Whats the shmup that inspired you to get into this hobby.?

[Stevas]

Megadrive Tatsujin.

Still play it now.

[BIL]

It certainly helps that it didn't just let you credit feed till the end, unlike games I had played before it.

That was another thing about GV that caught my attention - the game gradually giving you more credits over time. I noticed that when I'd start a game without my memory card, limited to the default amount of credits, it was like taking off the training wheels - and I liked the feeling. That and the announcer's Game Over messages getting gradually less derogatory the closer I got to the end of the loop made me determined to see it through.

[CloudyMusic]

Xevious for the Apple II was my first love. Throughout the 90s and 2000s, I casually played most of the Gradius games.

Didn't really play many shmups other than that until the first couple Cave iOS ports came out. After that, it was a short trip down the rabbit hole. Futari was love at first credit; it made me decide to invest serious time into getting good at it.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

While Space Invaders on the 2600 was probably the first VG I ever played I didn't get into the genre until 2009 when I chanced along Ite's Top 10 Doujin shmups YT vid, seeing him dodging bullets and the fast paced flow made me want to emulate that. DLed Blue Wish Resurrection, discovered the forum and the 1CC, and thus you guys had to put up with my shitposting and rants. Atleast my spelling has improved a(little)bit though

[hashiriya1]

When I was a kid my uncle got me Salamander for my Famicom.
That pretty much did it.

[Giest118]

I saw that one hardest boss ever video and decided I needed to seek that game out. The closest thing I could find without shelling out for a console was Mushihimesama on a PS2 emulator. I credit-fed through that bitch on Ultra and was summarily changed forever.

[Marc]

Super Cobra on Intellivision, and Flying Shark and R-Type on the Spectrum in my early days. Later, after I'd gotten over the shock of the new with PS/N64, Batsugun and DonPachi on Saturn.

[pochacco]

imperishable night and samidare

[Technosoft]

Elemental Master for the Mega Drive.

This game is impressive and have a really awesome soundtrack.

[Plasmo]

When I was very young I've played a shmup on a cab, which was probably Raiden Fighters, but I can't recall exactly. This was a mindblowing experience for me. The cab vanished a few weeks later, so I was never able to play it again. I had no idea what to call these games and that it even was an established genre. I've played several other videogames until I've stumbled upon Space Megaforce for the SNES. I've played it a lot, but still didn't know what to search for in order to play this awesome kind of games.

I always had the urge to play shmups, eventhough I didn't know what to call them and where to look for them.

Then there came Ikaruga and it hit me like a truck. Played this game exclusively for many years and sold all my other videogames, because they felt so dull compared to shmups. From then on I was right there, where I've always wanted to be. Shmups are a huge part of my life.

tl;dr: Ikaruga

[null1024]

Chorensha 68k

I had played shmups before this, but nothing sucked me up till that point like it did.

[MathU]

I've enjoyed these sorts of games ever since I played Galaga in my arcade, and I owned a few 8-bit and 16-bit console shooters, but I didn't really get back into the genre until I got Chaos Field while hunting Gamecube games I had overlooked.

[Mortificator]

R-Type! It's a little embarrassing how I filled my first top 25 ballot with every R-Type game. But I actually have Hardcore Gaming 101 to thank for my renewed interest in shooting games. I hadn't played R-Type in years, but after reading about all the games in an article there I just had to try them.

[dannnnn]

Dragon Blaze. Played it for a comp on SDA, it was the first time I'd downloaded and used MAME. I remember playing a few credits in the morning before I had to go out and then throughout the day just wanting to get back home and play it more. Fast paced and instantly gratifying, it was the perfect introduction for me and a real eye-opener to this side of gaming I'd long overlooked. STGs soon became my favourite genre after that.

[Rex Cavalier]

My avatar and username says it all Hellsinker

[Herr Schatten]

Astro Warrior on the Master System kind of kindled my love for shmups. Later, Wings of Death and Xenon II became my first 1CCs. Amiga Katakis became my first (and so far only) ever counterstop. That game was obviously not built for score play.

