all helicopters. Slight improvement of my Great Mahou Daisakusen pb too, it was very fun revisiting that after 1.5 year break or something. Got Calice Cup off my bucket list too (fun tournament!).
(2) I got a bad case of Rabio Lepus, I guess .
(3) PEG's Type A Normal WR, SFKhoa's 24.1M in Chorensha 68K, and Juju Kenobi's 74M in Donpachi, Type B. All of which shared their replays.
Predatory balloon's daily 6-hour streams and 1000+ hours of QP Shooting Dangerous (his first STG) deserves a shout as well for the sheer insanity, going for all the challenges including some supposedly ridiculous ones.
Credit also to those who shared high-quality videos of arcade centers, like the Mikado, Spain, one, including Creativo en Japón
Maucast winning Calice Cup, nice Spriggan score too!
(4) Zero gunner 2: get a bit closer to the Koreans (i.e., +100k). Soukyugurentai, just get a new pb, great mahou daisakusen, just play it maybe. Right now I'm more curious about exploring film and music. Maybe make some drone or hiphop music with STG-related samples. And use my film camera some more, maybe relating it to something STG or maybe not.

[ttiki]

First time i dare participate in this thread, but i think signing here with my blood will help me motivate. I´ll need it, for my goals look really daunting...

(1) Personal Favorite Achievements of 2025: Beating Tatsujin, a feat for me that demanded practice and discipline. I had to retrain at it after an hiatus (see screwups section) so it makes it sweeter still.

(2) Personal Biggest Screw-ups of 2025: No matter the game i´m playing, when i go on holidays (i love travelling and knowing places) i find myself changed when i return, and i´m usually unable to return back to whatever i was practicing. It pisses me off to no end, because i don´t feel motivated at all and it´s exhausting trying to motivate back again. This year tho i managed to break that cycle of doom with Tatsujin. Let´s hope i can manage to repeat it, because i travel thrice a year usually. Not good for 1CCing shmups

(3) Favorite Achievements by Others of 2025: Faith no missing Crimzon Clover unlimited (i just have a lot of respect for those that can beat this game outside novice modes). Steven for 2-looping Tatsujin some days after me beating it, and going all "wow, i can´t believe how fucking easy this game is, i started playing and made two loops just like it ". I found all the sequence terribly funny, one´s challenge it´s another´s sleepfest lol.

(4) Goals for 2026: Beating Crimzon Clover arcade normal. Maybe i´m over my head, because this game destroys me and i have never reached fourth stage, but it´s a chip on my shoulder i carry for a long time. I cleared novice modes in World Ignition without a hitch, then passed to normal and holy fuck, i was gang raped mercilessly. I´m still salty about it, i have quit in despair more than once, and now i sign this with my blood for a new try.

If it comes to naught (be it some holiday, be it that i really was way over my head), then: 1CC Tiger Heli. No, it´s not a walk in the park either

Alea Iacta est

[ZPScissors]

I was pretty much out of the community this year so I didn't really do anything and I don't know what other people did. But I did start playing UFO again a bit ago so,

(4) Goals for 2026: UFO Lunatic 3b

[Gas]

(1) Personal Favorite Achievements of 2025: Toughest achievement would be the 1LC of Truxton, probably could have practiced recoveries more, but got such a good run on the early full attempts that I just went for that instead. Gave a good rush and also the feeling of breaking through a barrier that felt impossible. Close to it would be the Lunatic clear of IN with Solo Youmu that for some reason I only got after playing 120 hours of the game, but switching up the characters each time I tackled a harder difficulty mode; and before then the toughest bullet hell 1cc being for Marisa in EoSD so was a jump. Some parts were harder than anything in Truxton, but being able to die thrice rather than 0 times just gave that impression.

(2) Personal Biggest Screw-ups of 2025: Felt some super regret choking on the final pattern of IN even though I got it later that day. Had enough resources where it looked guaranteed.

(3) Favorite Achievements by Others of 2025: Someone I know getting a 1cc of DDP DOJ WL

(4) Goals for 2026: Right now to get another 200 million points with Youmu in Imperishable Night Lunatic mode. (Reached on Jan 7)

[RZM]

(1) Personal Favorite Achievements of 2025:
DDP 2-ALL obviously #1 but I'm pretty happy with my other clears, Thunder Dragon 2, Ketsui Omote entry and all Mushi Original/Maniac modes.

(2) Personal Biggest Screw-ups of 2025:
Awful performance at Shoot the Baguette on this shitty and above all SUPER EASY game, Deathsmiles IIX. Tbh, I played the game 2 months before the event then lose interest and...I just didn't want to play it on D-Day. That's an big issue for a live event, being sure in advance that you will be in the mood to play this specific game on this specific day. Well, lesson learned : submit a game I really like.

