13th Annual Top 25 Shmups of All Time - Results

[Squire Grooktook]

Survival is all well and good, but there's nothing to do after that.

I've heard Iconoclast say this many times, and I'll always disagree.

There are many games I enjoy that have nothing beyond survival or "beating the game", but there's no reason they can't still be exciting on subsequent playthroughs. Even when there's nothing more to "achieve", I still enjoy returning to them every now and then.

But that's just me. I don't play for "achievement". I play for the sense of tension when the chips are down and both victory and death are but one wrong/right move away. For me, "Achievement" is just the carrot at the end of the stick, a nice bonus after your done. But it's the moment to moment sense of tension and thrill during the game that I play for, not the sense of satisfaction of clearing it or achieving something.


Prime example: Daimakaimura and Contra 3. 1lc's on hard achieved, and no scoring that isn't busted. I Revisit them every few month's. Have they ever stopped being exciting once you're in the thick of the action? Nope.

So yeah, Super Aleste might have shitty scoring, as many 16 bit shooters do (to varying degrees), but IMO that in no way disqualifies the games unique strengths...at least for me.

[Bananamatic]

hard to feel excitement trying to achieve something you've already done dozens of times
it's like running a race knowing beforehand that your time can at best be your best with not a millisecond of improvement

[Squire Grooktook]

I had thought of that, but I actually took a lot of time replaying stuff and seeing if I could "get into the moment" like I did the first time I cleared it, and it worked multiple times. I even actually would put my hand to my chest to see if it was beating as rapidly as old 1cc's, heh.

I guess, for me at least, it's not about what you can do, it's more just thinking "am I going to win, or am I not going to lose? Am I going to get the catharsis of victory, or am I going to have the melancholy of time and effort (not really) wasted in defeat?" therein lies the tension, which is built up as you put effort and time into playing through the game. I guess you could say it's like when you're playing casuals matches with your friends in fighting games. You're not at a tournament and there's nothing tangible at stake, but it can still get absolute intense and hype. You want to win, just for the sake of winning and having fun, and you don't care what it means.

But yeah. A truly good game to me is like a good book, or a good song. You return to it throughout the years, and it and it only grows and matures with age. A truly good game should never be discarded, even when you've seen all there is to see and achieved all there is to achieve.

[Perikles]

Gradius is an infinitely better game than Gradius II simply because the stage design isn't broken and because the game rewards you for powerups.

Can you elaborate on that? I'm honestly not quite sure what you mean with broken stage design in II and the comparison between the power-ups in the original and II (other than the strategy to not pick four options in II in order to prevent the option hunter from appearing). And unlike III where many checkpoints are almost impossible to recover from most of them are doable in II. I'd say that stages 3, 4 and 8 (bar the final checkpoint) are extremely tough upon dying, everything else is feasible with a bit of practice.

Same problem behind anyone thinking Salamander AC is good. Salamander PCE should be considered a completely separate game and Salamander AC should not even be on the list.

I do agree on that, PCE Salamander is better in every imaginable way except for the exquisitely cheesy voice samples which are sadly missing on the PCE. Still won't stop me from doing a multi-loop session on the arcade version at some point in time, though.

Daisenpuu doesn't have that problem at all.

Wouldn't you say that the helper squadrons are fairly broken in Daisenpuu, too? Or at least make the game substantially easier, just like the spread shot in KT?

[Xyga]

The pleasure factor should always be considered, games featuring extended scoring possiblities aren't always more enjoyable to play, but for many people gaming pleasure is before everything a matter of personal performance and/or competition so they might still play those until they reach satisfying figures.

They'll get their fix this way, but not everyone will, I'm myself part of the less vocal and most certainly minority that enjoys achievement too, of course, but is not placing it on top of the things I'm after in a game/shmup for my satisfaction.
If the scoring system itself is making the flesh of the game's fun of course I'll focus on it, but if it's tedious or asking too much of me I'll skip and just try to 1cc a few times maybe.

