What game sparked your interest in shooters?

[angryswede]

My first memories are NES shooters like Life Force Salamander, Tiger Heli and Ikari Warriors. I remember seeing the Ikari Warriors box behind the glass counter at a local store and were of course drawn in primarily by the rambo-guys and their promise for hardcore violence.
My mom refused to buy it as it seemed just to much with the "realistic" cover art. Instead I went home with a NES Advantage and Life force (space dragons on the cover, almost as good as rambos), having to wait almost a year before I could fool my grandfather into buying Ikari for me.

The selective memory haven't been able to erase the shame of never being able to complete it without cheat codes. The same goes with the rest of the NES shooters. And how much I hated that expensive stick!
The thing with these games were that I for some reason always returned to them to get more beatings. Some dark child psychology there.

Then came the SNES and platformers ruled the day. And some years later it was time for the jrpg hikikomori of the ps1.
Not until I got the money to start collecting I stumbled on R-type 3. It was way down on the priority list, but a good deal came up and I grabbed a cib. I was completely blown away by the intricate game play - I thought that I had bought a brain dead shooter and instead I had gotten a full blown memory game.

Now, four years later I don't play anything else than shmups. My patience for rpg's are gone and I rather watch a longplay of 7th quest than play it myself again, but I can spend a whole weekend staring at pink and blue patterns.
Today I play with a stick though, but still hate the Advantage and still can't complete life force or ikari without cheats.

[Vyxx]

Xexex

[Blackbird]

I played Raiden Trad on the SNES and R-Type on the TG-16 as a kid. I also have fond memories of discovering a Battle of Midway 1943(?) cab on a vacation once. I can only imagine how many of my parent's quarters I wasted in that machine, I loved it.

Later on, I got Thunder Force V for the Saturn, and really enjoyed it. However, after that, it seemed like no more shooter games were being released in the states (none that I heard about, anyway, admittedly I didn't actively search out titles very much back then).

Cut to recently, where I saw the infamous TLB video of Mushi Ultra on YouTube and went "WTF!?". After that, I just had to learn more about who made that game and what the genre was like now.

[throne_of_wolves]

A combination of downloading a heap of ROMs for MAME and buying a few shooters for the Saturn is where it all started for me. My favourites were Battle Garegga, Armed Police Batrider, Battle Bakraid, Mars Matrix, Dimahoo and Kingdom Grandprix. I then bought Ibara on PCB and subsequently a Blast City. I've been hooked ever since.

[R-Gray 1]

Thanks this topic today i was playing a little Star Force on nes emulator
(and a litlle of Super C )

[DragonInstall]

Gradius 5 led me to import Espgaluda... then mushihime futari many years later to seal the addiction.

I dont know if contra is considered a shooter, but I played that game way too much as a kid.

[xris]

What shooter interested me in video games? Defender! Really, this was the first game I remember playing. Then there was Asteriods. But really though, I actually share a little bit with stryc9, 'cept I had asked for a NES for christmas, and got a Atari 7800, with Pole Position and Xevious. And, Pole Position sucked. I had gotten Choplifter next, and Xenophobe (yeah, I know not really a shooter but it was dope.) I had always enjoyed playing shooters on arcade machines, but never really had them for the mid gen consoles at home. Especially multi directional stuff, Smash TV and Robotron were the shit when I was ten. I guess there may have been some cross over with an interest in run and guns. I guess what really got me into it was Ikaruga for Game Cube, I got it when it first came out and loved it, then when Mobile Light Force 2 came out I got that, and it was a wrap. I played allot of that and then the second, and branched out to Gunbird 2 on DC, got a couple of the collection discs, and started doing some homework. I prolly should've signed up here a few years ago, but never had my own pc.

[RGC]

Kyukyoku Tiger and Super Star Soldier back in the day. Mushihimesama and DOJ for the era of much rekindling.

[fishinant]

What part of Oz are you from mate?

Canberra. Don't know of any arcades nearby really.

[ratlhead]

R-Type Delta and Thunder Force V.

[BulletMagnet]

19XX: the war against destiny.

Ah, that's actually another one I happened upon completely by chance years ago, in a hotel game room (right across from War Gods!) - shame it never got ported to anything, as I definitely would have tracked it down even back then if I could've.

[bsidwell]

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.

There's basically two ways to react to that video:
"OMG I could never do that in a million years!" -- scrub weenie
"Holy shit lemme at that thing!" -- TRUE GAMAR

[everlust]

Galaga for sure.

I played a fair number of STG's when i was young, but stopped completely around when the PS2 arrived. Though i still bought a few games here and there i didn't really play anything.
So perhaps about 12 years where i didn't really play them. Although casually here and there, like random 10 minute sessions of Viewpoint for the Neo Geo, doujin titles etc, CAVE's efforts on the 360 got me completely back into them, as I'm a big fan of there older shooters. Toaplan included.

I still don't play them much now, but Galaga is definitely what got me interested.

[drauch]

I am noticing lots of new people to the forum in this thread...that is good! More shmup fans= more games.

[anji2128]

I gateway'd into shmups via Contra and Gunstar Heroes, then started branching out into everything else.
I can't really recall the first ones to get me "hooked", probably EspRaDe.
The first shmup I can recall owning was R-Type DX on Gameboy Color, I remember sitting in 6th grade Science playing it in my desk.
My interest for shmups re-kindled really with the release of Ikaruga on XBL as well as getting my hands on the Raiden Fighter Aces demo on the JP side of XBL.

