9th Annual Top 25 Shmups of All Time - discussion thread

[hzt]

Diadra Empty, one of the most underrated horis around.

I voted for this as well. Absolutely love that game, it's nice to see at least a couple of other people mentioning it.

[mjclark]

Flame Zapper Kotsujin definitely deserves more recognition. Took me completely off guard when I tried it for the first time. Such an awesome blend of raiden/raizing-ish gameplay elements with some phenomenal music. This game really reminded me why I love shooters so much.

Yes!!! It's on my list too and it is the tops.
Like Recca (which I was pleased to see on at least one other list) it was astonishingly ahead of it's time and did things with it's native platform that others hadn't seen coming.
Also good too see so many mentions of Raiden III and IV which have got the attention they deserve this year.
As well as PC98 and NES I also included a x68k doujin on my list (Zero Rei) not to be deliberately obscure but because it's been one of the shmups I've most enjoyed playing.
Someone else suggested a seperate voting poll for games by platform (e.g. Top 10 shmups on NES,SNES , Genesis, Turbografx, NeoGeo and so on).
Now that would be interesting

[Mortificator]

Someone else suggested a seperate voting poll for games by platform (e.g. Top 10 shmups on NES,SNES , Genesis, Turbografx, NeoGeo and so on).

Top 3, maybe. It'd be rough naming 10 truly great shooters for each of those consoles.

In fact, since I'm not sure how to modify my list from last year (aside from adding Shiki 3), I will give this a shot.

NES
1. Zanac
2. Recca
3. Abadox

SNES
1. Super R-Type
2. Pop'n TwinBee
3. R-Type III

Genesis
1. Thunder Force IV
2. Elemental Master
3. Zero Wing

PC-Engine
1. Lords of Thunder
2. something Soldier something, give or take a "something"
3. That one hori that was a little less forgetable than all the other horis.

Neo-Geo
Sonic Wing 2 & 3 and Strikers 1945 Plus are decent, but not as good as Sonic Wings Limited or Special, or Strikers 1945 II or 1999. Between those, and a handful of R-Type clones, nothing stands out enough to make a list.

[louisg]

mjclark wrote:
Someone else suggested a seperate voting poll for games by platform (e.g. Top 10 shmups on NES,SNES , Genesis, Turbografx, NeoGeo and so on).

Here's my stab at a top 3 for 16-bit consoles:

SNES:
Axelay
Space Megaforce
U.N. Squadron

Genesis:
Thunderforce III
Elemental Master
Thunderforce IV

Amiga:
Battle Squadron
Uridium 2
Lethal Xcess

PC Engine:
Lords of Thunder
Nexzr
Gate of Thunder

DOS (yeah, I went there):
Tyrian
Major Stryker
Zone 66 (come on, it has a cool intro ).. torn between this and StarGoose!

Neo Geo (I didn't play any of these much, but here's what comes to mind):
Blazing Star
Sonic Wings 2
Twinkle Star Sprites

[spadgy]

Is Shock Troopers too much of and 'action-adventure' games and too little of a 'Manually advancing multi-directional shooters (Granada, Kiki Kaikai, Bangai-O)' for a vote?

To me, it's not far from a multi-directional OutZone, and I'm sure OutZone is eligible for entry.

[mesh control]

SNES lists need more Bio-Metal.

edit: searching ebay for a cheap sfc cart (because the US soundtrack sucks) and I found this:


irrelevance

[Aquas]

Diadra Empty, one of the most underrated horis around.

I voted for this as well. Absolutely love that game, it's nice to see at least a couple of other people mentioning it.

I must say I am curious about it now after seeing it on multiple lists.

This year I'm happy to add a few games especially. Same! Same! Same! after getting to appreciate the insanity of this game played for survival. Music and sound are aces as well. Also, from last years STGT, Xexex. Simply beautiful game.

I am sad to see no love for Plus Alpha. This game is accessible and difficult and just an enjoyable experience overall. When I think of arcade cute'em'ups I think of Parodious, then I think of this game.

Also last year I had Futari and Futari BL close together at the top of my list but frankly BL is good but I haven't played it nearly as much as Futari 1.5's Original mode which is just so much fun to me and really the prize of Futari 1.5. So I dropped BL near the bottom of my list for how it made Maniac mode more accessible.

