What game sparked your interest in shooters?

[Ruldra]

I got into the genre after watching that Mushihimesama TLB video. Funny thing is, Cave brought me to shmups but I hardly play their games nowadays.

[Aquas]

I played the occasional shooter growing up: Gradius 3, U.N. Squadron on the SNES... I actually went out of my way to buy a used copy of U.N. Squadron for $7 bucks from a game shop "Raven Games" in 2002 or so. The place was the size of one small room lined and packed with games.

In 2006, Raiden Fighters Jet caught my utmost attention at an arcade I frequented with my friends. We played Soul Cal II / III (I didn't bother to play much because I wasn't good.), DDR, Magic the Gathering... and I played Raiden Fighters Jet, and got to know some of the people who played the game better. I was fascinated once I found out how to activate the 100K medals. I haven't dropped my chain to this day. HURR HURR!!

As time went on through 2007, I had beat all but 3 or 4 of the Masters of Ships records on that cabinet. It was a great feeling. I was most proud of my fairy score of 76M, but at my end with that machine, I set an 86M record with Ixion. I would even take hour long bus rides at the beginning of the day, and catch the last busses home at night after playing all afternoon; Smoking cigarettes and cloves and rocking that Happ joystick. I don't smoke anymore.

[arbormatt]

Lifeforce on the nintendo. I was about 6 years old and it was one of the few games my dad played with me outside of Mario and RBI Baseball

[BulletMagnet]

If memory serves the first shmup I ever played was Twinbee on the NES, via a bootleg cart my cousin owned - I also rented Axelay and Space Megaforce during the SNES years, but later on decided to acquire them again on a whim. After replaying those I looked around for other shooters to try, and stumbled upon a mention of DoDonPachi, which prompted me to start experimenting with MAME - once I finally figured out how to get it up and running, that was it. Soon I had myself a Saturn, and the rest is history.

[R-Gray 1]

I remember i played Space invaders on Atari and i really enjoyed that game, but i was just 6-7 yrs old so i though was a game not a shooter

i think in NES times i really liked shooters
Maybe this 3 Nes games was the reason of i was interested in shooters:

Star Force
Twin Bee
B-Wings


I had a famicon clon console with 42 games

and after that games i found IMAGE FIGHT on Nes ...this game was a really challenge.

I didn´t like much Galaga....i could reach only stage13 or 15...and my uncle stage 50 or some stage near



90s

[Aru-san]

I saw a video of ESP Ra.De. on YouTube 4 years ago...and I've been playin' shmups ever since.

[neorichieb1971]

ESP ra.de here as well. It was the game that got me attracted to shooters when shooters became niche.

[spl]

First shmup was Space Invaders clone on Apple ][e's at first primary school.

As a kid I remember playing stuff like R-type, Gemini Wing, Silk Worm (not really a shmup I guess), stuff like this on Amiga mainly.

When I got NES I played Xevious and Life Force.

Forgot about the whole genre for many years until I saw Gradius V come out on PS2. Tried it a few times but never really had the time. (Was in high school or just out of, more time spent drinking/smoking and chasing girls )

Nowadays I'm drawn to shmups (espically Cave) due to the scoring and the competition which exists.

[bsidwell]

I got into the genre after watching that Mushihimesama TLB video.

Same here, and I doubt we're the only ones.

[Otai]

I started with Torus Trooper, which I consider a good abstract shmup. Then, I tried a lot of shmups casually. But what makes me truly stick onto this genre would be Eden's Aegis. The characters being a cute female shmup character certainly helps.

[BPzeBanshee]

I've said this before somewhere, but around my hometown we have a bunch of arcade machines of the Raiden Fighters series. Whenever we went to the main shopping centre I'd always want to go into Einstein's (the arcade place there at the time) just to play, or even watch in Attract Mode, Raiden Fighters 2 - 2000. Sometimes we'd be at the airport for a relative and I'd spot Raiden II there and whinge and whinge to my mother so I could play it and use the Plasma Lock-On Beam.

As a result of looking up Raiden Fighters on the internet I found Alluro's Raiden Fighters Emporium, and from that Xeno Fighters EX. Lost the download I had of that eventually, so a few years later after getting the Raiden games on MAME I did another look for Xeno Fighters and I came across the thread here on this forum.

Bottom line: it was the Raiden MK-II and the games that featured it, hands down.

[Ghegs]

I got into the genre after watching that Mushihimesama TLB video. Funny thing is, Cave brought me to shmups but I hardly play their games nowadays.