(3) Favorite Achievements by Others of 2025:
Too many to list here ! So many impressive players with very different purposes, whether it's stringing together very difficult clears or perfecting a game to the maximum: Juju, Wes, PAN, Squiddude, Maz, PEG, Omkol, Faith, Andrew98, Asagami, SPS and so on...
But I must salute my french homie Khaos who played and cleared FDF2 Lunatic during one of the biggest live stream event in France (Speedons), in front of thousands of people (and about 50k online).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDc7EAQVVxQ

And my personal favorite IRL moment was to witness Chantake clearing DOJ WL, MMP, DDP (first thing in the morning, all lights on), and more during the Mikado event in Spain.

(4) Goals for 2026:
DDP 300m & Cyvern 26m are always somewhere in my mind but I have no specific goals but having fun playing shmups, easy or hard.

[OmKol]

(1) Personal Favourite Achievements of 2025:
- Most special one is Mushihimesama Ultra ALL clear. I had a lot of struggle with Aki final pattern and then MaitreMarcadet suggested to try 2 miss 0 bomb cloud strategy with S-Power. It's so much easier than W-Power cloud or W-Power dodging strategy - that alone was enough for me to route the whole game with S-Power. Most of the game is very doable with S-Power except of stage 3. And here I tried a small yet game changing feature - instead of quickly picking powerup in stage 3 I waited when it becomes W-Power. So my clear is S-Power with switching to W-Power in stage 3 and switching back to S-Power in stage 4. I never saw Ultra clear with the same strategy and I'm really happy to do a Cave game clear with something unique in my route!
- Devil Blade Reboot, 25.5 mil Inferno clear
- Salamander III, six loops clear with 8.83 mil score, also some Gradius clears like Gradius ReBirth Type-A 3 loops clear and Gradius Gaiden Vic Viper 2 loops clear
- And second place in shmup focused Calice Cup. Every game was cleared and that includes Pilot Kids 4.95 mil, Psyvariar 2 53.4 mil TLB clear, Rabio Lepus 9 mil Expert course clear, Silk Worm Jeep 3.26 mil score, Twin Eagle II 5.42 mil clear, TwinBee Yahho! 4.56 mil clear

(2) Personal Biggest Screw-ups of 2025:
I didn't played Ketsui

(3) Favourite Achievements by Others of 2025:
- Wes is crushing shmups as usual and it's fun to follow his progress. Under Defeat 2-ALL, Dodonpachi 2-ALL, Mushihimesama Ultra Non-MAX, Mushihimesama Futari 1.5 Ultra and more done in just one year! And now he is learning Futari 1.01 Ultra. Crazy stuff
- Calice Cup 11 top scores are huge. For example Daniil33080 with Rabio Lepus Expert course 11.2 mil score. This game is dumb and this score is not a joke. G-Darius 45.9 mil by Miclus1, Psyvariar 2 158 mil by M.Knight and Pilot Kids 6.24 mil by GrandTimeWizard are also impressive. But here's more - GrandTimeWizard actually did Pilot Kids 2-ALL with 9.06 mil score!
- I'm also happy to see Daniil33080 and Roihu3m scores in Raiden Fighters 2 (US, 1 loop clear), both in range 84-85 mil and just a few million lower than Maucast score
- CPS did five loops clear in Salamander! This game is very unforgiving, no extends and any big mistake can instantly end your credit so this achievement is huge
- Dangun Feveron Type-A World Record by PEG. World Record in a Cave game. And this game is really good and really hard. Fantastic replay to watch
There's so much more. I'm sure I can put much more community scores and I will still forget something

(4) Goals for 2026:
Maybe Mushihimesama Futari 1.5 Ultra ALL clear? I already routed most of the game but Larsa is scary...

[Wes112]

(1) Personal Favorite Achievements of 2025:
- Under Defeat new order mode 2-all and 6.2m score PB in arcade mode
- Dodonpachi 2-all
- Improving my play on stick enough to get a Progear 2-all
- Completing a goal of getting a 1cc in every single mode in Mushi 1
- Mushi Futari v1.5 ultra mode 1cc to close out the year

(2) Personal Biggest Screw-ups of 2025:
Not sticking with Donpachi. I came to really enjoy the game this year but I ended up taking a break from shmups for a little bit due to feeling burnt out and never got around to getting back into it when I started playing again. Definitely want to make up for that in 2026.

