first-party console releases

professor ganson · Post by **professor ganson** » Sun Aug 05, 2007 3:53 pm

Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like the major console manufacturers have not been terribly interested in developing their own shmup franchises.

Maybe a list will help. I'll get things started with:

SMS
fantasy zone series

Mortificator · Post by **Mortificator** » Sun Aug 05, 2007 4:19 pm

Of course, the big one is the TurboGrafx-16 and Hudson's Star Soldier series. There's also Solar Striker for the Game Boy, as mentioned in szycag's ranking thread.

professor ganson · Post by **professor ganson** » Sun Aug 05, 2007 5:27 pm

Hudson is not owned by NEC, right? They just bought exclusive rights to the soldier series?

JoshF · Post by **JoshF** » Sun Aug 05, 2007 6:13 pm

Sega made quite a few shooting games. They also ported a lot of other developers' games to their consoles. Whip Rush and Crying come to mind, but there's also games like Panzer Dragoon and Rez if you want to count them.

Mortificator · Post by **Mortificator** » Sun Aug 05, 2007 10:00 pm

I did a search on MobyGames and you're dead on, Sega made several shooters for their consoles:

Astro Warrior / Sapo Xulé: S.O.S. Lagoa Poluída - Master System
Astro Flash / TransBot - Master System
Blade Eagle 3-D - Master System
Submarine Attack - Master System
ThunderBlade - Master System
Bio-Hazard Battle / Crying - Genesis
Zaxxon's Motherbase 2000 - 32X

I also checked if Nintendo did anything else, but came up with nothing. If you want to check other console manufactures, you can look through the site's game browser, in the shooter category (which will also include stuff like FPSs unfortunately) and look through individual companies. I don't see a link that let's you pick it directly, but after you select a company you can append "/developed-by" to the URL in order to filter out games the company was involved with in other ways.

Oh, and I wasn't looking for ports or rail shooters, which would include everything from Space Harrier to StarFox.

professor ganson wrote:Hudson is not owned by NEC, right? They just bought exclusive rights to the soldier series?

Yeah, NEC doesn't own Hudson. I think Konami actually owns them now. But Hudson and NEC both collaborated with the TG16 - Hudson designed it and NEC backed it financially - so I'd consider games developed by either company for it to be first-party.

zinger · Post by **zinger** » Sun Aug 05, 2007 11:02 pm

JoshF wrote:Whip Rush

That's by Vic Tokai, IIRC.

Ceph · Post by **Ceph** » Sun Aug 05, 2007 11:44 pm

professor ganson wrote:Hudson is not owned by NEC, right? They just bought exclusive rights to the soldier series?

NEC cooperated with Hundson when creating the PCE. Open one up and have a look at the chips

So PCE was in part Hudsons's baby.

maxi · Post by **maxi** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 12:52 am

Zaxxon Motherbase 2000 was very good, remember me View Point.

JoshF · Post by **JoshF** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 1:08 am

zinger wrote:That's by Vic Tokai, IIRC.

You're right, I see it was just published by Sega.

Here's two more:

Scramble Spirits - Master System
Star Jacker - Mark III

Bother are ports of arcade games, the arcade version of Star Jacker was on Sega Memorial Selection Vol. 2 for Saturn.

louisg · Post by **louisg** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 4:41 am

Don't forget Donkey Kong III

I guess chase-view shooters are excluded or there would be a ton. Are we excluding pre-NES, too?

sfried · Post by **sfried** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 5:07 am

Mortificator wrote:I also checked if Nintendo did anything else, but came up with nothing. If you want to check other console manufactures, you can look through the site's game browser, in the shooter category (which will also include stuff like FPSs unfortunately) and look through individual companies. I don't see a link that let's you pick it directly, but after you select a company you can append "/developed-by" to the URL in order to filter out games the company was involved with in other ways.

Radar Scope?

Ganelon · Post by **Ganelon** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 5:17 am

NEC continued the shooter spirit with Zeroigar for the PC-FX.

louisg · Post by **louisg** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 5:40 am

sfried wrote: Radar Scope?

I was just wondering if there were a home port of that one. Somehow I thought it was just arcade

MNK · Post by **MNK** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 11:01 am

Sony made some shooters for the PS1 like Philosoma and Two Tenkaku I believe.

Mortificator · Post by **Mortificator** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 11:01 am

louisg wrote:
sfried wrote: Radar Scope?
I was just wondering if there were a home port of that one. Somehow I thought it was just arcade

Yeah, I don't think it was ever ported. Probably because it was a spectacular failure.

