Shooters for the US?

[Iria76]

Hello to everyone,
I've been into the japanese shooter genre for a long time.What is the best way to play all these great games your playing?Do you have to have a japanese ps2?What american japanese shooters are out over here?What ones should/might come out over here?Is Cave ever going to make their games available to American systems?Is their a place i can go to see all the japanese shooters and what systems they are on?Sorry for the questions,i've been wanting to ask these questions for years.I just now find out about sites that understand what i'm talking about.Thanks.

[dolph]

Cave games are NTSC / Jap only and there won't be any US Ports, as they won't come anymore ports of cave games. There are sure some US Versions of shmups, I think a US Raiden III Version exists, but I do not know exactly because I'm from Germany.
I have a modded PS2 so I can play all region codes.

[BIL]

Yeah, Raiden III does indeed have a US release. A few other US PS2 shooter releases:

Castle of Shikigami 2 (Japanese title "Shikigami no Shiro 2")
Gradius III & Gradius IV
Gradius V
R-Type Final
Silpheed: The Lost Planet

[unsane]

Token > MAME < post.

[Zweihander]

Cave games are NTSC / Jap only and there won't be any US Ports, as they won't come anymore ports of cave games.

Actually, Ketsui is getting an official port to the DS.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOaTEuRfOlU
http://www.cave.co.jp/event/fes200709/i ... ml#ketuiDS

If it doesn't get a US port, it could be imported, since the DS is region-free. As for US shmup releases of last-gen:

PS2--
- Mobile Light Force 2 (Castle Shikigami 1)
- Castle Shikigami 2
- Silpheed: The Lost Planet (kinda sucks)
- Raiden III (also kinda sucks; Under Defeat is superior in every possible way)
- Gradius V (excellent)
- R-Type Final (good, but pales in comparison to Delta)
- The Red Star (western-developed top-down run-n-gun. Great beat-em-up/ shoot-em-up hybrid. The boss battles are spectacular.[/i]
- Alien Hominid (run-n-gun; started as a homebrew flash game on Newgrounds)
- Contra: Shattered Soldier (run-n-gun)
- Neo-Contra (run-n-gun; SUCKS)

Gamecube--
Ikaruga (not arcade-perfect, but still one of the console's best games)
Chaos Field (Complete and utter crap)
Radio Allergy (Not quite as bad as Chaos Field, but still pretty crappy)

[kengou]

MAME, or for PS2s, Swap Magic

[dolph]

Cave games are NTSC / Jap only and there won't be any US Ports, as they won't come anymore ports of cave games.

Actually, Ketsui is getting an official port to the DS.

Yes, Ketsui DS. But that won't be a real port, right? More sth. like a boss rush mode. But i doubt that real ports for ps2 will come.

[Kiken]

[Gamecube--
Radio Allergy (Not quite as bad as Chaos Field, but still pretty crappy)

The US release of Radirgy was cancelled.

[MathU]

Raiden III and Chaos Field are excellent.

[P_HAT]

- Raiden III (also kinda sucks; Under Defeat is superior in every possible way)

RIII for US PS2/~25$
UD for JP DC/50$+
Also, games a too different to compare.

[Goshi]

Raiden III is also for the PC. I think its only Japanese though but it makes no difference since the PC isn't effected by region.

[electricgrave]

Cave games are NTSC / Jap only and there won't be any US Ports, as they won't come anymore ports of cave games.

Actually, Ketsui is getting an official port to the DS.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOaTEuRfOlU
http://www.cave.co.jp/event/fes200709/i ... ml#ketuiDS

If it doesn't get a US port, it could be imported, since the DS is region-free. As for US shmup releases of last-gen:

PS2--
- Mobile Light Force 2 (Castle Shikigami 1)
- Castle Shikigami 2
- Silpheed: The Lost Planet (kinda sucks)
- Raiden III (also kinda sucks; Under Defeat is superior in every possible way)
- Gradius V (excellent)
- R-Type Final (good, but pales in comparison to Delta)
- The Red Star (western-developed top-down run-n-gun. Great beat-em-up/ shoot-em-up hybrid. The boss battles are spectacular.[/i]
- Alien Hominid (run-n-gun; started as a homebrew flash game on Newgrounds)
- Contra: Shattered Soldier (run-n-gun)
- Neo-Contra (run-n-gun; SUCKS)

Gamecube--
Ikaruga (not arcade-perfect, but still one of the console's best games)
Chaos Field (Complete and utter crap)
Radio Allergy (Not quite as bad as Chaos Field, but still pretty crappy)

Great list man, I just wanted to add that Taito Legends 1&2, and both Capcom Collections have some shmups as well, hell even the Midway Arcade treasures have some.
BTW Neo Contra is awsome!! There's a lot of controls to it, but the game kicks ass with a vengeance, it kind of remindsme of Super C's bird view stages.

[GunSpike]

I'd say your best bet to play some great shmups is to get a Japanese PS2 and pick up some of the excellent offerings Cave has: Dodonpachi DAI-OU-JOU, Espgaluda and Ibara. There are other games too, of course (mentioned here), but those are some of my faves.

[chempop]

get a Japanese PS2 and pick up some of the excellent offerings Cave has: Dodonpachi DAI-OU-JOU, Espgaluda and Ibara

i really should have done this last year when I had some extra money, I knew the prices would inflate but shmups sadly weren't a priority, frickin ex-girlfriend (damn she was an expensive ***)

Got to add that Dragon Blaze is a must for JPN/EUR PS2 owners who like Psikyo. I've also been very intrigued by Homura, but no one ever seems to talk about it much.