(3) Favorite Achievements by Others of 2025:
- RZM's DDP 2-all. Was very cool seeing all of his progression towards the clear and it really inspired me to start playing it.
- Omkol's ultra mode clear in Mushi 1 using S-power
- BlazingLazers kicking ass all year in the R-type series
- PAN's DOJ BL, DDP & Donpachi 2-all clears in what felt like such a short span of time
- The surge of Futari ultra clears that occurred throughout the year. Crazy4pokemon, Tom, Lakiku on v1.5 and then both Crazy4pokemon (again!) & Thisrg (on the last day of the year lol) clearing v1.01

(4) Goals for 2026:
Re-visiting Donpachi and yet at the same time, play more non-cave shmups

[Steven]

I have no idea what goals I had for last year, but I almost certainly failed them all because I basically did not play STGs last year. This is going to be a very pitiful list.

(1) Personal Favorite Achievements of 2025: N/A, because I accomplished nothing

(2) Personal Biggest Screw-ups of 2025: Not playing STGs

(3) Favorite Achievements by Others of 2025: ??? No idea, didn't really pay attention...

(4) Goals for 2026: Actually play STGs

[Faith]

Great thread! Will definitely be super interesting to read everyone's replies @_@!~ And here, for Faith self:

(1) Personal Favorite Achievements of 2025: Haha easy, of course will be my Crimzon Clover Arcade Unlimited No-Miss ALL Clear >.<!~

(2) Personal Biggest Screw-ups of 2025: I think, for me, two things. First, even if not "biggest" but is a problem, when repeating runs a lot, St 1 can become a bit "routine." Had many runs throw out because brain go into other places during run and then completely forget where am in stage and route mess up, lol. But, "biggest" is definitely one PB run reach TLB in Crimzon Clover with 4 extends and still failed because lost concentration >.<!~

(3) Favorite Achievements by Others of 2025: So, when I got my first Crimzon Clover Arcade Unlimited 1CC, by chance, someone on my friend list had also been trying to clear this mode (will not name them, just in case they do not want to be mentioned!) lol. It was not any challenge, but more, for both of us to give each other much needed support clearing this crazy mode ~_~"... but, after I got my clear, they got it the next day! That was really very surreal for both of us!~



Another mention I will say is the Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu 1-ALL by "H3LL" in Shmup Slam 7. It was this player's first Arcade 1CC, and I remember they were wearing a sweater with the words "Cave 1CC" on the back haha! But, could really see the happiness after the clear, and these things, always very heartwarming!!

Also, final shout-out, really... to everyone who manage any 1CC, even those many Novice clears. I really love, how in this community, here, or even on other sites... everyone is always so supportive, and even encouraging, towards beginner players. I think, 2025, is the year I saw most new players come into this community, and genre... and most number of Novice clears, and everyone celebrating them. I hope... going into future... we can keep this attitude up!~

(4) Goals for 2026: For me, for STG goals... actually, for now, have none. But... for myself, I really hope to hate myself less, and, be less strict, or rather, more forgiving and maybe have not too high expectation from myself. Actually, I was born into arcade and STG because when young... I was never good enough. So, being alone a lot, I would hide away in arcades because I was lucky to have one near home still around! And there, I tried to prove to myself, to try to be good at one thing at least. At that time, arcades already mostly dead, so that was good for me because it meant I could be alone too. These scars, I still see them in the mirror... even my hubby can still see them through my eyes. In a way, this is why I am very competitive... but, it was never always for the better. I hope, that with more time, I can change this.

(BONUS) CHALLENGES TO OTHER PLAYERS: For Steven: I know, you can do it :p and, I remember, once someone said to you... that they do not know how you can struggle so much with danmaku haha. I think, you just need to put focus into one game... one mode... and just put a bit of time into it! In a casual way, just try to pick one STG, play it every day before anything else, even if just one round... and clear it! And have fun! Before year end, you will see, you will manage!~

[maximo310]

(1) Personal Favorite Achievements of 2025:
Operation Ragnarök 6.2 million clear - I wasn't expecting to even hit 6 million, but for the month once I understood how the macros influence where you need to milk points, getting 6.2 million in a month doesn't seem too bad.
Psyvariar 2 104 million TLB Clear - EC had mentioned this game a few years ago when he was extensively playing Shooting Type. So I tried that first for Calice, and really didn't get a lot out of it despite getting a low score TLB clear. Then after seeing MKnight's Buzz Type PB run on my YT reccomendations, I ended up switching to that & ended up enjoying the game a lot more.

Garegga A.93 clear w/ Gain - A bit unexpected, but I was glad to get this one done after putting it on my goals list a few years back.