So, I often replay the 8~16~32bit 'oldies' glories for a joy ride and many never fail to give me that almost extinct 'vibe' for just about 1/2 an hour, or several consecutive. Then back to the shelf for a month or more and me to again try and improve a bit at some YGW game even though I know I'll always suck because I'm not 'playing seriously-enough'.
But every time with the oldies it's like breathing fresh air again, more modern shmups are too focused on fulfilling one type of fetish (scoring) and speak less to other sensitivities like what's related to the atmosphere and universe or whatever tons of other little things that should make games something more than just math formulas with controls.

[Square_Air]

Gradius is an infinitely better game than Gradius II simply because the stage design isn't broken and because the game rewards you for powerups.

Can you elaborate on that? I'm honestly not quite sure what you mean with broken stage design in II and the comparison between the power-ups in the original and II (other than the strategy to not pick four options in II in order to prevent the option hunter from appearing). And unlike III where many checkpoints are almost impossible to recover from most of them are doable in II. I'd say that stages 3, 4 and 8 (bar the final checkpoint) are extremely tough upon dying, everything else is feasible with a bit of practice.

I second this notion. I would like to hear you elaborate on this. I wouldn't mind revisiting this game soon, but Gradius rubbed me pretty raw last time I played it. I just can't get into the whole "fight the exact same boring boss 5 times" in a game that's under 20 minutes long. The customization in 2 is a nice touch, and visually 2 is much more interesting. Compared to gradius 1 where you start off with a pretty basic looking stage, in gradius 2 you start the game off by fighting fire serpent dragons coming out of stars.

Daisenpuu doesn't have that problem at all.

Wouldn't you say that the helper squadrons are fairly broken in Daisenpuu, too? Or at least make the game substantially easier, just like the spread shot in KT?

I wouldn't say so. The spread shot can theoretically stay with you the entire game, while the usefulness of the helper formations are a bit exaggerated and bosses can pick them off pretty quickly. Twin Hawk is pretty nasty in difficulty without them, and still a good challenge even with them. The soundtrack in flying shark is a little grating IMHO while Twin Hawk's is pretty good for Toaplan games.

But yeah. A truly good game to me is like a good book, or a good song. You return to it throughout the years, and it and it only grows and matures with age. A truly good game should never be discarded, even when you've seen all there is to see and achieved all there is to achieve.

You know, you're alright in my books....And your Cho Ren Sha 68k runs are beautiful...

[Perikles]

I wouldn't say so. The spread shot can theoretically stay with you the entire game, while the usefulness of the helper formations are a bit exaggerated and bosses can pick them off pretty quickly.

I doubt the usefulness of the helper squadrons can be overstated. The spread shot in TC/KT is of course your most valid option for most of the game (although I like to switch to the green laser for the bosses in stage 4 & 9), but it's not like it makes later parts/loops trivial. Those huge planes that shoot two vertical parallel streams of bullets, thus delicately limiting your movement space, take quite a while to kill unless you can point-blank them with three out of your five spreads which is not an option after the first few stages (unless you're willing to bomb). If you sweep too far to one side those pesky tanks/boats/turrets will still snipe you if you're not aware of everything. Enemies from behind are always a severe threat. Several bosses will last for quite a while against the spread etc. pp. The spread shot is not a sure-fire success although it is undoubtedly the best weapon at your disposal. I certainly never feel safe when playing TC/KT, it's very easy to die everywhere.

[Square_Air]

I wouldn't say so. The spread shot can theoretically stay with you the entire game, while the usefulness of the helper formations are a bit exaggerated and bosses can pick them off pretty quickly.

I doubt the usefulness of the helper squadrons can be overstated. The spread shot in TC/KT is of course your most valid option for most of the game (although I like to switch to the green laser for the bosses in stage 4 & 9), but it's not like it makes later parts/loops trivial. Those huge planes that shoot two vertical parallel streams of bullets, thus delicately limiting your movement space, take quite a while to kill unless you can point-blank them with three out of your five spreads which is not an option after the first few stages (unless you're willing to bomb). If you sweep too far to one side those pesky tanks/boats/turrets will still snipe you if you're not aware of everything. Enemies from behind are always a severe threat. Several bosses will last for quite a while against the spread etc. pp. The spread shot is not a sure-fire success although it is undoubtedly the best weapon at your disposal. I certainly never feel safe when playing TC/KT, it's very easy to die everywhere.

