![Wink ;)](./images/smilies/icon_wink.gif)
I'm pretty new to the shooting scene. I have been a big fan of games since the NES, but I didn't get into shooters until around January of this year. I played Mushihime Sama at an arcade in Yokohama and that was pretty much my first experience with modern shooters. Overall, I was very shocked with the challenge that vert shooters impose. I ran back to my friends place and did research on this site and others about this company named "Cave". It's funny, I ran out and bought Espgaluda and Dai-Ou-Jou before I even realized that shooters were so common that I could have tried the games out first at almost any arcade in Japan. At this point I was shocked at how the quality in Cave's titles kept a very high standard no matter which game I tried. Then I downloaded MAME to try out the older titles (shame on me) and fell in Love with all the rest such as DonPachi, DoDonPachi, Guwange, and Esprade. Now we're at the present, and I purchased a DoDonPachi PCB before I left Japan and just picked up a New Astro City cab with a vertical monitor about a week or so ago. I'm completely stoked with my new addition to the family.
So, what other companies/games would you recommend I do research on? I'm not adverse to Horizontal shooters either. I've heard people mention a few companies, but I don't know how they all compare? If any of you have some input or some favorite games you want to mention, I'd love to hear it. Thanks