OK- I've already seen this thread but that went so OT it wasn't much help...
...Are there any proper good "up-there-with-the-best-of-them" non-Japanese shmups in the last twenty years?
All I could come up with is:
Jamestown
XOP series
Geometry Wars
Gridrunner Revolution
Fast Striker
and don't go telling me about no Tyrian or X2 nonsense- I mean shmups that are in the same league as the Japanese ones and might even make it into someone's Top 50
SöldnerX2 is reported to be pretty much one of the bests if not the best non-japanese shmups around. Else, it's a pretty solid one.
Beat Hazard Ultra if you count twin stick ones since, despite what I know everyone will say about it being a big clusterfuck of impossible-to-see stuff, fixed everything that was wrong with the original: no inertia, dozens of configurations/perks, great variety of bosses and regular enemies, improved synchronisation (while maybe not as accurate as one could've hoped, some stuff runs pretty well, even slower tunes) and nice leaderboard support.
Let me see... Razor2 and Yar's Revenge! Nah, just kidding.
But I can think about Jamestown only, and even that one wouldn't make it to my top favourites... Maybe Steel Saviour because, despite everything, it looks absolutely gorgeous and, once you get over its "euroshmuppyness", it's pretty nice. Perhaps Jets 'n' Guns could be added too, but I found it gets too frustrating until you unlock the "destroy all" stuff.
NOW REACHES THE FATAL ATTRACTION BE DESCRIBED AS "HELLSINKER". DECIDE DESTINATION.
If you count multi-directional shooters in, there must be more good ones. Grid Wars?
I liked Excellent Bifurcation better than most recent doujins I played.
The rear gate is closed down
The way out is cut off
I guess I'm not sure what we're using to define among the best.
Sure XOP is a good doujin, but I don't think I would list it among Raizing, Cave and most other top professionally made Japanese games. I haven't played James Town though, so it very well could be up there.
I guess Geometry Wars would count, but I'm pretty ignorant about multi directional shooters made in Japan, and I think it would be hard to compare them to standard shmups.
I'd say that Iridion 2 is easily on par with or better than a lot of Compile games. It's easily better than "middle of the road" 16-bit Japanese games such as Sol Deace, Wings of Wor, or Phalanx. Nanostray 2 is also not too bad. Fast Striker is also a pretty good non-Japanese shmup; I think it's a lot better than some other Neo Geo efforts.