I absolutely agree with you when using autofire, but I don't know why anyone would want to play Twin Hawk with autofire, and i'm usually all for autofire. Not to mention this run is pretty reliant on memorization. In Kyukyoku Tiger you can get a functionally similar effect without autofire whilst staying in the safety of the bottom half of the screen with less time invested in learning the enemy positions.

[chum]

I'm in a bad mood so I'm going to say my piece here.

Before that I would like to express my gratitude to Nifty for continuing to do this. It must require quite a bit of work, and my negative words will not reflect upon his work in any way.

This list. It sucks. Nothing much ever seems to change around here unless a new CAVE game gets released, but then...

What the fuck is Eschatos doing up there? Just what? Above every Psikyo game, every Konami game, every Capcom game, every Toaplan game except Batsugun... You guys can't be for real. Hardly anyone played Eschatos and It'll remain forgotten elsewhere forever. It's also boring but that's just my opinion.

Nonsense. It's just a joke. What this list is in dire need of is more voters, preferably more expert voters with various tastes to give a more accurate representation of what the genre has to offer. The games that aren't danmaku have got to be given a wider representation, and Touhou games are in my opinion way better than CAVE games, to see that the top 25 is still devoid of one of the unarguably best, deepest, most technical, atmospheric and popular STGs (PCB) is an absolute travesty that shouldn't go ignored, besides, seriously, why is this place so ignorant? Why are we ignoring prominent parts of the genre just so we can go on and on about the same old shit (Garegga or whatever) ? As a community we need to move forward. Look for new things, be thorough, and form your own opinion...

This is obviously not the first time the list sucks, but really, It's an eyesore.

At least you can always have fun to look at people's individual lists. That's more entertaining and can lead to some interesting discoveries, but most people that stumble upon this aren't going to do that. They're going to see this bad list.

[chempop]

So you are upset that the community (who bothered to vote) doesn't have the same tastes as you.
I respect you as a player, but crying about a list filled with cave and raizing games (with an odd psikyo/seibu/toaplan/irem/konami thrown in for variety) to a bunch of people who love cave and razing games serves no purpose in my mind. It's like shouting at a baseball game that their sport sucks and isn't as good as badminton. You bring up disdain how old hat garegga stays popular, but how a new, totally fresh, and quite different game Eschatos also gets listed high, a complete contradiction unless I'm mistaken.

As a community we need to move forward. Look for new things, be thorough, and form your own opinion...

I disagree. Getting good at old things is much more what this community strives towards and when it comes to the top 25 of all time, you better believe that "new things" aren't going to compare to the classics.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/03/ ... 34x899.jpg

[Icarus]

I'm in a bad mood so I'm going to say my piece here.

Who took a dump in your breakfast cereal this morning, chum?

[Square_Air]

Pretty much what Chempop said... Everyone knows Chempop salivates at the idea of Dimahoo breaking the top 25, yet he doesn't bring your attitude to this thread. I'm sorry you're in a bad mood, but this is the way community lists work in every form of art, it's a compromise between all the voters to represent the community, not the views of an individual. I would have more sympathy for you, but the Touhou community outnumbers every other shmup community. There are other places dedicated to Touhou where you can find solace besides here, where as for many of us this is one of the few places we can come to find anyone with common interest in certain games.

Someone obviously played Eschatos for it to reach the top. Saying it's boring is pretty dismissive and vague. I for one enjoy Battle Garegga quite a lot, and It was a slow process for me because in the beginning I didn't care for it much; The community did little to influence my choice on this. I actually enjoy PCB, but I wouldn't personally put it in my top 15. You say we go on and on about the same shit (garegga), but PCB is more well known than most of the shooters on this list combined. 2 Touhou games beat out Cho Ren Sha 68k, and i'm just happy that it got back on the HM list this year.