(2) Personal Biggest Screw-ups of 2025:
- No Dangun Feveron TLB clear; got sniped in 2 runs before the stage 5 boss
- Got a new job in July which limited playtime towards the latter half of the year

(3) Favorite Achievements by Others of 2025:
- Kino getting a 30 billion 2-ALL in Cotton Reboot: High Tension
- EC finally 2-ALL'ing Sonic Wings 2 & achieving a very high scoring 2.9 million
-weakboson coming back to Psyvariar Revision/Delta & beating my scores along with achieving 132 million in Psyvariar 2
-Maucast crushing Viper Phase 1 with 15.6 million! and getting over 90 million in RF2 (among other games)
-Ricken getting the first Psyvariar Revision replay with over 200 million! Probably one of the most insane replay drops of the year!
- Juju getting 74 mil in Donpachi, so close to WR now !

(4) Goals for 2026:

- Guardian Force Clear - After trying the new Shmupmame the other day & getting to Stage F, this looks doable
- more Psyvariar/ Raiden action?
- having fun

(BONUS) CHALLENGES TO OTHER PLAYERS:
- Kino, I know you've got a new Cotton PB waiting to be unveiled, but I'll be waiting to see if the new shmupmame can get you past 27 million in Cotton 2

[MAZ]

(1) Personal Favorite Achievements of 2025: Well, not much to write here. I beat my PB by a very narrow 20k margin. On the other hand, consistency is on the rise! I also did my 1000th Ikaruga clear this year, not a scoring goal but still a cool milestone

(2) Personal Biggest Screw-ups of 2025: Chocked the 36m score many times. Among others, I chocked 2 times during Tageri 3rd milking (can't really be mad about It) and 2 times at the Stone-Like (I was really salty about it for days). But everything is part of the process I guess

(3) Favorite Achievements by Others of 2025: so many that I will surely miss someone. In no particular order
-Juju Donpachi 74m Type-B
-Ricken 8,58 Ch3 AC Ikaruga Normal. So close to 8.6m! Also, Psyvariar Revision 200m
-Innocent Treasure clears in so many Ikaruga modes
-Kobold 32.3m Ikaruga AC Normal clear
-Wes Under Defeat 2-all (among others)
-Maucast Viper Phase 1 15.6m
-SFKhoa Cho Ren Sha 24.1m
-RZM DDP 2-All
-PEG Dangun Feveron Type-A WR. Let me write it again: WR!
-Omkol mushi Ultra clear and Salamander III 6 loops clear
-DMC Zero Gunner 2 community record + I really enjoyed his YT uploads. Keep them coming!

(4) Goals for 2026: Still 36m in Ikaruga AC Normal. My screwups had me playing the game for longer, so my skills are still developing. I am studying a slightly different Shigi (Ch3 midboss) opening pattern that may yeld a better consistency. I am also considering getting more aggressive at Bunretsu with an hgiher scoring, more risky strat. I am slowly getting better at It but It is still maddening difficult

[birb]

(1) Personal Favorite Achievements of 2025:

• Blue Revolver Double Action Stasis Field saga. Ending with a 218 million which took the Hyper mode World Record.
• Taking the world record from all 3 main game modes of Blue Revolver Double Action, claiming them all with a weapon thought to be obsolete which is Mae's Cluster Missile. Absolute beast of a weapon but tough to operate. Ending with the Parallel world record which mustered every mental and emotional strength I have. The crazy thing to me is I didn't expect it to be THE run when I reached the final boss. But the moment I clutched it and reached the TLB that is when my nerves went haywire. But I'm so glad I did what I did during TLB, like going for the 2nd phase safespot and honest-dodging the 3rd phase. If I had bombed the last pattern. Small chance it wouldn't have been a world record. And this is what keeps me thinking about this achievement is the odds at which this happened. Some run of the mill credit that failed 2 breaks takes the world record by the skin of its teeth.
• ALLTYNEX Second Hard 1CC. Everything about this game speaks to me on a personal level. highly recommend to any shmup enthusiast.
• Mushihimesama Arrange 1CC

(2) Personal Biggest Screw-ups of 2025:

• Losing interest in UFO after countless tragic lunatic runs. I love this game to death but stage 5 and stage 6 + final boss is such an impossible sequence of obstacles to get through for me for some reason.
• Many, many, MANY failed parallel runs that could've been 2nd place or world record which at times made me consider quitting the grind. But of course I'm glad I continued.
• Black Heart MKII gatekeeping me from getting the Garegga clear many times.

(3) Favorite Achievements by Others of 2025:

• Can't go wrong with Kobold's DDP 2-ALL! I was there in vc when he got it. A promising player for sure and I cannot wait to see his progress with DOJWL!
• Emeroring's Sonic Wings 2 2-ALL. Pray for Mambo...
• Daniil3308 Dragon Blaze 2-ALL. His run got me interested in the game.
• Iconoclast's DOJ WL 1.91 billion 2-ALL.
• Kaede's Battle Garegga Miyamoto 19.01 million. What a beast.

