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

[kid aphex]

Gradius (nes) was the first game I ever played; it has since been a scarily foundational part of my being.

[sgtcrispy]

Zanac

[boagman]

River Raid (1982) for Atari 2600 with me. At that time the arcades were in full golden age with titles like Xevious. As a player who lived through this time, I'm an eyewitness that shmups were indeed immensely popular during the golden age of arcade. I miss this time ...

I lived through this same era (I'm probably slightly older than you at 44), and while your statement is correct, there was also a *ton* of what could only be described as "shovelware" stuff that fell under the shmup category during that era, too. I still remember, quite vividly, a bunch of arcade shmups that were pretty atrocious back then. They might have been immensely popular during the golden age, yes, but there were still a lot of garbage ones to wade through as well.

And I'm in complete agreement with you: River Raid was awesome. Designed by a woman, too! Stellar ideas and designs in that game, and pulled off as only Activision could. That company absolutely put Atari to *shame* with their stuff.

[Jeneki]

Oh yeah Activision was quite amazing in the 2600 days. Spider Fighter still impresses me with how fast, smooth, and intense it plays. I believe I also mentioned Megamania back on page 1 in this topic, although that one may have been more of an acquired taste.

[Koa Zo]

I might have forgotten River Raid, but that game is undoubtedly a huge influence on my fondness for shoot em ups.
First memory I have is of a Galaxian cocktail table, and begging my parents for a quarter, and how much of a treat it was to play even just one game.

In 1980 my family moved to Kuala Lumpur, and while on a vacation up in Cameron Highlands there was a Space Invaders stand-up unit in the town. My brother and sister and I would walk up there after getting a bag of sweet tea and watch other people play. One of the players had the aggressive strategy of destroying his own shields. It blew my mind, obviously, as it is still such a strong memory to this day.

Back in the US years later, I was out grocery shopping with my mom and had a birthday party to go to. The Pathmark store had a bin of discount Atari 2600 games. Without knowing anything about it (just the name and the packaging enticed me I guess) I picked out Spider Fighter to give to my friend for his birthday. The fast pace and frenetic action was a huge step up from RiverRaid and Space Invaders and Zaxxon which were still all the rage. We played Spider Fighter feverishly, and I think that game is really what turned me into a shoot em up player for life.

There wasn't much on the 5200, Galaxian, Space Invaders, River Raid, Vanguard...

The NES brought Zanac and this was my intro to Japanese shoot'em ups. There was 1942 too, but meh.
I still didn't really know that I was a shmups player though.
Now a few years later. I'd tried to buy Phantasy Star II but it was always sold out. One day with money burning a hole in my pocket, the store clerk at Electronics Boutique pointed out a new game they got in called Thunder Force III. Now it was really on!

[jammiejay85]

I would like to say It was playing a few shmups in the 90's that got me into the hobby but tbh I only used to credit feed, shoot and bash into things e.t.c (Xenon 2, Thunderforce and R-Type Delta).

Around 2009 I was getting bored of FPS and was looking for a new challenge so I became interested again in the genre by watching a few videos on youtube and was immediately hooked. So I decided to boot up mame and try a few games out for myself initially just to credit feed until I found out what a 1cc was.

Battle Bakraid was the game which sparked my interest even more and also cave games on the 360 so these were the games that inspired me and i've been playing ever since and even though i'm not very good I can't stop playing.

[Gamer707b]

I might have forgotten River Raid, but that game is undoubtedly a huge influence on my fondness for shoot em ups.
First memory I have is of a Galaxian cocktail table, and begging my parents for a quarter, and how much of a treat it was to play even just one game.

In 1980 my family moved to Kuala Lumpur, and while on a vacation up in Cameron Highlands there was a Space Invaders stand-up unit in the town. My brother and sister and I would walk up there after getting a bag of sweet tea and watch other people play. One of the players had the aggressive strategy of destroying his own shields. It blew my mind, obviously, as it is still such a strong memory to this day.

Back in the US years later, I was out grocery shopping with my mom and had a birthday party to go to. The Pathmark store had a bin of discount Atari 2600 games. Without knowing anything about it (just the name and the packaging enticed me I guess) I picked out Spider Fighter to give to my friend for his birthday. The fast pace and frenetic action was a huge step up from RiverRaid and Space Invaders and Zaxxon which were still all the rage. We played Spider Fighter feverishly, and I think that game is really what turned me into a shoot em up player for life.

There wasn't much on the 5200, Galaxian, Space Invaders, River Raid, Vanguard...

The NES brought Zanac and this was my intro to Japanese shoot'em ups. There was 1942 too, but meh.
I still didn't really know that I was a shmups player though.
Now a few years later. I'd tried to buy Phantasy Star II but it was always sold out. One day with money burning a hole in my pocket, the store clerk at Electronics Boutique pointed out a new game they got in called Thunder Force III. Now it was really on!

