What was your first shmup?

[Angelo85]

I’m curious as to what was everyone’s first shmup they remember playing. For me, it was Nemesis on the Game Boy. I played that game for hours when I was about 7-8 years old at the time. I thought this might be a fun conversation for the forum members to reminisce about their earliest shmup memories.

[jpd66]

Nice topic, and welcome to the forum! For me, I don’t really remember which specific shmup was my first, but there are a few that are in the ballpark. My earliest memories of playing video games are from the late 80s- probably ‘87 or ‘88. Like most people around that time, I played arcade games all over the place, in the wild- actual arcades, restaurants, grocery stores, etc. I’m sure that I came across plenty of shmups, but the two that stand out from those early arcade experiences would be Galaga and 1942. From memory, it seemed like you might come across those two machines just about anywhere.

And at home, our first system to play games on was the NES, probably like many of the folks around here. We didn’t have a lot of games, maybe around 15-20 or so. Amongst them, we had Xevious and Captain Skyhawk. And we played the hell out of them! I don’t remember us being great at them, but we enjoyed them nonetheless!

[SavagePencil]

If Asteroids on the 2600 doesn’t count, then Space Invaders on the 2600.

[neat_beans]

I think it was probably Ikaruga on the GameCube. I grew up with an N64 and it infamously had none...

That said, the first shmup I played for any significant amount of time was Rayforce (well, Layer Section as I knew it) on an imported Saturn I bought later in my teens. Even while slumming it in Yoko mode, that's the game that really turned me onto the genre.

[AGermanArtist]

Probably Space Invaders, but I didn't like it. I liked Phoenix, which came along a little later iirc.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

I'd have to the very same two Atari VCS (Video Computer System) game titles of Asteroids and Space Invaders back in 1980 at a friend's house (as previously mentioned above posting by fellow shmupper Savage Pencil). When my dad bought an original brand new Atari VCS set back in 1982, it came bundled with Defender, Superman, Human Cannonball and Warlords -- played the heck out of Defender back in 1982 with the original Atari VCS joystick without an external auto-fire add-on and used to press the fire button like crazy trying kill those pesky Defender enemies such as the Landers, Mutants, Bombers, Pods & Swarmers. Played the Atari 2600 version of Vanguard that was released in 1983 with it's unique 4-way auto-fire capability/functionality during a heated gaming session making my way through both Loops 1 and 2.

----------
Eventually bought the 1986 Atari 2600 release of Stargate with the silver colored box in full color + full color Stargate instruction manual -- it used two Atari joystick controllers to activate Fire, Thrust, Inviso, Hyperspace and Smart Bomb functionality (an Atari 2600 "Track and Field" controller that was released back in 1984 can be used in lieu of the 2nd Atari joystick to activate Inviso, Hyperspace & Smart Bomb as dedicated separate buttons assigned to each one {thus making it better gaming controller to use with the 2600 port of Stargate indeed} -- how cool is that?).
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PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Starfighter]

It was some sort of 1944 arcade cabinette standing in a hotel my family stayed at during a vacation in the mid 90s. I don't remember more details, I was pretty young. My first shmup that I bought for myself and that opened my eyes to the genre was Strikers 1945 II on PS1 in the early 00's.

[MJR]

"First shmup" sounds almost like a question to someone who is young enough to have been a child when shmups were already established genre and all households had access to gaming platforms. But I can list how they gradually entered my life, even though it took a while before they started to resemble the shmups we know today.

The shooting game I played was Missile Command in the 70's. You pressed button and shot things. But it resembles very little any modern shmup. I kept seeing and trying coin ops in early 80's, but very few of them resembled modern shmups either. I also had vic-20 and mattel intellivision on loan from friends and relatives, but their shooting games, Omega Race and Demon attack did not feel that much closer to shmups of today. Scramble on Vic-20 I loved a lot, when I visited my friend's house to play it. But that was not MY first shmup.

In early 80's, computers and consoles were largely expensive luxury items, and when not visiting friends place or getting to borrow from relative, I was only able to have access to them if I had a dime or two for a coin-op. First coin-op I was able to put few more coins on was either Exerion, or Tehkan's Star Force, a PCB that I now own and which I still consider a design masterpiece. I also played Capcom's Section Z roughly at the same time, and was blown away by the graphics. I believe this was 1984 but it's hard to remember properly.

I was not able to have a bought, original shmup until I had Commodore 64 on 1988, I then bought Uridium+ and Hades Nebula from the money I had from doing paperboy work. Before that I was mostly playing pirated tape copy of Uridium and Dropzone.

Both Hades Nebula and Uridium feel very arcade-y and avoided the usual euroshmup trappings. Hades Nebula was an obvious riff to Star Force, and I was (and still are) the biggest Star Force fan on the planet, I appreciated Hades Nebula a lot, even though it had one of the usual trappings of euroshmup, namely bad difficulty curve, where game is first too hard, then too easy, and then almost impossible to beat near the very end and you can only beat it by some stupid gimmick. But I did beat it. Uridium is still unbeatable to me. Then again, Uridium also was interesting hybrid of a game with it's obstacle-avoiding and slow turning speed which thankfully was not seen again.