[drunkninja24]

I played Raiden Trad on the SNES and R-Type on the TG-16 as a kid. I also have fond memories of discovering a Battle of Midway 1943(?) cab on a vacation once. I can only imagine how many of my parent's quarters I wasted in that machine, I loved it.

Later on, I got Thunder Force V for the Saturn, and really enjoyed it. However, after that, it seemed like no more shooter games were being released in the states (none that I heard about, anyway, admittedly I didn't actively search out titles very much back then).

Cut to recently, where I saw the infamous TLB video of Mushi Ultra on YouTube and went "WTF!?". After that, I just had to learn more about who made that game and what the genre was like now.

Good to see not everyone was turned off by that video.

[Estebang]

Like with so many other people, it was DDP on Mame.

Ikaruga on the Gamecube was the first shmup I anticipated the release of and bought. The next year, Gradius V was the reason I got a PS2.

[moozooh]

I think my first shmup was Galaxian, but to say it sparked anything at all would be an overstatement. I don't actually remember what was the game that actually got me into the genre, but I sure didn't spend a lot of time with it.

After a long hiatus, I came back to the genre through one-off attempts at Jets'n'Guns and noiz2sa, but it wasn't until Perfect Cherry Blossom in early 2007 that I started to play these games properly. Came a long way since then, heh.

[lewisit]

it was love at first sight for me

living in Germany it all began in the late 70s/early 80s in bars with Space Invaders then Moon Cresta and after that Xevious (later there weren't any shmup-cabinets to be found around where i lived...)

i played a bunch on the SNES but when the N64 and a (then) powerfull PC arrived i went all 3D for some time

a few years later the day came that i found Giga Wing for my DC in the bargain bin - being able to play arcade-perfect conversions (w/ 60Hz option!) grabbed me and never let loose to this day

[njiska]

I used to love shooting games back in the era of Gradius and Raiden, yet i sort of fell out with them after that as getting them in Canada proved tricky and i was just a young kid. It wasn't until the RFA demo appeared on the JP marketplace that my love of shmups was rekindled.

[blotto]

Maddox. He made such a big deal out of how hard Ikaruga is, and I thought "I like to think I'm pretty good at videogames, maybe I should check this out." Ikaruga isn't the game that did it though, because by the time I finally got around to getting a copy of that game, I had already discovered Touhou, Cave, Psikyo, and Takumi (in that approximate order), and after that Ikaruga was kind of a disappointment.

Shmups never really appealed to me as a kid. I thought they seemed shallow and boring, preferring instead games that had big, open worlds to explore, like Zelda or Metroid. I have gone back to some of those games though, and now I greatly enjoy them. Been playing a lot of Tiger-Heli on the NES lately, and it's awesome.

[Snake]

Playing 1942/43, Galaga, and other ancient classics in arcades back when I was a kid. Long break, then got back into the genre through the Strikers series, then lurking on this forum got me into Raizing/Cave/Seibu.

[Evilmaxwar]

From as far as i can remember shmups always fascinated me. Very first video game i owned was Truxton on the genesis. Really enjoyed it. As i said i always liked shmups but what sparked it to a whole new level is probably when i bought a Saturn+action replay last year and got DDP. I was blown away by the awesomeness of it and knew that from now on this was where gaming was at for me.

[dan76]

1942 when I was supposed to be at college.
UN Squadron for the snes when I was in a crap relationship that I was too gutless to finish.
Ikaruga... in the anticipation, though I've never really got on with it.
Strikers 1945 II in mame on the old xbox.
Dodonpachi in mame on the old xbox - the start of serious playing (as in not particularly well, but playing little else).

[R-Gray 1]

I am noticing lots of new people to the forum in this thread...that is good! More shmup fans= more games.

In my case i noticed that i was a shmup gamer just between 2005-2006 when i was playing many times raystorm and i was really having fun playing Einhander and Darius ( old games for that time)

i never imagined before i was a shmup fan, but i really was if i played:

1989-1990 - atari shmups like space invaders ( 6-8 years old)
1991/1992 -1994 - Nes shmups like twin bee, Star Force, 1942, B-wings, Exerion, Image fight, gyrodine, Macross
1994-1997 Snes shmups like Axelay, Gradius III, Un Squadron, Thunderforce, Aero fighters (also in arcade)
and i remember i was looking for some shmups to buy because i
1998 - 2006 ( i guess) Psx and SNes emulator..Raystorm, Darius, Einhander for psx and axelay, twin bee, cotton, r type etc for snes....... at that time i noticed that i was a really shmup gamer....so i decided investigate about more shmups that i didnt have the chance to play or new ones for sega saturn, dreamcast, ps2.....


and around that time i saw Ikaruga
and later the video of called "most dificult game " on Youtube......mushihimesama futari final boss

that kind of videos turn you on

thats the reason i decided looking for more info about shmups or forums to talk about shmups experiences:)

[KBZ]

1943 on the NES. But not again until Ikaruga

[beyonder]

Swiv on the Amiga, somewhere around the early 90s.

[Tigershark]

Ha, funny how these posts give you a good idea of the age of some of the forum members here!

[hobbles off on walking stick]

[cools]

I've played them for as far back as I can remember - Timeslip was probably the first I played.

[raigon50]

I think the first shmup I played was Blood Money on the Amiga (so my brother says)
The first shmup I REMEMBER playing was Gradius III on my snes (still one of my favorites)
The shmup that got me more interested in shmups was probably a Raiden game, or maybe an R-Type.
The shmup that made me into the local shmup-nut was the Touhou series (Mountain of Faith FTW).