7th Annual Top 25 Shmups of All Time! - Results

ncp · Post by **ncp** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 6:46 am

I've played PLENTY of "classic" shmups. The ones available on mame, at least. I guess I'll quote myself from earlier:

People are complaining about too many new games, not enough old-school, when really this is a "top 25 of all-time", you have to accept the fact that some people will vote for "top 25 favorites" while others will vote for "top 25 best-games-for-their-time". Technological advances in hardware as well as being able to draw influences from older games (and improve upon them) will inevitably result in more popularity among recent games.

I guess I should have added "while some will vote on top 25 nostalgic titles" because I'm sure that's what plenty of people did.

evil_ash_xero · Post by **evil_ash_xero** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 6:57 am

I would like to see the shmups forum get together and genuinely try to make a list of the definitive greatest shmups ever. In terms of importance as well as quality, and not just "of the now". This is probably impossible, since everyone here is so varied in opinions, but other sites like IGN have had some pretty lame lists. I think we could do better, but it would probably just turn out like our top 25.

mulletgeezer · Post by **mulletgeezer** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 12:35 pm

Dale wrote:
doctorx0079 wrote:
jp wrote:
Then you need to go back and play some of the classics from the late 80s/early-mid '90s.
TWIN COBRA AND EXED EXES BAYBEE

Darius II also
Don't make him play Twin Cobra too much check pointing. I'd recommend Battle Shark too if it didn't have checkpoints. But yes play Exed Eyes and Gunsmoke, Vulgus,Raiden 1and2, Exesius, Tokio, Varth, etc.

Definitely play Twin Cobra! It has no checkpoints at all (that's Kyuukyoku Tiger) and it still plays as well as almost anything that's come since.

doctorx0079 · Post by **doctorx0079** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 5:05 pm

Dale wrote: I'd recommend Battle Shark too if it didn't have checkpoints.

Battle Shark or Sky Shark??

jpj · Post by **jpj** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 5:09 pm

drboom wrote:
sven666 wrote:next year im voting for dodonpachi campaign version and mushihimesama blue label

gotta raise those brows!
Brilliant! Count me in. I have to put some more time in on my DDP Campaign pcb anyway.

yeah but sven has actually played it

too damn highbrow for his own good, i tell ya!

markedkiller78 · Post by **markedkiller78** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 5:12 pm

jpj wrote:
yeah but sven has actually played it

too damn highbrow for his own good, i tell ya!

Eh

Was this when it was in the arcade in Tokyo? Hey?

drboom · Post by **drboom** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 5:13 pm

Seriously?

Man - I'd love to have played that. I wonder if Cave will ever bring those versions out. Pipe dream, I know, I know...

jpj · Post by **jpj** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 5:21 pm

one of the cave matsuri's - along with mushi blue label

sven was there!

emphatic · Post by **emphatic** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 5:25 pm

What are the differences on the blue label?

croikle · Post by **croikle** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 5:26 pm

They have had special versions playable at various events, like the Cave Matsuri.

Sven playing Mushi Blue Label: http://www.npng.org/galerie/albums/Toky ... bornes.jpg
(from erhune's writeup at http://www.npng.org/blog/?p=252)

jpj · Post by **jpj** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 5:28 pm

emphatic wrote:What are the differences on the blue label?

reko flashes her boobs if you 1CC ultra mode. 500K on yahoo

sven666 · Post by **sven666** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 5:31 pm

jpj wrote:one of the cave matsuri's - along with mushi blue label sven was there!

correctomundo!

there are vids from teh event if you can be bothered to dig up my old "japan-trip" thread from years ago.

got a measly 1CC on mushi blue label even, differences are that original has super agressive rank (absoluteley ridiculous bullet speeds), no maniac at all and Ultra has a more lenient counter system (again, vids of a guy counterstopping the chain in my japan-trip thread), i thought both were quite major improvements over the regular version actually, would have definetly purchased a released version.
If i recall correctly som graphics had more of a darkblue tint aswell hence the "blue label" name..

DDP campaign plays like DDP DOJ over the old DDPs graphis basically, its fuckin awesome!

Dale · Post by **Dale** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 6:30 pm

doctorx0079 wrote:
Dale wrote: I'd recommend Battle Shark too if it didn't have checkpoints.
Battle Shark or Sky Shark??

I always get these mixed up,. I just got the BS rom thinking it was SS lol.

