Shmup Company Tributes

[MOSQUITO FIGHTER]

This made me feel all nerdy inside when I noticed this. So, I noticed that the powered up shot from Turbo Force looks and sounds the exact same as the shot in Homura. Are the Homura developers paying respect to Turbo Force or what?

Any examples of shmup companies giving tribute to other shmup companies that you know of?

[Squire Grooktook]

First thing that comes to mind is probably Dodonpachi DOJ ost track names being homages to various shmup developers/companies.

Also the laser on the default ship in Jamestown looking so close to Dodonpachi's traditional laser.

[Mortificator]

The Type-A in Batsugun has a vulcan and missiles like the Raiden.

A boss in Radiant Silvergun is named Gallop and uses attacks from R-Type & R-Type II.

The Caesar in Super Star Soldier changes shape and emits a damaging exhaust plume when changing speed, like the OF-1 in Image Fight. Later Caravan games followed suit.

The P-38 in Strikers 1945 II does a loop for its bomb, though that's not necessarily a reference to 1942.

[pestro87]

The "power up" item in the Advance Mode in Eschatos looks VERY similar to the "power up" item in the Toaplan shmups.

[MOSQUITO FIGHTER]

The rear of the bug in Mushihimesama stage 3 looks like the final boss in Truxton.

[Hagane]

The code to unlock the extra characters in Vasara 2 is the same to play with Aine in Sengoku Blade.

One of Sho's spellcards in UFO is called Radiant Treasure Gun. Stage 6 is a reference to Space Invaders.

[azinth]

Strawman's homing shot in Batrider looks just like the blue shot in Tatsujin Oh. Miyamoto's options are also pretty similar to the green shot. They always end up triggering my T-Oh-induced PTSD when I use them.

[MOSQUITO FIGHTER]

Eschatos has a Space Invaders tribute. I bet there are a bunch of Space Invaders and Galaga tributes.

I think the stage 3 midboss in Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu kind of looks like the stage 3 boss Mad Steel Darkness from Batsugun.

[nimitz]

The little (often red) civilian cars crossing the screen from side to side seen in the Raiden games are a toaplan tribute.

I think gyrodine (made by crux, an early name of toaplan) is the first game with such a car, then tiger heli has quite a few, not sure about the other toaplan games.

Gyrodine:




The stage 5 background in Garegga is from a little known game "Sky smasher", it even has the sideways lightning bolts!

in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBz_JA2cXyw&t=3m03s


Gekirindan's ships are a direct toaplan tribute: Biplane (sky shark), Heli (Twin Cobra) and the truxton/tatsujin ship complete with it's amazing tribute bomb.



The Moai battle ship special stage in Gokujou parodious is a tribute to R-type.


Ketsui's scoring system is a tribute to Omega fighters.


The way your bombs following you on screen in Dimahoo might be a gemini wings tribute.

[Herr Schatten]

The rear of the bug in Mushihimesama stage 3 looks like the final boss in Truxton.

So it's something like a tribute Cave's own past. Makes sense. Also, the Mushihimesama Original mode deviates quite a lot from Cave's usual style and plays surprisingly close to old
Toaplan stuff.

The little (often red) civilian cars crossing the screen from side to side seen in the Raiden games are a toaplan tribute.

Interesting. I never knew the one in the Raiden games was already a tribute. That little red car also appears in Trizeal (stage 2), btw. Another tribute.

[ciox]

The stage 5 background in Garegga is from a little known game "Sky smasher", it even has the sideways lightning bolts!

in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBz_JA2cXyw&t=3m03s

That looks really cool, instant resemblance, Sky Smasher kinda one ups it too since eventually the ground is revealed underneath, whether that makes sense or not.


SUCCESS references Treasure pretty heavily, most notably by the end of the first Psyvariar, your ship has transformed repeatedly until it looks like a Silvergun, while the final boss explodes to reveal it's the Stone-Like God.
Vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPv-PTNP7fw#t=9m18s

[BIL]

Pink Sweets' reset command is the Konami code, with the one difference that B and A are reversed.

[Ruldra]

Gekirindan's ships are a direct toaplan tribute: Biplane (sky shark), Heli (Twin Cobra) and the truxton/tatsujin ship complete with it's amazing tribute bomb.

Not only the ships, but the whole game is a tribute to Toaplan. One of the levels (stage 4 I think) totally resembles stage 2 of Tatsujin Oh.

[BIL]

It's common knowledge that the first game is practically a doujin Rayforce sequel, but Siter Skain's entire Alltynex Trilogy (Kamui, RefleX and Alltynex Second) consistently portray three iconic scenes from Taito's game in the same sequence - the massive space armada battle, the realtime re-entry of Earth's atmosphere, and the vast descent into a metallic subterranean lair.

[ChainsawGuitarSP]

Jane's good ending from Sengoku Ace features a cameo of Hien and his master from Aero Fighters. I don't think Psikyo makes any other reference to their former company.

That is a crazy coincidence that Sky Smasher uses the same storm cloud background as Gun Frontier's final stage which served as a homage in Battle Garegga. Both were released in the same year.

Strawman's homing shot in Batrider looks just like the blue shot in Tatsujin Oh. Miyamoto's options are also pretty similar to the green shot. They always end up triggering my T-Oh-induced PTSD when I use them.

The red shot looks like a loose recreation of the Silver Hawk's plasma/laser combination from Darius II but with fire instead.

[apatheticTurd]

One of the secret joke final boss in Aero Fighters 3 is introduced with the message "Warning! A huge battleship "Soh Takeko" is approaching fast."

The entries in the default scoreboard of Cho Ren Sha 68k are named after various Toaplan shmups.

[Ghegs]

Not exactly subtle, but Hydorah's ending pretty plainly lets us know what games locomalito grew up with.

[nimitz]

That is a crazy coincidence that Sky Smasher uses the same storm cloud background as Gun Frontier's final stage which served as a homage in Battle Garegga. Both were released in the same year.

Accordying to our chronology of STG thread, Sky smasher was released in December 1990 and Gun frontier in January 1991. I see two possibilities, either it's an amazing coincidence or there were some links between the two dev teams.

[KAI]

Gun Frontier was released in 1990 (and Taito memories says 1989)

[CIT]

The background in Donpachi's score display reads "Toaplan Forever".

Battle Garegga draws heavily from Gun Frontier, e.g. bomb fragments, directable bomb blasts, fire trails left by destroyed enemies, punk flamingoes.

Border Down is an hommage to Metal Black and G Darius (laser battles).

Radiant Silvergun is an hommage to Image Fight (methodical gameplay and chosing the right weapon for the right situation).

Last Resort, Pulstar, Xexex and about two dozen other games with slow pacing and force pods are hommages to R-Type.

[Softdrink 117]

Enemy names in DOJ and Ketsui sometimes have references to other titles and developers. For example, the giant plane that spams bullets at you during the beginning of Ketsui's stage 5 is called the Golden Bat ED according to Cave's website.

[trap15]

Several CAVE games have shoutouts to IGS, and shoutouts to previous games:

In DOJ, one of the stage-end backgrounds says "Donpachi 4", which means it has to be counting DDP2 in that lineage.

The stage 3 midboss in SDOJ is highly reminiscent of the stage 3 midboss in Ketsui, and is named "IGS -彩音-", which is a nice little reference to IGS (stands for Imperial Guard System in SDOJ)

[MOSQUITO FIGHTER]

I just remembered that in one of the Viewtiful Joe games they display a Darius boss warning before one of the boss fights. Can't remember the boss or if it's in the first or second game.