(4) Goals for 2026:

• RefleX & Kamui 1CC
• UFO & FW lunatic 1CC
• DOJBL 2-ALL probably with a 1 billion score goal
• Battle Garegga clear then maybe start scoring it with a letter score goal in mind
• Phantasmagoria Trues 100%(or at least close to completion)
• HSiFS lunatic 3 billion w/ Marisa Winter subseason
• Getting more into Takumi. GigaWing + Mars Matrix clears.

[marus]

(1) Personal Favorite Achievement of 2025:

• Playing Espgaluda II live - One of my goals I set last year was to play a game live at an event, and ended up playing Espgaluda II at both Shmup Slam 7 and at Mikado Europe! Both events were amazing times, and playing on stage was a ton of fun! The SS7 run in particular was kind of sloppy, but I think it still turned out to be a great show (in no small part thanks to JZ's excellent commentary). I had a lot of fun watching other people's runs as well, and met lots of cool new people. I want to continue making it out to live events when I can, and playing with people in person is always a great motivator to get me to practice.

(2) Personal Biggest Screw-up of 2025:

• Not hitting my goal of 800 million in Espgaluda II - This was the only score-related goal I set for myself last year, but unfortunately I didn't play nearly enough to reach it. I still made some good progress in terms of practice and routing - at least my individual stage splits are now above 800 million. To some extent, failing this was just due to real-life stuff preventing me from playing shmups as much as I would have liked, which can't be helped. But even with the limited shmup time I had, I definitely could have focused my practice more, haha.

(3) Favorite Achievements by Others of 2025:
I'm definitely going to forget some, but here are some standouts from last year:

• Birb destroying Blue Revolver - Birb absolutely loves this game, and I loved seeing his progress throughout the entire year in every game mode. For a while I was afraid he was going to ragequit on going for the Parallel WR, but I'm so glad he stuck with it and pulled it off!
• Froebom clearing Same! Same! Same! - Froebom playing this game at SS7 was a joy to watch. Even though he didn't get the clear, watching him get stuck in stage 8 checkpoint hell and then finally breaking through on his last life was one of the hypest moments of the events. We all were cheering like he just beat the game lol. About a month later he got his revenge with the 1-ALL. This is easily the most demanding game Toaplan made, and I'm always impressed when anyone manages to learn to clear it.
• EC Sonic Wings 2 2-ALL - This is another SS7 adventure story, where EC progressed from getting the 1-ALL live to pulling off the 2-ALL near the end of the year. Not only that, but he did it with a no-miss run with near WR-level scoring! EC is basically the expert now in Sonic Wings 1, 2, and 3. The only thing giving me unease is that the only Sonic Wings left for him to destroy are Sonic Wings Limited and Reunion.
• Docviper clearing Rayforce - This is a local Seattle story, but our local arcade got a Rayforce cabinet in, and Docviper really wanted to get a 1cc of the game on cab before he had to move, since he'd probably never see the game in a cab again for a long time. To add an extra layer of challenge, the cab didn't have a 30Hz autofire circuit, which really makes the game a lot tougher and invalidates a lot of the ezpz 1cc guides lol. After a few months of practice he managed to get the clear on cab! Unfortunately I wasn't there to witness it in person, which I'm sad about, but it's still cool to see his practice pay off, and I'm glad he was able to get the clear before leaving.

(4) Goals for 2026:

• Get 800 million in Espgaluda II - This is still my main goal at the moment. I'm pretty close to starting full runs (although my practice has been stretched out over so long that I'll probably be rusty in the earlier stages for a while lol). This will be a rough score goal for me, but I'm confident I can do it if I keep playing consistently!
• Grind a dadshmup - This will be my hardest challenge yet - turning fake interest into real interest! But I've been more or less exclusively playing bullet hell for all my shmup life, so I want to spend some time this year learning about the classics my ancestors played. I have a few candidates in mind: the R-Type series looks like a lot of fun to route with its force pod mechanic. I could follow in EC's footsteps and try to 2-ALL one of the Sonic Wings games. Or I could dig out that copy of M2's Kyuukyoku Tiger sitting in a box somewhere (or god forbid Same! Same Same!, although idk if I'm ready to go full toapower yet). That said I'm still focused on Espgaluda II right now, so I'll see what I feel like playing after finishing with that goal.

(Bonus) Challenges to Other Players:
Go outside and make some friends! I know not everyone lives near other players or has the means to travel, but if you can, it's a really cool experience to meet other shmuppers. And events are a great motivator for improving!

[CStarFlare]

(1) Personal Favorite Achievements of 2025

I did get my first Gradius-like clear, with Parodius Da PCE. It's not my preferred style of STG, but I've thought about giving a Gradius game a real shot - probably Gaiden. I'm not strong or patient enough for an arcade shmup with checkpoints.

