I actually wrote down why I voted for everything just so I could decide if it was worth it. Not sure it's worth reading, but whatever:
[25] Mushihimesama Futari (Love the shot types, love the scoring, love the patterns, etc. It's a game I could see myself never getting bored with.)
[24] Espgaluda II (Favourite soundtrack in a shmup, ever. Gameplay is awesome, Zesshikai mode makes things amazingly intense, the port's got a lot of extra modes... fantastic, honestly.)
[23] Progear no Arashi (Amazingly fun to play, not so fond of the stage music, sadly.)
[22] Giga Wing (The reflect mechanic is awesomely fun.)
[21] Espgaluda (Music is awesome, great game with a fun Arrange based on Esp.Ra.De, scoring is even more fun in Arrange than it is in Arcade, downside is scoring requires a lot of finicky optimizations. I think people would love this game more if they knew how much fun the PS2 Arrange mode was.)
[20] Gradius V (It's the best Gradius game in my opinion, mostly because it plays very much unlike most Gradius games. The smaller, more precise hitbox is a huge part of this.)
[19] Mystic Square (Still probably my fave Touhou game, I just loved the 'feel' of the PC'98 games.)
[18] DonPachi (I have a major soft spot for the first game in the series.)
[17] Akai Katana (The scoring is a blast, especially Shin.)
[16] Dodonpachi Dai-Fukkatsu 1.5 (Not fond of Black Label, actually.)
[15] Mushihimesama (Not so fond of the scoring in the standard one, but the Matsuri version is awesome.)
[14] DoDonPachi (It's fun, but it's annoying how there's only 3 stage tracks. I'm not as into this one for some reason.)
[13] Ketsui (It's extremely tough and getting into the 2nd loop is brutally difficult, but it's got some of the most unique and fun of Cave's bullet patterns. I can't stand the lock-on beeping for some reason, though.)
[12] Gunbird 2 (Best Psikyo game I think, shot types are well-balanced, variety of endings for both solo + coop, heck the endings are THE BEST EVER. Hitboxes can be a bit hard to figure out though. Doesn't suffer from unbalanced ship selection like how in S1999 the X-36 dominates the rest.)
[11] Strania (Not so fond of the scoring in this one, and TLB fight in the normal game is super lame, but still a blast to play, especially the DLC mode which plays like a sequel to the first game.)
[10] Perfect Cherry Blossom (It's my fave of the Windows-era Touhou games for some reason. Not sure why I'm not as fond as Imperishable Night...)
[09] Cyvern (Fun, but can be very punishing. Weak bombs, and it's more fun with autofire than without.)
[08] Gun-Nac (Lots of fun to play, period. A bit on the easy side though?)
[07] Guardic Gaiden/The Guardian Legend (Best cross between a shmup and an adventure game I've played, TGL mode that's shmup segments only is also a lot of fun.)
[06] Solid State Survivor (It's like DDP without ultra-strict chaining, but more of a focus on heavy pointblanking like Futari BL, hard mode is rather unbalanced and has a million revenge bullets everywhere though.
And it actually got patched recently so it works on Vista and Win 7, yayyy~)
[05] Crisis Force (I really, really do like this game. Multiple selectable ships/bombs on the fly was something that simply isn't seen very much, especially not in the NES days.)
[04] Wyvern Wings (Music quality is atrocious, although I'm not sure how much of that is MAME's fault. Game is pretty well balanced though, a very fun shmup even if it's obviously trying to ripoff Psikyo's style.)
[03] Score Rush MP (Fantastic multiplayer shmup, not so much fun at the higher difficulties when you're playing solo or can't find anyone to play with as stuff takes forever to die, and you can get overwhelmed by normally easy enemies.)
[02]
Fire and Forget (A little-known PC shmup made for the band "The Most". Combines a shmup with a rhythm game for a short, caravan-style experience.
Great song, lot of fun, I think it was made in Java? Sadly, there's no download link anywhere for it, I'd upload a copy if someone were interested, and the only
Youtube video of it is of horrible quality.)
[01] Robot Dinosaurs That Shoot Beams When They Roar (The bestest flash shmup, srsly. Voted for this just because of how much it amused me considering how flash shmups tend to be mediocre at best.)
Yeah, I have a lot of Cave's stuff on my list... but I really do like their style.
OFC they have they are super good.
. Really happy to see some Cyvern and Viper Phase 1 nods though.
) disqualified? I imagine it was a lengthily discussion about allowing first person perspective games in as a whole... But I'm curious about where you guys netted out specifically.