Edit:Maybe just the genesis version has checkpoints.

Jockel · Post by **Jockel** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 6:56 pm

sven666 wrote: DDP campaign plays like DDP DOJ over the old DDPs graphis basically, its fuckin awesome!

Dump the Dump ever!!!11111one
I'd be totally interested to play this fucker.

ncp · Post by **ncp** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 8:06 pm

Honestly, I think DDP campaign version would probably be my favorite game ever, should I ever get to play it. The hyper system and higher difficulty of DOJ are what make it my favorite game over DDP, put those into DDP and you've got a perfect game.

DUMP THE ROM EVER

evil_ash_xero · Post by **evil_ash_xero** » Wed Jun 03, 2009 8:50 am

I read earlier in this thread that Bangai-O was elgible this year for voting. Is this true? I mean, I LOVE Bangai-O, but it's not a shmup. It's a shooter, yeah, but not a shmup.

Mills · Post by **Mills** » Wed Jun 03, 2009 7:14 pm

Who cares!

Twiddle · Post by **Twiddle** » Wed Jun 03, 2009 8:10 pm

rfj is not a shmup because it has branching paths

evil_ash_xero · Post by **evil_ash_xero** » Thu Jun 04, 2009 5:27 am

Seriously though, Bangai-O really not a shmup. I'm not all anal about this, but it really just isn't. I wouldn't have even of thought of that back in the day before I learned the "rules".

And I do believe In The Hunt is, even though it doesn't have "forced scrolling". I'm not that wonky about it.

But Bangai-O? Awesome..yes..shmup?...no.

innerpattern · Post by **innerpattern** » Thu Jun 04, 2009 5:40 am

your face is not a shmup!

Twiddle · Post by **Twiddle** » Thu Jun 04, 2009 7:01 am

battle garegga is not a shmup, you level down when you die, that classifies it as an mmorpg

Rob · Post by **Rob** » Thu Jun 04, 2009 7:11 am

I want to be able to vote for Space Harrier. Not that I would, I just want the possibility. The list would be more interesting with some Contra and Time Crisis, too.

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Thu Jun 04, 2009 8:03 am

If i recall correctly som graphics had more of a darkblue tint aswell hence the "blue label" name..

She started off w/ two rotating options, and had an "aura" which was the color corresponding to the power style she was using. This was the event that Sven had the delightful pleasure of meeting me.

oxtu's chronology thread lists these special PCBs, and I've commented on the one's I've played. To date, there have been tweaked versions of:

DDP
Mushihime-sama
Mushihime-sama Futari (two tweaks, actually... 1.01 and 1.51)
Guwange
MMP (Pink Sweets bosses)
Death Smiles (Level 666)

I've not gone to the last two festivals though.

MadScientist · Post by **MadScientist** » Thu Jun 04, 2009 12:58 pm

Would it be worth having two separate charts? One for incontrovertible shmups and another one for borderliners of all shapes and sizes.

jp · Post by jp » Thu Jun 04, 2009 2:51 pm

ncp wrote:
I guess I should have added "while some will vote on top 25 nostalgic titles" because I'm sure that's what plenty of people did.

Na kiddo, once upon a time companies like Konami, Tecno Soft, and Compile actually used this thing called "level design" and all shmups weren't just bullet-spam fests.

It was pretty neat. And I don't see much "improvement" on "past designs". Unless someone is honestly going to try to say that Otomedius G has better gameplay/design than Gokujyo Parodius or that Thunder Force VI should even be mentioned in the same sentence as another game. That game being Thunder Force IV (or III or AC).

ncp · Post by **ncp** » Thu Jun 04, 2009 3:51 pm

jp wrote:
Na kiddo, once upon a time companies like Konami, Tecno Soft, and Compile actually used this thing called "level design" and all shmups weren't just bullet-spam fests.

It was pretty neat. And I don't see much "improvement" on "past designs". Unless someone is honestly going to try to say that Otomedius G has better gameplay/design than Gokujyo Parodius or that Thunder Force VI should even be mentioned in the same sentence as another game. That game being Thunder Force IV (or III or AC).