(2) Personal Biggest Screw-ups of 2025

I had several goals in 2025 and I didn't hit any of them (since I barely played).

(3) Favorite Achievements by Others of 2025

I haven't been paying close enough attention to recall very much. It's been cool to see Birb take on Blue Revolver.

(4) Goals for 2026

For 2026, I'd like to knock a few of my 2025 goals off, since all the pieces are in place and it's just a matter of doing runs. Plus the aforementioned Gradius Gaiden.

Aside from that, I'd like to finally pick up a Milestone game - I liked Illveo when I had the Milestone Shooting Collection, and Karous seems pretty cool (and got a rerelease recently). I've been vibing to KHDN lately so it's been on my mind.

I'd like to take Espgaluda II seriously - it's easily Cave's most interesting game but I never put real effort into it. Perpetual entry on my "go back to" list. I don't want anything crazy (like 800m), I'd just like to clear, maybe with 300 or 400m.

[mycophobia]

(BONUS) CHALLENGES TO OTHER PLAYERS:
- Kino, I know you've got a new Cotton PB waiting to be unveiled, but I'll be waiting to see if the new shmupmame can get you past 27 million in Cotton 2

he could do it. easily!

[Cakestial]

(1) Personal Favorite Achievements of 2025:
2-ALL Gradius Arcade clear
Gunvein Intense Clear 7.9 Million

(2) Personal Biggest Screw-ups of 2025:
No gradius II clear and no 3 loop clear gradius.

(3) Favorite Achievements by Others of 2025:
RZM's Dodonpachi 2-ALL
Faith's Crimzon clover Unlimited No Miss
Predatory balloon's QP Shooting dangerous All Natural clear
miyamoto Garegga WR

(4) Goals for 2026:
Gradius II and III
Strikers 1945 and if I like it then go for other psykio STGs
Blazing Star
Crimzon Clover Original

[To Far Away Times]

(1) Personal Favorite Achievements of 2025:

• Clearing Salamander 2. This is a game I wanted to sink some time into for ages as I've always liked the artwork and music and finally got around to clearing it.

• I got a PS5 so I could finally get a chance to play R-Type Final 3 Evolved and I was able to 1CC that, so I'm back to having 1CC'd every game in the R-Type series.

• Also got a Touhou 20 1CC, so I'm current on 1CCing that series as well.

List of 1CCs for 2025

Chouyoku Senki Estique
Devil Blade Reboot
Earthion
Fantastic Danmaku Festival 2
Fantastic Danmaku Festival 3
Frantically Forbidden Fruit
Hollow Song of Birds
Infinite Blade Pavillion
Mystical Power Plant
R-Type Final 3 Evolved
Riverbed Soul Saver
Salamander 2
Salamander 3
Shining Shooting Star
Touhou 20

(2) Personal Biggest Screw-ups of 2025:

• I didn't make much progress in some of the other white whale games I've wanted to clear, namely Strikers 1945 and Darius II arcade.

(3) Favorite Achievements by Others of 2025:

• Faith's no miss clear of Crimzon Clover Unlimited is a recent one that jumps out. That's nuts. Going through this thread I'm seeing stuff like CAVE 2-ALL's and such. I don't know how ya'll do it. I'm usually tapped out after learning enough for a basic normal 1CC, and even then, that's far from a guarantee on any game that's medium or harder difficulty.

• Kind of a weird one, but I really appreciate the time the ShadPS4 developers have put into advancing PS4 emulation, and the Battle Garegga 2016 revision port is very playable on Steam Deck, so now that I can play it on a handheld device on the couch, I might actually play it some. I consider this game unplayable outside of the 2016 port due to the light gray invisibullets, and the Sega Saturn's red ball mode is not hitbox accurate, so really the 2016 port is the only way to play the game with the visibility issues fixed.

(4) Goals for 2026:

• 1-ALL one game from the Strikers 1945 series and/or a 1CC of Darius II arcade.

• Clear the last two EX routes of Darius Burst AC.

[M.Knight]

(1) Personal Favourite Achievements of 2025:

• Psyvariar 2 was really my game of the year, with a Yuhei Community record ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caekc9CDseg ), a clear of all the Buzz missions ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQHn2NV77iQ ), as well as a Calice top spot ( https://calice.snowcrash.fun/scores/Psyvariar%202/25) since Calice 11 featured this game, even if the competition wasn't as demanding for me as on the other few opportunities for a rank 1 on a Calice game.

• MMP Momo live run and clear at Fightcade offline. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fLz3YyGmkg ) I think it's the first time I run a shmup for a live event in a physical venue and on a cab rather than in the comfort of my own home and inputs devices. Thanks TropicalBits for nagging me to do it despite my initial reluctance haha.