[incognoscente]

Is Shock Troopers [eligible]?

Affirmative.

[hwl]

[50] Ketsui
[50] Futari (I can't decide between 1.5 or BL, if they are counted separately remove Ibara and have 1.5 and BL tied with 50 points each]
[40] Dodonpachi
[40] EspGaluda
[40] EspGaluda II
[40] Dodonpachi DOJ BL
[38] Muchi Muchi Pork
[37] Dodonpachi DFK (Black Label, if the versions are counted separately remove Esprade and put 1.5 with 22 points)
[30] Mars Matrix
[30] Death Smiles
[30] Mushihimesama
[25] Pro Gear
[25] Shikigami no Shiro III
[25] Armed Police Batrider
[20] Guwange
[15] Shikigami no Shiro II
[10] Giga Wing
[10] Giga Wing 2
[10] Deathsmiles IIX
[8] Battle Bakraid
[5] Giga Wing Generations
[5] Pink Sweets
[5] Batsugun (Special version if it is counted as different)
[3] EspRade
[3] Ibara

This seems to be a FAIL.

Also: why is it that Battle Garegga is up there? One of the worst shmups of alltime imo.

[louisg]

(insert mostly-Cave top-25 list

This seems to be a FAIL.

Also: why is it that Battle Garegga is up there? One of the worst shmups of alltime imo.

I'm not a big fan of Cave, but this whole thing *is* pretty subjective. I don't see how it's a "fail", except that maybe he should consider branching out a little.

(yeah, I never understood the deal with Battle Garegga either. My Raizing picks would be Dimahoo and Souky)

[nZero]

I don't see how it's a "fail", except that maybe he should consider branching out a little.

01. Use the following vote format including brackets:

• [integer score 1 to 25] [first game title]
  [integer score 1 to 25] [second game title]
  • etc.

[Dale]

TenshiP,s list is pretty awesome.

[incognoscente]

I wasn't able to predict where my free time would fall, so the early ballot correction notices are... less early this year. I wish I could have done better. Sorry.

With that said, there aren't very many to send out this year (partly due to fewer voters), so at least there's that.

[Sapz]

I'm seeing a surprisingly high amount of Pink Sweets votes! Wonder if this is due to Arrange mode's influence? At any rate, it'd be pretty cool to see this actually place somewhere.

[Chaos Phoenixma]

If it weren't for Arrange it would be a lot lower on my list as I'm still undecided about arcade mode.

[Battletoad]

my list

11 new entries compared to last year (which had been my first vote) with Crimzon Clover, Homura, ESPGaluda, Mushihimesama, Dragon Blaze, XOP Black Ultra, Raiden Fighters 2, Ketsui, Fast Striker, Daioh and Cyvern. Some small changes in the rankings, too. However, I'm much more happy with this list than 2010. Back then I hadn't played 25 shmups I really love and filled the list with Ikaruga, Hellfire, Gaiares etc. No bad games, but they actually don't belong to my favourites and thus not into my top 25.

[Enhasa]

I have a score posted in the high score board for every game on my top 25, aw yeah. It'd be pretty cool if the requirements for voting were more like "posted in score thread for at least 80% of your list."


Wow I realized my list has more Cave (5) than Raizing (4) or Psikyo (3). Yeah Yagawa's at Cave, but I'm still surprised, and I didn't even lie to myself and put DeathSmiles 1 or 2 or Mushi Futari on there, and I haven't played Akai Katana either.

In dis(honor) I was going to change my avatar to but then I realized I might forget to change it back. It might still be worth it though.

The best part is reading other people's lists. Out of the lists posted so far, Icarus and NTSC-J in particular have great taste. But... we knew this already. Looking forward to more lists being posted

Yeah, reading lists is the best! Great taste = correlation between one person's list and the speaker. That being said, I always like Icarus, BIL, Randorama, and The Coop's lists. That and anyone who puts down Granada. (!)

I'm seeing a surprisingly high amount of Pink Sweets votes! Wonder if this is due to Arrange mode's influence?

I think it's due just to being on the 360 now?