How about Gradius V? If that's not an improvement on past designs I don't know what is. Coincidentally it's one of my favorite shooters, and the best Gradius by a long-shot. Then of course there's the evolution of "bullet-spam fests" as you call them, heavily influenced by Dodonpachi (which was, in turn, was born from Garegga, according to a certain Cave programmer). Some series' try to improve and fail (Thunder Force's last two games, Parodius' Otomedius, although admittedly I haven't even played the latter, I hear it's damn boring), but that says more about the decline of a company than the decline of a genre. Ikaruga (also known as "Durr hurr I hate it because it's mainstream and it's cool to hate popular things") improved on past ideas and made some of its own. It was the first game that I consider to have well-done 3d graphics in a shmup (many before had tried and failed) and is still one of the only ones that does. The color system, well that's pretty obvious, I don't even need to mention that, do I? I'm sure there's plenty more games I could bring up as an example, but I would rather not go through the trouble of writing an entire essay.

Even if you don't like the games (and I'm sure you don't) saying there's no improvement or innovation is just laughable, as is claiming that nostalgia doesn't have a role in the voting.

robivy64 · Post by **robivy64** » Thu Jun 04, 2009 5:00 pm

<3 Bullet spam-fests

jp · Post by jp » Thu Jun 04, 2009 7:31 pm

ncp wrote: How about Gradius V? If that's not an improvement on past designs I don't know what is. Coincidentally it's one of my favorite shooters, and the best Gradius by a long-shot. Then of course there's the evolution of "bullet-spam fests" as you call them, heavily influenced by Dodonpachi (which was, in turn, was born from Garegga, according to a certain Cave programmer). Some series' try to improve and fail (Thunder Force's last two games, Parodius' Otomedius, although admittedly I haven't even played the latter, I hear it's damn boring), but that says more about the decline of a company than the decline of a genre. Ikaruga (also known as "Durr hurr I hate it because it's mainstream and it's cool to hate popular things") improved on past ideas and made some of its own. It was the first game that I consider to have well-done 3d graphics in a shmup (many before had tried and failed) and is still one of the only ones that does. The color system, well that's pretty obvious, I don't even need to mention that, do I? I'm sure there's plenty more games I could bring up as an example, but I would rather not go through the trouble of writing an entire essay.

Even if you don't like the games (and I'm sure you don't) saying there's no improvement or innovation is just laughable, as is claiming that nostalgia doesn't have a role in the voting.

Um, bullet spam fests were born from Batsugun as I understand it.

And my comment was about you yapping about improvements on past designs. Most everything anymore is just a manic, which those didn't exist until the later 90s. So how thats "improving upon a past design" is beyond me.

Of course, this isn't even a manic and/or Cave bashfest really. Hey look! I voted for two Cave games, and said I'd probably vote for 3 if I had actually played Ketsui. (

)

The point is, its somewhat pathetic when one company has almost half of the positions on the top 25, and shows a true lack of diversity in folks' taste/play history.

And fuck your nonsense about nostalgia. I can still play Thunder Force IV today and have a blast. I didn't play Nexzr until 2006, and I still vote for it. Hadn't played Gokujyo Parodius 'til 2004, voted for that too.

No, I can just appreciate games that don't have a screen filled with pink and blue bullets 'tis all...

Mortificator · Post by **Mortificator** » Thu Jun 04, 2009 7:37 pm

Rob wrote:I want to be able to vote for Space Harrier. Not that I would, I just want the possibility. The list would be more interesting with some Contra and Time Crisis, too.

I thought so too, but despite arena and push shooters becoming candidates for votes this year, not one of them even managed an honorable mention.

The newly-eligible games I voted for this year were...

Outzone - good mix of shooter and run & gun elements.
Ikari Warriors - my favorite of the twisty-stick games.
Robotron - popular in some circles.
Total Carnage - compelling treatment of the Gulf War.

Then again, Contra and Metal Slug have a lot more fans than any of the top-down games.

jpj · Post by **jpj** » Thu Jun 04, 2009 7:40 pm

jp wrote: The point is, its somewhat pathetic when one company has almost half of the positions on the top 25, and shows a true lack of diversity in folks' taste/play history.

does ibara play like pink sweets? does daifukkatsu play like muchi pork? does guwange play like progear? does dangun play like dodonpachi? does espgaluda play like esprade? does futari play like mushi?

i think i already said this, but 1.5's and black labels notwithstanding, cave have released 20 shmups titles now, so i think you're viewing this entirely the wrong way.

who said the top 25 is supposed to be diverse? i'd rather just choose the best games