• I kept exploring Space Seeker and beat all the known unique ground stages in a run ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPfVZ8o9beM ). What a cool game that is really ancient (1981!) but also feels so fresh given all the unique mechanics, the mix of subgenres, and the cool map to move around to get to the stages.

• Homura 1CC ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YprbyC1aqtc ) : I finally got to try this shmup and what a blast this is! Skonec cements itself as an absolute S-tier shmupdev in my eyes. Not an outstanding score but I would definitely like to come back to it later to improve that. My quest for the clear also motivated Weakboson to come back to the game and get a clear of his own too, and one that definitely scores higher than mine at that! ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzGjWSjpRGY ) While our journey was not as crazy as the Shikigami gang adventures from a few years ago, I still had a lot of fun discussing strats and sharing progress!

• Random shmup year of the month at Shmup Junkies. ( https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... pZYzqgN4x3 ) Basically a concept where every month we explored a random year and all the shmups that came out during it, and then voted for our favorites and discussed the results. We got to play and try so many games which is really cool, though quite time-consuming. There's too many of them out there hahaha. While I'm no longer doing this after 2025 in order to focus again on personal goals and activities, the rest of the shmup detectives are still going to explore a lot more stuff in 2026 and beyond!

(2) Personal Biggest Screw-ups of 2025:

• Psyvariar 2 - Yuhei TLB blue ring death ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQZJVsbKNwc&t=22m12s )
  My first Gluon Buzz type 1CC ended with 139mil but could have been 164 if I just...pressed Bomb like I planned to instead of trying to be fancy with natural level ups at the last second. Bruh. It's all good in the end, as my later PB run with an unbroken Buzz chain has an even higher score!

• When going for a recording of an MMP Ikuo clear (I cleared with her on cab but not at home), I kept throwing so many runs, my PB was not even a clear : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nHzAQ2xjo0
  If only I checked Pearl's strats on the last boss sooner, I wouldn't have had so many issues heh.

• Twin Eagle II - Last boss fail even though I had 2 lives in stock due to a lack of practice and failed special inputs ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0P4NZXgVJw&t=29m ) This is not the only time I fucked up for this but this there is likely the most ridiculous one. Well, I can forgive the game for having these kinds of silly inputs because it's so cool anyways.

(3) Favourite Achievements by Others of 2025:

• Showa Yojyo playing Illvelo again! https://xcancel.com/showa_yojyo/status/ ... 3722808702 I thought his journey was over but he somehow managed to find a way to play the game, and hopefully he will finally get that 10bil score he wants

• Mirashar (Radirgy 2 top scorer) went on a grind to 100% Illvelo Swamp Happy Together, and fulfilling all the game's orders involved a very long journey to get enough items. While this requires more time than skill, it was cool to see a madman go for it and even stream the final leg of the grinding : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8amXrhtvotA

• Weakboson's Psyvariar Revison community record: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfK4YWdkXJ4 and his Psyvariar 2 Buzz type clear with a 132mil score : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9v1ZYBFGyo
  Between that and Homura, it looks like the man spent 2025 playing super cool shmups hahaha.

• Kazact coming back for some Bee Storm action with a small PB yet one that breaks the 5bil barrier. Maybe a precursor to even greater accomplishments ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfDjWQ1AtTQ

• PEG's Dangun Feveron ALL + TLB WR clear with Type A. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icKKphhWpnQ ) Very cool run with underused ship + fascinating strats I had no idea were a thing, like that boss 3 opener where you can go at the top and deal damage to both turrets with the roll.

• SquidDude Dangun Feveron TLB clear ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AELlHM62wKM ) A really nice comeback given his previous scorerun could have been a TLB unlock but it lost a single life...mere seconds before killing the final boss. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jptmx8l7S-k&t=17m47s )

• The JP arcade a-cho closed so not sure if the Karous saga will continue but it went out with a bang as Eiden seemingly got a 19.6 bil score ??? Also a 4.6bil without bullet converters? I haven't gotten the opportunity to see those yet since it's on the Madness of da world DVD that I'm not sure is available for web purchase yet but that is some really impressive dedication!

• I got some more French players into Deathsmiles 2 during the Fightcade offline event, like Khaos who then went on to score AC mode a decent amount at home, with a current Casper PB of 552 mil. Awesome to make more people see the light haha.

• Birb's Blue Revolver DA Parallel WR. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ly-A3fiPPjY ) So much investment, experimenting with multiple weapons, labbing, contributing to the wiki, grinding, etc. that it just feels right for the payoff to finally occur. And you can sense the final leg of the run must have been insanely stressful as you not only are on this pace, but also can't really fuck up for this due to most of your safety net being spent earlier for score.