[vvv_stg]

Nonsense. It's just a joke. What this list is in dire need of is more voters, preferably more expert voters with various tastes to give a more accurate representation of what the genre has to offer. The games that aren't danmaku have got to be given a wider representation, and Touhou games are in my opinion way better than CAVE games, to see that the top 25 is still devoid of one of the unarguably best, deepest, most technical, atmospheric and popular STGs (PCB) is an absolute travesty that shouldn't go ignored, besides, seriously, why is this place so ignorant? Why are we ignoring prominent parts of the genre just so we can go on and on about the same old shit (Garegga or whatever) ? As a community we need to move forward. Look for new things, be thorough, and form your own opinion...

Move on onto the new things like a Touhou game from 2003?

At least you can always have fun to look at people's individual lists. That's more entertaining and can lead to some interesting discoveries, but most people that stumble upon this aren't going to do that. They're going to see this bad list.

I wish we had a more of a discussion and less of a vote. Like, "list your favorite STGs and write a paragraph about why other people should play it" (see NeoGAF's RPG poll).

[d0s]

Garbage fucking Musha does not belong on any fucking list of anything except "games with great aesthetics", Jesus Christ. When will this community stop obsessing over this empty pointless game out of sheer nostalgia? This is the exact kind of shit that holds the entire community back. It is everything people claim to hate about other games made real back in 1990, and literally noone notices that. Somehow people can find slogging away for an hour doing absolutely nothing to be fun.

Musha being anywhere near Mahou is a war crime. Putting Musha above Mahou is shmup genocide.

I'm starting to really dislike you. You have cried to me in PMs in IRC for HOURS about people saying nasty things about games you like, and then you trash other people's choices. You only think your opinion counts and it's super obnoxious

[Hagane]

Move on onto the new things like a Touhou game from 2003?

Anything you haven't played is new.

I kind of agree with chum in that the list is pretty bad and lacks variety. People refuse to try new things and post ignorant opinions about the games they haven't taken the time to undertand. At the same time, this is not supposed to be an authoritative list on what's really good out there, it's just the collective opinions of all forum members. It reflects which games are most popular in this niche, and not necessarily which ones are the best.

[qmish]

Garbage fucking Musha does not belong on any fucking list of anything except "games with great aesthetics", Jesus Christ. When will this community stop obsessing over this empty pointless game out of sheer nostalgia? This is the exact kind of shit that holds the entire community back. It is everything people claim to hate about other games made real back in 1990, and literally noone notices that. Somehow people can find slogging away for an hour doing absolutely nothing to be fun.

Musha being anywhere near Mahou is a war crime. Putting Musha above Mahou is shmup genocide.

Now that's aggressive
FYI people can like musha not because nostalgia.

Now if you talk whether it's allowed to vote for shmup because you like enemy design/music/etc and not gameplay - that's a case.

*now excuse me i'm back to Jeff Minter's Space Giraffe*

[Squire Grooktook]

Hardly anyone played Eschatos and It'll remain forgotten elsewhere forever.

We've had people playing it consistently (both casuals and scorers, several of whom here stream it) for 3-4 years straight, and this forum is host to several western world record holders for the game. It's also top 5 material but that's just my opinion.

I agree it never hurts for people to expand their horizons a bit, or at least give new experiences a chance. Most people here are fairly educated to the genre though, so I can't fault them for liking what they like at this point.

Re: MUSHA

I'm generally the kind of person who would be fine playing a game with no art or music and just hitboxes/circles and squares. I appreciate atmosphere and an audiovisual tour, but when I play fighters or shmups, I get so into it that I completely lose track of everything that doesn't have potential to kill me past the first stage (or past the "READY...FIGHT" announcement in a fighter).

So it's saying something about MUSHA's audio-visuals and stylishness that I actually frequently consider replaying it by the strength of its aesthetics alone.