[Sly Cherry Chunks]

Amiga Katakis became my first (and so far only) ever counterstop. That game was obviously not built for score play.

I'm interested in this. How was it done?

[Herr Schatten]

Amiga Katakis became my first (and so far only) ever counterstop. That game was obviously not built for score play.

I'm interested in this. How was it done?

You can milk the last boss endlessly.

Maybe "counterstop" is not quite the right word for what happened, "counter overflow" might be more appropriate. After milking the boss for a while, the score display overflowed and digits started to get written into the border of the score display. On the highscore list, the score then showed up as a bunch of zeros (in the number one spot, no less, though).

[Bananamatic]

Touhou

imperishable night in particular

[Erppo]

Perfect Cherry Blossom.

I had tried some shmups before that occasionally but that was the first one I actually tried to learn to play. Haven't really stopped playing since.

[Jaimers]

Touhou

Perfect Cherry Blossom in particular.

[Zengeku3]

The one with all the grade A lolis.

Haha, i wish. Imperishable Night.

[Sakurei]

embodiment of the scarlet devil was my first shooter. it still hold a special place in my heart. I don't play it as much as I used to, though. I should probably pick it up and do something with it. it has the best loli in the entire series, after all

[Emuser]

DDP got me to play...DDP for a very long time before I came around and discovered this forum.

A little after that I shitplayed Imperishable Night forever and to this day never really understood how it works outside of survival.

BWR+ was probably the 2nd game that truly inspired me after DDP, even though I had played DDP much more by the time I found BWR+, I feel like BWR+ truly opened up a whole new world to me. Shame it's such an overlooked and underrated game...its very challenging and a rush under the right circumstances (gotta ween away from that autoguard, become men...)

In short, DDP and BWR+

[Welcome2SpecialRound]

Ketsui. I am still trying to counterstop.

[TheSyllogist]

Mushihimesama Futari

After beating Ninja Gaiden 2 on Master Ninja difficulty, I was looking for another challenge. Searched for "Hardest video game boss" and found this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQZuidKexBQ

I just purchased Deathsmiles and now I am completely hooked.

[Special World]

Initially it was probably Mars Matrix, but I didn't play a whole lot of shooters after that. It wasn't until I started downloading TG-16 games like Gate of Thunder, Lords of Thunder, and Star Parodier on Virtual Console that I got back into them. Played those a ton, then played all the Dreamcast games I'd missed, and then somebody from another forum linked me to a Shmups Top 25 topic and turned me on to Dodonpachi and all the MAME Cave games. So then I got a PS2 boot disc and played all the Cave titles on there. Around that time Futari was announced region-free, and the ball just started rolling and rolling. Cave is a bunch of dunces for not localizing or releasing games region-free sooner, I really doubt I would have ended up buying a J360 and all of Cave's games if not for that. Kinda like how Enix shot themselves in the foot by not localizing a number of Dragon Quest games. Sure they might not sell as well here, but you are screwing yourself if you're not building a market base. I wonder if the US would care more about STGs if we actually had a proper selection to choose from.

[Phellan Wolf]

Damn, I must be the only one who fell in love with the genre playing Space Invaders on my old 2600???
And after that my first gameboy game was...... R-Type. Damn I played it when I was 10 years old and couldnt beat the 4 boss. Took me 2 years to find a way to kill it and to finish the game.
Good old times when I could 1CC Contra III on SNES on VHard dificulty....... Damn aging is getting on my nerves and skills

[AntiFritz]

Dangun Feveron. Saw it recommended in a forum thread about how Mushihime-sama Futari was going to be the first region free japanese exclusive 360 game. The only reason I took any notice of the thread was because I recognised the name Mushihime-sama from "that video".

I had played a few games like warning forever before that though, but Dangun Feveron is what first got me into cave/mame.

[Drachenherz]

The culprit for getting me seriously in this hobby would be...

Espgaluda II... the iOS version...