• Marus' live EspGaluda 2 runs at Fightcade Offline ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHiS891tjT0 ) and Shmup Slam 7 ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvoXYoR7mFk&t=9h13m ). Insane swag. I absolutely loved the contrast between how wild the scoring tricks on display are, and how relaxed he appeared (emphasis on "appeared" hehe) to be when pulling them off, casually sipping his drink in between the stages as if it was all just a relaxing day in the park hahaha.

• Juju Kenobi's brand new strats for DonPachi's lucrative chains unveiled at the end of Shoot the Baguette 7 ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cizqUKbGSUc&t=5h14m35s ). I will obviously never play/enjoy this game seriously (or even casually!) but I appreciate the creativity of these out-of-left-field strategies and the progress players are making in it. In this case, the added millions from his chain extension idea to what is already a really lucrative chain could give him the record for his ship type (though not overall record) which would be pretty cool!

• PAN coming seemingly out of nowhere and clearing so many shmups with the power of methodical learning and good strats, making video guides as well. The Gate of Thunder live run at Slam 7 ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3NlQFXj3oU&t=3h29m04s ) remains one of my favorites of that event for the challenge combined with the somewhat chill and casual yet very informative live commentary.

(4) Goals for 2026:

Reviewing last year's goals :

[+] Keep playing and having fun => For sure
[-] More Brave Blade character clears / 60 mil scores => I sadly did not get that score. I did some runs here and there but couldn't keep the momentum long enough for it to strike. Maybe some time in the future!
[-] Illvelo - 9bil => I clearly did not spend the necessary time to delve into this. I dunno how many years I told myself I need to get 9bil and didn't, it's like a recurring joke at this point hahaha.
[+] Psyvariar 2 - Yuhei mission 20 clear and community record => I wasted no time getting that goal!
[~] Mess more with Chaos Field's arcade version => I actually did that a little bit! Not as much as I wanted to but I'm getting somewhere.

-Keep playing and having a good time
-Play more Milestone stuff, especially Chaos Field

(BONUS) CHALLENGES TO OTHER PLAYERS:


PLAY JUST 4FUN

[Angry Hina]

(1) Favorite Achievements: I Played often fighting games (SF6 and SvC:Chaos) in the first half of 2025, so there where not that many STGs. But my biggest one is playing Ghost Blade HD month over month. It started with some normi playing it on easy with continues and just wrote something like "well nothing special" which triggered me a bit.
So I started playing it to get a simple normal clear to be able to write more about this game. But I had much fun with it so I played it with all ships (one of them is a big step up in terms of difficuty ) and after that, I felt I am not done with the game I had still fun. So I not only got hard clears but also killed the final boss in one of the runs (you can time him out, which is much easier) and also hard cleared it with the weak ship. After all of that ~65 hours passed and I was pleased and well entertained

Then came my first 4th loop clear (Vimana of course) and my first no autofire run (Vimana too).

My Tatsujin arcade clear was a bit harder than expected (I cleared the MD version 2021 but many things had to be adjusted in my playstyle) and much less stressful compared to my MD run which I only played on real hardware so I had to train without safestates. This felt much more like work and fear was more involved back then ^^

(2) Biggest Screw-ups: fucked up some 2nd loop clear attempts because of the hard 2nd loop 1st boss ckeckpoint in Tatsujin. Needed much work on some other checkpoints as well to make it happen.

(3) Achievements by Others: On YT I got a comment by ExitPlanetDust who played Aleste 3 atm and got later a no slowdown hard clear. This is a bit more noticeable because he and myself are the only ones posting highscores for this modes. And I was writing with him a bit while he got his clear and possibly I helped a bit staying motivated ^^

(4) Goals for 2026: I already achieved my first Goal: Tatsujin 2-All (but it went straight into a 3-1 Clear)
I also cleared Rendering Ranger and I hope, I can record the hard clear as well within the next days.

But overall, my goal is for this year to play some of the easier STGs to get a even more broad understanding of the genre. Sadly I dont want to play on emulator so my list is defined by the platform too. My aimes are for instance Cotten 100% (have cleared it already but not recorded it and I like it enough, that I want to have a more special clear (1LC ?)), Thunder Cross, Gradius (NES), perhaps Gradius 3 (SNES) too, Gleylancer, Final Star Force, Hellfire MD or Sturmwind.

DOJ, you have to wait but we will be together next year for sure.

I would also like to buy a PSP with C64 emulator and clear Manfred Trenz' STGs.

(Bonus): I have some scores and clears for kinda obscure games very few peaple posted for them, so: Come and beat my awesome Ghost Blade, Star Soldier Vanishing Earth and GG Aleste Special Scores !!!