Love your story man. We might be the same age? I didn't have the Atari 2600 , I actually had an Oddessy 2 and there was a shmup on there. Sorta like a Space Invaders clone. I was just a kid and I remember spitting at the screen cause it was so hard. My dad ended up exchanging it for another game a couple days later. Anyway , your story made me feel the fuzzies reminding me of my own childhood.

[LSU]

Oh my god, there were so many. One of my earliest memories is excitedly going to a visiting fairground in the UK and playing cocktail Space Invaders and Scramble ... also a standup Asteroids and Defender. Then my local arcades got Xevious, then Terra Cresta. But most of all, it was Gradius. That arcade cab consumed all my pocket money and it consumed me too. Man I wonder how many coins I put in there. Still my all-time fave franchise overall. I also remember vividly the introduction of early '3D' (I, Robot ... Space Harrier) and being really excited about The Future. How far we've come.

[gs68]

My dad introduced me to some arcade shooties as a kid, particularly Raiden II and Viper Phase 1. It wasn't until 2003 with Gradius III (SNES) and the 1942 series that I really got into the genre.

[Arcenciel63]

Esprade on mame and Thunder force

[Square_Air]

While it wasn't my first shmup, I specifically remember playing Super R-Type around early 2013 and thinking to myself "this is really underwhelming, this can't be all the genre has to offer". A quick google search led me to Batsugun, Radiant Silvergun, and eventually Dodonpachi Daioujou. I had made it to the fourth loop of Warblade (Deluxe Galaga knock off) in 2011, but it never really struck me to seek out more shmups. While I enjoyed euroshmups, and still occasionally do, they never have and still don't resonate with me the same way Arcade shmups, or even Doujins do.

[OmegaFlareX]

tldr: Giga Wing DC

I didn't really play shmups much as a kid. I had The Guardian Legend, R-Type for Game Boy, Galaga for the 7800, and I rented a few NES ones (Abadox, Dragon Spirit, Life Force), but they never held that same interest as RPGs. In 1996 I got my first summer job at a tiny 4-cinema movie theater attached to the back of a shopping mall, and after a month or so being there, we got all new games for our little arcade. One of which was a MVS1C containing Aero Fighters 2. That was the first time that I can recall playing an arcade shmup and I really enjoyed it.

A few years later I got a PS1 for Christmas and the demo disc it came with had Raystorm. Thought it was badass and a good example of a next-gen game but I never bought the full version.

A few years after that I was working at a game store and another employee had put in G-Darius on one of the demo PS1s. This one definitely caught my eye and I later bought it. I remember noticing the awful slowdown but I thought it was a cool game anyway.

Later at that same job, I read a review in a magazine for the DC port of Giga Wing. The insane colors in the screenshots immediately drew me to it and left me curious about the gameplay. Later distro sent us 1 new copy. After a month of it sitting on the shelf, I asked management if I could open and try it out, and they obliged. Holy fucking shit. Amazing game, I loved it and played it in the demo DC whenever I had downtime. Eventually I left that job but I bought my own DC in 2001 after they had been discontinued, and found that same copy of GW in the store I used to work still hadn't been sold. I bought the fucker, full price, open as is. I like to think I saved it from someone who wouldn't appreciate it as much as I did. It was my favorite game on the system, even topping Ikaruga and Border Down.

In between playing GW at work and buying it myself, I remember talking with a customer at the game store and him shocking me with the fact that "Saturn has the best shooters". I wrote down a list of JP games he mentioned and I started reading about them online (joined this forum sometime in 2000) and tried some of them out in Raine. Yes, Raine, my PC was a dinosaur hand-me-down that couldn't handle MAME at playable speeds. Eventually I started amassing a game collection, the shmuppiest of which was the Saturn and PC-Engine. I've since sold all that stuff and stick to PC for MAME and whatnot.

Sorry for many words

[Gamer707b]

tldr: Giga Wing DC

I didn't really play shmups much as a kid. I had The Guardian Legend, R-Type for Game Boy, Galaga for the 7800, and I rented a few NES ones (Abadox, Dragon Spirit, Life Force), but they never held that same interest as RPGs. In 1996 I got my first summer job at a tiny 4-cinema movie theater attached to the back of a shopping mall, and after a month or so being there, we got all new games for our little arcade. One of which was a MVS1C containing Aero Fighters 2. That was the first time that I can recall playing an arcade shmup and I really enjoyed it.

A few years later I got a PS1 for Christmas and the demo disc it came with had Raystorm. Thought it was badass and a good example of a next-gen game but I never bought the full version.

A few years after that I was working at a game store and another employee had put in G-Darius on one of the demo PS1s. This one definitely caught my eye and I later bought it. I remember noticing the awful slowdown but I thought it was a cool game anyway.