It's not really that bad to play either. It just has a rather extreme case of Gradius syndrome. You do need to move around and shoot/dodge on hard mode, just not enough, and it can feel very frustrating when you suddenly get overwhelmed because you got sniped and have to recover, after a fairly lengthy period of feeling little or no danger or tension. It does have some nice setpieces and bosses though, and as I said its rad as fuck stylistically and I can really appreciate the world it creates.

Ellinore/Teri is total waifu material too.

You know, you're alright in my books....And your Cho Ren Sha 68k runs are beautiful...

Awww shucks

[Xyga]

Oh my, dudes, if Despatche and Hagane are at it just be warned that all your opinions are invalid "your tastes are wrong and your favourite games are shit" is what you'll get period.

[BIL]

I love Patchy's running MUSHA COP gag.

[Squire Grooktook]

Just thought of something:

Would it be accurate to say that MUSHA is the Symphony Of The Night of shmups? :3

They've got a lot of similarities when you think of it:

-rad art
-rad music
-rad all around presentation and atmosphere
-weapons and abilities that are stylish, fun, and pack serious punch
-too easy
-somewhat repetitive combat in parts
-beloved by fans for reasons often not pertaining to pure gameplay design

[trap15]

Except SOTN at least has the decency to make you do things most of the time.

[Squire Grooktook]

Except SOTN at least has the decency to make you do things most of the time.

Is there really? I'm rewatching a little bit of a hard mode 1cc right now, and it's definitely true that you can neutralize a lot of enemies before they fire, but you at least have to move around a ton to do so (and there's actual dodging on the second half, and the first half if you get powered down). The majority of SOTN's combat just boils down to bunny hop wacking most stuff, with only a handful of dangerous enemies demanding any kind of dodging or finesse. And with the proper rpg-ing skills you could probably avoid those guys with spells and whatnot anyway.

I don't think MUSHA or SOTN are bad games. They're solid and excel in areas most people here probably don't care for. They're just not really that good in the areas that most people here would care about.

[chum]

So you are upset that the community (who bothered to vote) doesn't have the same tastes as you.

That's an absurd notion. I put mostly danmaku/manic/hardcore games on my own list. My tastes have little to do with it. CAVE is one of the most prominent developers and does deserve to be represented, but they are over-represented.

You bring up disdain how old hat garegga stays popular, but how a new, totally fresh, and quite different game Eschatos also gets listed high, a complete contradiction unless I'm mistaken.

I didn't mean that there's anything wrong with Garegga being popular. There is so much to discuss about Garegga, that I can understand its popularity here in discussions, and in the list itself. I was just making an example. There are other games out there we can discuss and learn about. It's so nice to see people like Perikles that bring other games to people's attention, but how many people are buying? How many people care or are interested?

It's just a matter of traffic. If you consistently see a few games being discussed or played you naturally gravitate towards those games. Popularity breeds more popularity. Such process helps people form vague opinions regarding things they may not actually know anything about, too.

I disagree. Getting good at old things is much more what this community strives towards and when it comes to the top 25 of all time, you better believe that "new things" aren't going to compare to the classics.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/03/ ... 34x899.jpg

But that's exactly what I'm saying, that the classics are underrepresented. Classics are "new things" to CAVE players. I didn't mean new as in release date, I meant new as in new to you.

I would have more sympathy for you, but the Touhou community outnumbers every other shmup community. There are other places dedicated to Touhou where you can find solace besides here, where as for many of us this is one of the few places we can come to find anyone with common interest in certain games.

I'm a STG fan. These games are basically my favorite thing in the world. I consider Touhou as a part of STG and due to that I am a fan of STG moreso than Touhou. There isn't a Touhou community I would consider acceptable. The fandom is really bad, and it's fairly unusual that Touhou players are interested or open-minded about playing other STG. There's many fascinating players, but they are scattered about and most of them don't speak English.

My point is that a place like this which should, in theory, encompass the entirety of this genre I love so much, is much more suitable for me. If I go to a Touhou community I will also feel that it is missing something because that's only a small portion of STG.

Move on onto the new things like a Touhou game from 2003?