[Light1000]

Earliest I can remember was a generic phone game. Only thing that stood out about it iirc is that it would have minor profanities pop up when you got hit

[locoBro1196]

The first shmup I ever played was Megaphoenix (with an amazing cover which is my current avatar), a game made by Dinamic, a Spanish company from the 80s. Not a good game by any stretch of the imagination but I put a lot of hours into it as a kid.

I then proceeded to rent (from Blockbuster) Super R-Type for a weekend, which I hated so intensely that it put me off shmups altogether for well over a decade. It wasn't until the mid 2000s that I started to get back into the genre thanks to some of the PS2 releases like Espgaluda and DDP DOJ.

[Mero]

The first one I played would have been the arcade version of Pheonix, in a Chinese Takeaway sometime around '83/'84.

[Lemnear]

R-Type for Amiga in mid-90s, from my uncles' Amiga, which they later left to me, with a load of floppy discs. R-Type is the first one I remember trying, but there were also Apydia, SWIV and Super Space Invaders.

[Angry Hina]

Probably Space Invaders, but I didn't like it. I liked Phoenix, which came along a little later iirc.

The first shmup I ever played was Megaphoenix (with an amazing cover which is my current avatar), a game made by Dinamic, a Spanish company from the 80s. Not a good game by any stretch of the imagination but I put a lot of hours into it as a kid.

The first one I played would have been the arcade version of Pheonix, in a Chinese Takeaway sometime around '83/'84.

Funny to read this. For me it was Mega Phoenix for the C64. I thought it was so cool with these big Alien-Birds (even cooler was of course that you could shoot away their wings (but they can regrow)) and the giant boss. But I was very young at this time and I was far away from clearing or even 1cc'ing it.

Even more influential for me was R-Type for the Gameboy and a bit later Super R-Type. But again: I was not able to really play these. But the way the stages are designed and how the art style was, shaped my taste for the whole genre.

After Ikaruga gave the genre a bit more mainstream press appearance, I started diving into Danmaku and 1cc'ed Daifukkatsu at first (after not beating Futari, Deathsmiles and Guwange).

[neorichieb1971]

Don't know for sure.

My arcade in the 80's had Galaxian, Galaga, Scramble and Moon Cresta. So in the arcade it was one of them probably.

In the home, my neighbor had an Atari 2600 and he had Space Invaders and Tank command if that counts. I got kicked off space invaders because I was on it for almost an hour just clearing screens and my friend said the AC adaptor was getting too hot so unplugged it.

[Starfighter]

"First shmup" sounds almost like a question to someone who is young enough to have been a child when shmups were already established genre and all households had access to gaming platforms.

That's slowly becoming the majority of the community, hehe. The magic of time! Well... and I guess a pretty small Venn diagram. The ones who 1) grew up before or during the advent of the genre while at the same time 2) frequented arcades or in some way were being exposed to video games, and 3) loved specifically shmups enough to stick with it through all these years and 4) still visit online forums about it - they are few and far between. At least where I live.

[AGermanArtist]

I was born in 1974 and my mother and grandmother would often visit arcades to play slots on family days out while my dad would go to the golf course, so I was exposed pretty early to arcade games. The early games seemed overly punishing and exploitative to me, so it wasn't until around 1984/5 that I really began to enjoy video games with stuff like Ghosts n'Goblins and STGs like Tiger Heli and 1942. I've never really thought of them as a niche, just videogames. Something AAA like a Sekiro or whatever has no more importance to me than a STG, they're all just videogames.

[1000Eyes]

The earliest shmup-shaped thing, before i even knew they were called that, comes in dim memories where I'd pester my parents to get me to play euroshmup extraordinaire Chicken Invaders, using this magical thing known as a "credit card" or whatever the little lights on the screen told me. My house had just moved, and I remember going out to smell the rain after beating one of the games or something.

I'd probably played some shmups in between in various video games, but still no genre consciousness.

Fast forward to about a year ago and I was looking to learn more about older games because I just set up some emulators to play Ghost n Goblins, after really enjoying Castlevainia 3. Since I got a NES emu I tried Konami's Life Force and really enjoyed it, and at the same time I saw folks on platforms like Backloggd really enjoying these things called shooters. One of them linked back to this here forum, and i stumbled on the top votes, and just picked a couple of high rated ones. I read a glowing review for Batsugun so that's my first arcade shooter, and the first one i replayed a lot, but the game that made the genre here to stay for me was Garegga and the DDPs. That's where i learned of scoring, and my gaming worldview hasn't been the same since.