Later at that same job, I read a review in a magazine for the DC port of Giga Wing. The insane colors in the screenshots immediately drew me to it and left me curious about the gameplay. Later distro sent us 1 new copy. After a month of it sitting on the shelf, I asked management if I could open and try it out, and they obliged. Holy fucking shit. Amazing game, I loved it and played it in the demo DC whenever I had downtime. Eventually I left that job but I bought my own DC in 2001 after they had been discontinued, and found that same copy of GW in the store I used to work still hadn't been sold. I bought the fucker, full price, open as is. I like to think I saved it from someone who wouldn't appreciate it as much as I did. It was my favorite game on the system, even topping Ikaruga and Border Down.

In between playing GW at work and buying it myself, I remember talking with a customer at the game store and him shocking me with the fact that "Saturn has the best shooters". I wrote down a list of JP games he mentioned and I started reading about them online (joined this forum sometime in 2000) and tried some of them out in Raine. Yes, Raine, my PC was a dinosaur hand-me-down that couldn't handle MAME at playable speeds. Eventually I started amassing a game collection, the shmuppiest of which was the Saturn and PC-Engine. I've since sold all that stuff and stick to PC for MAME and whatnot.

Sorry for many words

Blasphemy!! How can you sell Saturn and Pc-engine goodies for emulation!? To me, nothing feels better than getting a game in the mail and popping it in my system.

[OmegaFlareX]

Blasphemy!! How can you sell Saturn and Pc-engine goodies for emulation!? To me, nothing feels better than getting a game in the mail and popping it in my system.

I came to the conclusion that I'd prefer to own one thing that can do many things (a PC), than many things that can do one thing. Also I was absent from the community for nearly a decade while I played my MMO of choice. I might have watched a superplay or messed around with MAME on a rare occasion, but for a long time I just didn't play retro games. It would have been cool to witness firsthand the hype of CV1K games getting released and possibly playing their X360 ports myself, but I otherwise don't regret my decision.

[Tokyo-J]

Asteroids on Atari , Gradius and Life Force on Nes , Thunderforce on Genesis, Strikers 1945 in the arcade and it goes on and on.

[nogden]

In 2020 I was waiting to deploy to Afghanistan. It was during the height of Covid so we had to do a two week quarantine in our barracks rooms before we ship out, so of course I had my switch with me.

First couple days me and my roommate, who also had a switch, did a co-op play through of borderlands 1. While looking for other co-op games we stumbled on Steredenn. We played the shit out of that until we got bored and started playing other stuff. I started to get curious about similar games to Steredenn and found Devil Engine. It was obviously amazing and then I got rolling gunner, gunbird 2 and the rest is history.

I’m pretty sure I was so drawn to these games at that time because they were very effective at taking my mind off of the impending deployment and uncertain future. They really put you into a state of focus where you don’t think about your problems. The only other game that does it for me as easily is Tetris.

2025 now, I’m out of the army, out of the barracks and into a house. I still play daily and even own a cabinet now. Life is good

[MJR]

This feels like a thread for young people. Shmups were there from the beginning for me, so it was natural for me to love them.

This being said, there were couple of events that cemented my love for Shmups; seeing following coin ops back in the day made sure I loved shmups -
Star Force - Tehkan
Xevious - Namco
Gradius 2 / Vulcan Venture - Konami
R-Type - Irem
Parodius - Konami
Truxton - Toaplan
Raiden DX - Seibu
Viper Phase 1 - Seibu

Each of these cemented my love for shmups for life.
My last two ”modern” loves were Do Donpachi and Deathsmiles, but after that I havent seen any new shmups that would truly knocked my socks off.

[Starfighter]

Strikers 1945 II. The people on a gaming forum I was frequenting (perhaps somewhere in the ballpark of 2004-2005) put up a highscore competition with that game and I thought "I'm not good at those kinds of games but I'll give it a try, it'll be fun". I bought a copy of the PS1 version ($4) and gave it a go. I didn't end up last, but far from first (many others 1CC:ed it and I think I made it to stage five at best).

[nogden]

This feels like a thread for young people. Shmups were there from the beginning for me, so it was natural for me to love them.

This being said, there were couple of events that cemented my love for Shmups; seeing following coin ops back in the day made sure I loved shmups -
Star Force - Tehkan
Xevious - Namco
Gradius 2 / Vulcan Venture - Konami
R-Type - Irem
Parodius - Konami
Truxton - Toaplan
Raiden DX - Seibu
Viper Phase 1 - Seibu

Each of these cemented my love for shmups for life.
My last two ”modern” loves were Do Donpachi and Deathsmiles, but after that I havent seen any new shmups that would truly knocked my socks off.