Heh, it happened similarly to me - I saw a video of DDPDOJ and shortly after ordered the game from NCSX and got my PS2 up to playing imports. And now I don't really play their games at all.

[Necronopticous]

I have always liked the genre, but it was Raiden Fighters Jet that got me playing seriously. It was in my college arcade, and I played it every single day for a few semesters. I figured out the scoring system, and got the 1CC with just under 90 million points without ever having watched a video or reading any kind of strategy guide. It was before I knew this place existed, and at the time I thought maybe I was the only person (especially outside of Japan) who had ever legitimately beaten that damned game. Searching around afterward is what led me here, but it wasn't until my arcade got Mushihimesama that I joined up and started posting my progress in the scoreboard.

Here was my first post: http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... 78#p294678

[MX7]

Was on a Wikipedia crawl. I can't remember the route I took to get there. I've always been interested in generic paradigms, and I enjoyed the concept that a 2D shooting game, a genre I was vaguely aware of, had continued to evolve independently of mainstream genres to produce something both archaic and abstract. Thus early on at least, I saw danmaku shooting games as being some kind prehistoric fish, found miles deep in some godforsaken cave system.

The screen captures of Mushihimesama and Perfect Cherry Blossom underlined the alien nature of these games. This was further emphasised by the names. I had to sit and read with my lips confusing Japanese words and unwieldily English. It seemed that everything about these games pointed to excess and chaos. It reminded me of noise music; impenetrable to non-listeners, but with a smug contingent of followers. I wanted to at least try one of these impossible games. So I think I downloaded the demo of Perfect Cherry Blossom, and it all went from there.

[sirmax]

The gameboy-port of R-Type got me so hooked when I was around 5yrs old. Controlling a cool looking spaceship, blasting things up was just plain awesome, I had never experienced something before in my (rather short) life. Then SNES happend and completely forgot about shmups. Years later I stumbled upon Ikaruga and I instantly got this feeling back.

Long story, short: R-Type and Ikaruga

[Zaarock]

19XX: the war against destiny. I got MAME to play metal slug when I was like 11 and it happened to be the featured game that day on MAWS (MAWS used to have roms, actually). Next day was Dodonpachi First game I tried playing for 1cc was ESP Ra.De.

[R-Type]

My first shmup was Arrow Flash. I was very young when I played it and completed the first mission.
That amazing ship/humanoid-mech coupled with the music was so intimidating and so respectful, at the time. Then that accident happens and it felt IDK, so serious. At the time story telling wasn't like today so these things had more impact.

Anyways, I sucked. A few years forward and I was a jRPG emo, when I games like Ace Combat 3, Zone of the Enders fell in my collection, I always had a thing for awesome ships/mech/vehicles tbqh, and when I noticed R-Type Final's 100's cast I was amazed. So I bought that game later, new for 15€ or something cheaper (I'd be glad to pay full price too).

Then my need for shooting and dodging arose. I began playing older R-Types, I learned about emultion meanwhile so I retried Bio Hazard Battle, one of my favorites and extended onto bullet hells, although horis will always be my preference.

TLDR: How I became a serial shmuper, born from a traumatic shmuping experience at an early age.

[Sasupoika]

Demonstar, Space Impact, Dodonpachi, Axelay and bunch of Youtube-videos.

[stryc9]

It would be playing 1942 on the cruise ship to Denmark from 'Ol Blighty back in about '86. Then made the 'mistake' of getting Atari 7800 over NES back in the day, limiting my shooter exposure a bit which kept me firmly rooted at Alladdin's Castle, my local arcade of the time. Although I guess Xevious on 7800 would have a lot to do with it, I used to freak'n LOVE that game. Then of course Megadrive., the Toaplan games Hellfire, Zero Wing, Truxton, and the Thunderforce series really is when I got serious. The later half of the Nineties was all about fighting games for me and my pals (wasn't it for everyone?, aside from Delta and G-Darius on PSX I didn't return fully to the fold until seeing the new generation of STG on Dreamcast, Mars Matrix, Giga Wing 2, Gunbird 2 and Zero Gunner 2 all just blew me away. From there I have never looked back and have wanted to play just about any cool shooter since then - now all I do is import and you'ed best believe Iv'e got any thing that's good from PS2 onwards - so all good J360 releases, each and every single one are just absolutley phenomenal so I honestly believe THIS IS THE GOLDEN PERIOD WE LIVE IT NOW...