[sunnshiner]

I think it was River Raid on my cousin's Atari 2600 in the mid 80s, probably around '84-'85 or so, because I remember him playing Elite on his BBC B computer which didn't come out until 1984.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I believe the earliest shmup I played as a kid was the Commodore 64 port of Zaxxon. I don't remember thinking it was spectacular, and the C64 port of Outrun had a far more lasting impact on me.

After that it'd be an NES with Life Force (good!) and Captain Skyhawk (not very good). Mega Man 2 was actually the first NES game I think I ever played (at a cousin's house)... explains why I was never hugely into Super Mario maybe?

First MS-DOS shmups I can remember playing were Major Stryker and Overkill. I was huge into Raptor as a kid too, begged my parents to register the shareware ver for me with my allowance.

[reckon luck]

Defender. my dad had a few Ataris.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toAVC_97QTY

[MOSQUITO FIGHTER]

Tandy Cosmic Fire Away 3000

https://youtu.be/CU_M2_FIKEs?si=YPvm8mFil-_6syZx

[friedrich]

It was probably Action in New York (S.C.A.T./Final Mission) on the NES. I loved its atmosphere and in particular the vertical scrolling sections left a big impression on me.

[NYN]

Thunder Force IV, PAL. Glorious Mega Drivo. The two geeks I abused as friends after school to get to play the video games I had no access to claimed the 99up cheat was a necessity to clear it. I protested that cheater notion.

[MJR]

Probably Space Invaders, but I didn't like it. I liked Phoenix, which came along a little later iirc.

The first shmup I ever played was Megaphoenix (with an amazing cover which is my current avatar), a game made by Dinamic, a Spanish company from the 80s. Not a good game by any stretch of the imagination but I put a lot of hours into it as a kid.

The first one I played would have been the arcade version of Pheonix, in a Chinese Takeaway sometime around '83/'84.

Funny to read this. For me it was Mega Phoenix for the C64. I thought it was so cool with these big Alien-Birds (even cooler was of course that you could shoot away their wings (but they can regrow)) and the giant boss. But I was very young at this time and I was far away from clearing or even 1cc'ing it.

Even more influential for me was R-Type for the Gameboy and a bit later Super R-Type. But again: I was not able to really play these. But the way the stages are designed and how the art style was, shaped my taste for the whole genre.

After Ikaruga gave the genre a bit more mainstream press appearance, I started diving into Danmaku and 1cc'ed Daifukkatsu at first (after not beating Futari, Deathsmiles and Guwange).

Dang, I just realized that Demon Attack on Intellivision, which I mentioned as one of the earliest shooting games I played was actually a rip off of Phoenix! Apparently Atari also sued the publisher behind it because of this.

[MJR]

"First shmup" sounds almost like a question to someone who is young enough to have been a child when shmups were already established genre and all households had access to gaming platforms.

That's slowly becoming the majority of the community, hehe. The magic of time! Well... and I guess a pretty small Venn diagram. The ones who 1) grew up before or during the advent of the genre while at the same time 2) frequented arcades or in some way were being exposed to video games, and 3) loved specifically shmups enough to stick with it through all these years and 4) still visit online forums about it - they are few and far between. At least where I live.

Yes, obviously. I have been stubbornly living in a self-appointed illusion that only people of my age group care about shmups - anyone younger is too busy hitting a win button in any of today's slop games.
But it's nice to see that the genre is still occassionally manages to attract few lone misguided "young" people

[Lord British]

Odyssey 2: Alien Invaders Plus! / Freedom Fighters!



TI994A: Parsec / TI Invaders / Super Demon Attack

Atari 2600: River Raid

Arcade: Galaga / Super Cobra

**1943 was really the first "modern" vert shmup i got into. Never really fucked with many Xevious or Xevious-type games to my memory in the arcade

[Darkseed_5150]

Atari games like Missile Command, Asteroids, Defender, Yar's Revenge, Berzerk, etc.

Gradius on NES was the first shmup to truly hook me though.

[Atariboy]

If what I call base shooters qualify, it would be Phoenix (Atari 2600). Otherwise it's River Raid for the Atari 2600.

[Gamer707b]

My first was a single screen game on the Magnavox Odyssey 2 called Alien Invaders Plus. I didn't keep it very long. This was in the early 80s. I was really young and couldn't even pass the beginning. My dad took the game back. Next shoot em up that I remember I bought wasn't till Einhander came out. I played some in the early and mid 80s at the arcade, but the first I got was Alien Invaders Plus

[Gamer707b]

Odyssey 2: Alien Invaders Plus! / Freedom Fighters!



TI994A: Parsec / TI Invaders / Super Demon Attack

Atari 2600: River Raid

Arcade: Galaga / Super Cobra

**1943 was really the first "modern" vert shmup i got into. Never really fucked with many Xevious or Xevious-type games to my memory in the arcade

I thought I was the only one that ever heard of Alien Invaders Plus or even the console itself. I've never heard anyone talk about it here. Nice to know someone else mention it. Was the console known in the UK?