I got the impression from the thread's title that the OP was looking for console games, which is why I didn't mention Radar Scope (or other Nintendo arcade shooters like Space Firebird or Space Fever). And of course Atari's made some of the all-time classics.

professor ganson · Post by **professor ganson** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 12:18 pm

Mortificator wrote:
louisg wrote:
sfried wrote: Radar Scope?
I was just wondering if there were a home port of that one. Somehow I thought it was just arcade
Yeah, I don't think it was ever ported. Probably because it was a spectacular failure. I got the impression from the thread's title that the OP was looking for console games, which is why I didn't mention Radar Scope (or other Nintendo arcade shooters like Space Firebird or Space Fever). And of course Atari's made some of the all-time classics.

Interesting, I haven't heard of any of these.

Yeah, I had Atari in mind as well. I couldn't remember off-hand which shmups they developed.

EDIT: Part of what I'm interested in is whether there was ever a time when a console developer HAD to have quality shmups in order to be successful.

louisg · Post by **louisg** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 4:09 pm

professor ganson wrote: Yeah, I had Atari in mind as well. I couldn't remember off-hand which shmups they developed.

EDIT: Part of what I'm interested in is whether there was ever a time when a console developer HAD to have quality shmups in order to be successful.

Atari did Gates of Zendocon and Trevor McFur, if we are limiting us to post-crash. Pre-crash, you might have needed good shmups. But the 2600's big hits in that department were either licensed (Space Invaders) or done by other companies (River Raid), weren't they?

ROBOTRON · Post by **ROBOTRON** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 7:27 pm

SNK developed a few shmups didn't they? Last resort and Alpha Mission II?

Action Fighter for SMS could be be classified as a shmup.

ubersaurus · Post by **ubersaurus** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 7:38 pm

professor ganson wrote:
Mortificator wrote:
louisg wrote: I was just wondering if there were a home port of that one. Somehow I thought it was just arcade
Yeah, I don't think it was ever ported. Probably because it was a spectacular failure. I got the impression from the thread's title that the OP was looking for console games, which is why I didn't mention Radar Scope (or other Nintendo arcade shooters like Space Firebird or Space Fever). And of course Atari's made some of the all-time classics.
Interesting, I haven't heard of any of these.

Yeah, I had Atari in mind as well. I couldn't remember off-hand which shmups they developed.

EDIT: Part of what I'm interested in is whether there was ever a time when a console developer HAD to have quality shmups in order to be successful.

Pre-crash Atari?

Asteroids series
Black Widow
Tempest series
Centipede series
Gravitar

Some console only shooters from Atari:
Desert Falcon
Planet Smashers
Pigs in Space
Snoopy and the Red Baron
Yars Revenge

Post by **undamned** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 7:41 pm

professor ganson wrote:Hudson is not owned by NEC, right? They just bought exclusive rights to the soldier series?

Ever wonder why they're called "Hu" cards, hmm?

-ud

PC Engine Fan X! · Post by **PC Engine Fan X!** » Tue Aug 07, 2007 12:39 am

undamned wrote:
professor ganson wrote:Hudson is not owned by NEC, right? They just bought exclusive rights to the soldier series?
Ever wonder why they're called "Hu" cards, hmm?
-ud

In short for " 'Hu'dson Cards" if one stops to think about it -- just filp them on their backside and find out for yourself... ^_~

I'd have to say that the Hu-Cards are one of the most coolest gaming console cartridge mediums (and credit-card sized to boot as well) to have been concieved in a long time... ^_~

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

professor ganson · Post by **professor ganson** » Tue Aug 07, 2007 4:56 am

PC Engine Fan X! wrote:I'd have to say that the Hu-Cards are one of the most coolest gaming console cartridge mediums (and credit-card sized to boot as well) to have been concieved in a long time... ^_~

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

Agreed. Durable, compact/sleek, and just plain cool.

Ganelon · Post by **Ganelon** » Tue Aug 07, 2007 5:55 am

Not very good design IMO. You get teeth marks at the end of any hu card with decent thickness from the connectors. SFII, Arcade Card, Magical Chase, etc. ... it's like a disc-based system that scratches discs. If they had solved that issue, then hu cards would've been truly great.

JoshF · Post by **JoshF** » Tue Aug 07, 2007 6:14 am

So it's "huh" card?

Mortificator · Post by **Mortificator** » Tue Aug 07, 2007 10:33 am

I guess it would be. I've always said hugh-card, and my friend says who-card. How's Hudson pronunced in Japanese?

ubersaurus wrote:Pre-crash Atari?

Asteroids series
Black Widow
Tempest series
Centipede series
Gravitar

Some console only shooters from Atari:
Desert Falcon
Planet Smashers
Pigs in Space
Snoopy and the Red Baron
Yars Revenge

Oh hell yeah!

professor ganson wrote:Part of what I'm interested in is whether there was ever a time when a console developer HAD to have quality shmups in order to be successful.

Pre-crash they did, though most of the shooting games then weren't what we'd call traditional scrolling shooters. But it seems like the immediate post-crash console developers just needed to make platformers.