It'll be new to people in this community, yes. That is, assuming that people try to play it properly, which I see no reason why they shouldn't, considering that they seem eager to do so in other games such as Garegga.

Release dates have nothing to do with it.

[Xyga]

You know to be fair with Hagane he's right it's about what games are popular in this community here, the Touhou crowd is mostly younger and likes different things, then I know other places and people older than me for whom video games stopped being interesting around 1990 (hint: they are also pinball maniacs).

Check what kids today call video games if you haven't checked closely, it's really depressing.

[qmish]

If you don't wanna "stg community" die with you you need find a way to raise successors.

[BIL]

Just thought of something:

Would it be accurate to say that MUSHA is the Symphony Of The Night of shmups? :3

I definitely file them in the same bracket of solidly-built and overwhelmingly cool action games held back from real glory by sub-optimal editing. Maybe it's the Hard Corps of shump. ;3

[Despatche]

I'm starting to really dislike you. You have cried to me in PMs in IRC for HOURS about people saying nasty things about games you like, and then you trash other people's choices. You only think your opinion counts and it's super obnoxious

I begged you for hours to stop talking about video games precisely because I knew you were going to be here, right now, telling me how I was whining about some fucking video games. Fuck your stupid video games, you Compile fanboy.

What I'm saying about Musha is not opinion. I don't care if Healthy Toyama himself personally bestowed Musha Aleste upon you; you are blinded by nostalgia to a harmful degree.

There is no game here. The game actually has working scoring and a great aesthetic, and there is still no game here. There is literally nothing to do in Musha. This isn't special snowflake opinion or CAVE fanboy garbage, this is a legitimate observation of a game I have known for many years.

There's actually something to Symphony of the Night. Grinding is a horrible thing that should never have been accepted as legitimate game design, yet there's still a lot of game to an RPG simply because of how complicated it is. You don't even have to get glitches or whatever involved.

Musha does not have this. It has nothing. It is truly a void on the same level as so many worthless Flash games; it just looks and sounds nicer than those.

They're just not really that good in the areas that most people here would care about.

Yes, like the fucking gameplay.

This shit right here is how I know that people don't really like playing video games. It's really fucking incredible just how much people despise this genre.

[cave hermit]

So is every single thread just going to devolve into a flame war or arguing now? Because having gone back to lurking for awhile, it seems that way.

[Despatche]

Prime example: Daimakaimura and Contra 3.

Daimakaimura isn't broken.

Can you elaborate on that? I'm honestly not quite sure what you mean with broken stage design in II and the comparison between the power-ups in the original and II (other than the strategy to not pick four options in II in order to prevent the option hunter from appearing). And unlike III where many checkpoints are almost impossible to recover from most of them are doable in II. I'd say that stages 3, 4 and 8 (bar the final checkpoint) are extremely tough upon dying, everything else is feasible with a bit of practice.

Keyword "most". Having unrecoverable checkpoints at all is a gigantic issue. You end up having to either no miss the game or never play it at all, and this isn't even taking into consideration later loops. Gradius doesn't have this at all, and as far as I know neither does Gaiden.

Gradius actually rewards you for continuing to take powerups, Gaiden does as well. Huge boons to those games. R-Type also greatly benefits from this.

Still won't stop me from doing a multi-loop session on the arcade version at some point in time, though.

Maybe you can figure out why Japan can stand the game.

Wouldn't you say that the helper squadrons are fairly broken in Daisenpuu, too? Or at least make the game substantially easier, just like the spread shot in KT?

The thing about the helpers is that they truly break the game in such a way that you can actually ban them without repercussion. If you removed the helpers, Daisenpuu would be completely unaffected. Fundamentally, the game is a lot like Hishozame.

Technically speaking, you're supposed to just use the red weapon throughout Kyukyoku, but it's so incredibly pointless to do so. If you removed the blue weapon, Kyukyoku Tiger becomes almost unplayable.

[d0s]

Dude I have logs of you moaning about how people call games you like garbage and here you are calling something other people like garbage. I don't like Musha much either but you are one hypocritical dude. Take your own advice man, stop worrying about what other people like.