Edit: I'm actually genuinely surprised how many posters here have got into the genre as of recently, I think it's great! I was under the impression STG was the sought of thing you really needed a history with to fully appreciate, but I am overjoyed to see that I appear to be wrong. Come to think of it though, if I saw a Mushi Futari superplay without prior experience I don't see myself NOT wanting to throw down the gauntlet, I mean LOOK AT THE CHAOS.

[fishinant]

Definitely started with 1942 years ago. Then a bit of Tiger Heli and Slapfight at the local takeaway store.

Been getting back into mame for the past 6 months, and am awed by the 'newer' shmups like dragon blaze, raiden fighters jet, DDP and most recently ketsui. I also have an australian region x360, and play a bit of ikaruga and guwange.

Still like playing the retro's though!

[stryc9]

What part of Oz are you from mate?

[devilmanozzy]

Demon Attack for Atari 2600. But Darius Twin SNES brought me more into it with interesting bosses (I had never played Darius or II at that point). I could list alot of 2600 games also played like Space Invaders, Asteroids, and others that got me into Shmups. I am a casual gamer of old Atari 2600-SNES games. Shmups are part of it.

[gennss]

Ikaruga is what got me into modern shooters/retro/import communities.

But I've technically loved the genre without knowing it for years, Galaga is a classic fave since I was little, and I stopped at every raiden machine i've even run into since it was released.

[legztec]

I once began with gradius III on the snes and soon after gost pilots, last resort and the aero fighters 3.
Then a long time noting.... respark came when I later discovered dodonpachi in mame after I read the review here.

[sjoecool1991]

My story was interesting.
I saw the "Hardest video game boss ever" video that is so overposted everywhere, and I though "that game looks awesome!".
I hunted around for the name, found Mushihimesama, and since I had a modified PS2, I picked it up.
I then hunted for the company CAVE, because I like Mushi so much, and found a bunch of games on mame, then became obsessed with Progear, which I guess is why I managed to get ot stage 2-5 after a couple years.
Too bad I never 2-ALL'd it, and actually stopped playing that game recently.

[Mischief Maker]

Cho Ren Sha 68K around 2001, 2002. Specifically, I was getting my butt handed to me and I came up with the idea of trying to finish level 1 without shooting, since you can fool the bosses into killing each other. This gave me my first taste of shmupper's Zen.

Over the next few years I dinked around with the Kenta Cho shmups but never got that into them until I discovered the Shoot the Core site.

At first I was overjoyed by the wealth of free games, but then I tried the demo for Mountain of Faith. I do not argue that it's a bugged and flawed game now, but at the time I was amazed that the japanese indie scene was capable of putting together such beautiful graphics. From there I imported my first doujin and the rest is history.

[StoofooEsq]

Zanac was the very first Shmup I recall playing as a young'n of 5 years, probably around 1992. Unfortunately, my household didn't have the Internet yet and Zach Keene likely wasn't available to make an obsessively detailed guide for Zanac. So I didn't know what the hell I was doing, but had fun shooting stuff anyway.

That said, Space Megaforce was the first Shmup that I can definitely recall getting me into the genre. It was the combination of the large variety of weaponry (and weapon variations), voice samples, and OMG MODE 7 that constantly pulled me back to playing it over and over, Compile length aside.

It also established my preference for weapons like the Multi-Directional Shot, and by proxy, the All Range Cannon in Zanac when I replayed it over a decade later in Zanac X Zanac...until I found out how destructive W5 Rewinder was when powered up into that piercing shielding laser (the Fast Forward, as I call it) and stuck with that instead.

[ZacharyB]

A friend got R-type Final and we took turns playing it. The huge number of ships enticed my imagination. Around this point, I started to engage in my art full-time, so I didn't have time for big, sprawling games any longer... not to mention I felt like the market had abandoned my interests. I downloaded some of Kenta Cho's work and I think they're still my favorite.

[louisg]

I was into them as a kid, and then in the early 90s got into other genres which wouldn't kick my ass as hard. But, in 1997, I walked into a mall and they had RayStorm and Strikers 1945 II... I had no idea people made those kinds of games still as anything but shareware. And RayStorm was one of the most awesome things I had seen at that point. So, from then on, I kind of became shooter-obsessed. Then when I found shmups.com a couple years later, I discovered a lot of shooters I hadn't played yet, and I've kind of been going since.

[Jeneki]

I loosely remember the local pizza place having Space Invaders and playing that, but I was too young to perform well. Also Asteroids and Defender which really owned me hard back then. The first ones I played to the point of being good were Vangard and Phoenix.