Oh yeah I know some of your guys were playing when I was just a baby or even before I was born (‘99). I did play a lot of galaga as a kid because my dad loved it. I especially liked space invaders on the Nintendo 64. But It wasn’t until 2020 that I realized that this was a full blown genre, and I had no knowledge of shooters of the 90’s/2000’s. I can’t believe I was missing so much. Anyways I hope a modern game comes out soon that once again knocks your socks off

[Lord British]

1943 for Arcade and Astro Warrior on SMS at friend's house for Console. Then Life Force on NES, first NES cartridge I rented and then later received as gift for B-Day. So for first 6 months as an NES owner it was SMB & DH and Life Force, and that's it.

[soupbones]

R-type on the Sega Master System.

Not my first shooter I played as a kid (that might be... Defender?) - but it was the first one that hooked me and actually finished.

Took a long break after the Sega Saturn days - only to get back into it with Futari on the 360.

[Lord British]

R-type on the Sega Master System.

Not my first shooter I played as a kid (that might be... Defender?) - but it was the first one that hooked me and actually finished.

Took a long break after the Sega Saturn days - only to get back into it with Futari on the 360.

Same here. It was like 15 years between buying Galactic Attack and then discovering Cave games.

[To Far Away Times]

I had a friend that showed me the Touhou games (06, 07, and 08), and while I enjoyed them I would have never considered myself a shmup guy. I could credit feed them to the end, but that was about it. I was always more of a fighting game guy. Then about six months later we went to the (now defunct) Super Arcade in Los Angeles and they had the brand new Mushihimesama Futari imported from Japan. I wasn’t familiar with it, but I got talked into trying it, and my mind was blown. Went home that night and preordered the upcoming Japanese Xbox 360 version. That was the first game I ever imported, and at that point I was all in. While I was waiting for Mushi Futari to ship, I started giving the Touhou series a serious shot to see if I could 1CC a shmup, and then it just kinda went from there.

I hold those early, formative shmups for me very dearly.

[MJR]

This feels like a thread for young people. Shmups were there from the beginning for me, so it was natural for me to love them.

This being said, there were couple of events that cemented my love for Shmups; seeing following coin ops back in the day made sure I loved shmups -
Star Force - Tehkan
Xevious - Namco
Gradius 2 / Vulcan Venture - Konami
R-Type - Irem
Parodius - Konami
Truxton - Toaplan
Raiden DX - Seibu
Viper Phase 1 - Seibu

Each of these cemented my love for shmups for life.
My last two ”modern” loves were Do Donpachi and Deathsmiles, but after that I havent seen any new shmups that would truly knocked my socks off.

Oh yeah I know some of your guys were playing when I was just a baby or even before I was born (‘99). I did play a lot of galaga as a kid because my dad loved it. I especially liked space invaders on the Nintendo 64. But It wasn’t until 2020 that I realized that this was a full blown genre, and I had no knowledge of shooters of the 90’s/2000’s. I can’t believe I was missing so much. Anyways I hope a modern game comes out soon that once again knocks your socks off

I think it's a great thing that you have found this genre It gives me hope.

I am eventually going to make a shmup that will knock my socks off, because no one else is going to do it for me - as soon as I finish my current game project in a few years..

[BIL]

Anyways I hope a modern game comes out soon that once again knocks your socks off

I am eventually going to make a shmup that will knock my socks off, because no one else is going to do it for me - as soon as I finish my current game project in a few years..

By total coincidence, loke testing at HEY right now (it'll even blow 'em off, too! )

[Tokyo-J]

Horizontal: Gradius
Vertical: Raiden

[pablumatic]

I wouldn't call playing shooters some type of exclusive hobby to me. Its just that this genre of games is now so small and unpopular its become a niche topic of interest I have to seek out to find info about on specialized gaming forums.

The shooter that first evangelized me to want to play more was the original R-TYPE arcade game.

[nogden]

By total coincidence, loke testing at HEY right now (it'll even blow 'em off, too! )
[/quote]

Consider me blown No really I’ve never seen air gallet gameplay before and it looks pretty damn good.

[BIL]

Hardboiled Kyuukyoku-esque from ex-Toaplan people at Gazelle, subtly 90s-ized! A notoriously tricky property from modern licensing standpoint, so rad to see it (and its iconic title voiceover) get a second outing.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Hardboiled Kyuukyoku-esque from ex-Toaplan people at Gazelle, subtly 90s-ized! A notoriously tricky property from modern licensing standpoint, so rad to see it (and its iconic title voiceover) get a second outing.

This newfangled and cool Aku Gallet Exa Label variant out on loke test with three different modes: Exa Mode, Original and Score Attack.

Has Exa-Arcadia revealed how much it'd cost to buy such an Aku Gallet Exa kit?

And does it have tate option + low-res 15.75kHz arcade monitor support as well?

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~