Best Console for Shmups?

[Turrican]

what does it have? poor versions of gradius 3 and rtype 2, RT3 that is supposed to be good, axelay, twinbee (meh, really) parodius (cool game) and the legendary super aleste, wich is downright stupid long, not something ill play these days.

LOOL, man!

It's like you had to criticize them anyway... Super Aleste even would be bad because it's long...

Thanks, you made me laugh a lot

P.S. Yeah, Gradius III Snes is bad. And I mean, really Bad. That's the only thing I agree with of your speech.

[BrianC]

Huh, BrianC... what I meant was: PS2 wins among actual systems (Cube / Box).

OF COURSE PS2 doesn't win against the Snes, or the Famicom for that matter. 8/16 bit systems just have too many exclusives / dedicated shmups, so really the comparison is unfair

I'm sorry I wasn't clear, I thought this to be obvious.

ahh. Sorry about that. I agree there. The GCN has Ikaruga, Shikigami no Shiro, the remake of Star Solder, and Galaga Arrangement. None of those are exclusives. There is that Xynide game coming for Xbox with nothing as much as a release date and that is planned for GBA too. Other than that, everything on Xbox is also on PS2. I was going to say that the PS2 also has all of the shmups on PSX, but some of those don't run well on PS2.

[Turrican]

ahh. Sorry about that. I agree there. The GCN has Ikaruga, Shikigami no Shiro, the remake of Star Solder, and Galaga Arrangement. None of those are exclusives. There is that Xynide game coming for Xbox with nothing as much as a release date and that is planned for GBA too. Other than that, everything on Xbox is also on PS2. I was going to say that the PS2 also has all of the shmups on PSX, but some of those don't run well on PS2.

If we consider the 32bit and later generations, I think the Psone is the only system that has an excellent roster of shmups, in terms of important brands. Don't get me wrong, the quality of Saturn's library is excellent, but it lacks a "R-Type", a "Xevious" and a "Raiden" (plus, it missed Gradius Gaiden, the Gradius title of its days). These are names a little too big in shmups' history to be left behind.

It's the same logic why I'd choose a PCE over a Genesis... Without R-Type or Gradius, I just don't feel at home.

[Cugel]

After playing Robo Aleste and Lords Of Thunder I'd be inclined to say the Sega CD was the best console for SHMUPS, but then I'd be discounting all the cool PCE and Genesis SHMUPS then.

So PCE, and Genesis I guess.

The Genesis/MD is a great 16-bit console for shmups. While I tend to agree with the consensus that the PCE is better, in the US it's easier to find Genesis games and accessories. I recently purchased a 32x, 6-button pads, and a 6-button Sega arcade stick off of eBay. The 32x was primarily for the better video-out. On my old Genesis 2 console the video output displays picket fences and color banding which my Genesis 3 doesn't. Later Genesis 2 models don't display these artifacts.

Another great accessory is the Tototek flash cart. I've finally played Gleylancer and Eliminate Down the way it was meant to be played: on a real console and not emulation. Great shmups. Too bad they weren't sold in the US. The prices for both carts on eBay are astronomical.

[TVG]

LOOL, man!

It's like you had to criticize them anyway... Super Aleste even would be bad because it's long...

Thanks, you made me laugh a lot

P.S. Yeah, Gradius III Snes is bad. And I mean, really Bad. That's the only thing I agree with of your speech.

what's your point? my point was to show tht MD has much more shmups than the SNES, and thus, more quality ones (of course more crappy ones too, i mean wtf XDR??)

this is not to say that SNES doesnt have good ones, not at all, but i just saidd the truth, sorry.

ps: the fact that half the shmuppers find super aleste way too long serves me right.

all i see people say now about super aleste is "yea but you discovered the game recently so you cant really appreciate it"
uhh...how comes you cant say that about TF, or even salamander!?

[Turrican]

what's your point? my point was to show tht MD has much more shmups than the SNES, and thus, more quality ones (of course more crappy ones too, i mean wtf XDR??)

this is not to say that SNES doesnt have good ones, not at all, but i just saidd the truth, sorry.

ps: the fact that half the shmuppers find super aleste way too long serves me right.

all i see people say now about super aleste is "yea but you discovered the game recently so you cant really appreciate it"
uhh...how comes you cant say that about TF, or even salamander!?

Well, one could agree with your point or conclusions, but you tried to demonstrate them in a dishonest way. How can you sum the Snes' finest crop like: "Twinbee (meh)"... WHAT THE HECK MEANS TWINBEE MEH!?! I BOUGHT MY SNES TO PLAY THAT GAME.

Huh sorry, nothing personal, really.

Then, let's continue... You say R-Type 3, "supposed to be good". If no other review convinced you of that, trust me: it is indeed good. You can put it among the Good.

And quoting Axelay en passant... do you realize Axelay is better than half the shmups on the MD?

Finally, Super Aleste... It's long. Sounds a lot like "oh, my how can I badmouth this masterwork... Hey, great idea! It's long!" Yeah, right.

Finally... Statistics are not an exact science. you can assume that, with more shmups on Megadrive, the chance to have more good games increases. And yet, that's no written law.
In my opinion a lot of old MD shmups are really derivative and generic... even if they go for $200 on ebay. I shall make no names.

My point before was to show that despite one system being buit for speed, while the other being a lot slower (and therefore unfit for shmups), in the end programmers worked hard to overcome Snes flaws and to use at max its strongest points. Axelay being a great example of this.

Do I agree with you that since MD has more shmups, it has also more "quality"? No, that's debatable. They're quite even, in fact. I have a bunch of megadrive shmups but among them, only TFIII and TFIV are absolute masterworks. Musha Aleste is definitely another one. No other ranks in this category. Gynoug is good, and some Toaplan ones are okay I guess (let's say fire shark).

As you can see, I didn't name many more titles than you named for Snes. And you did mention just Parodius, while all 3 parodius games are excellent, and didn't mention Area 88...

Bottom line: the Snes lacks in quantity, but not in quality.

P.S. According to the Xenocide files, Psone has around twenty entries more than the Sega Saturn (just like the genesis has twenty or so more than the Snes)... I guess of course you think Psone to have more quality shmups because of this?

[99pence]

Top Trumps will probably take this thread and use it to make some shoot em up cards.

[Andi]

The NES doesn't really get as much love as it deserves when it comes to shooters. Especially, ports (albeit not perfect) of arcade games.

If you are into older titles, of course.

[Reiki]

The Genesis/MD is a great 16-bit console for shmups. While I tend to agree with the consensus that the PCE is better, in the US it's easier to find Genesis games and accessories. I recently purchased a 32x, 6-button pads, and a 6-button Sega arcade stick off of eBay. The 32x was primarily for the better video-out. On my old Genesis 2 console the video output displays picket fences and color banding which my Genesis 3 doesn't. Later Genesis 2 models don't display these artifacts.

I still have my Mega Drive and it still gets used to this day, mainly because of M.U.S.H.A and Ranger X. Even though I really, really love my MD I prefer the PCE for SHMUPS since, well, Soldier Blade.

[BrianC]

The NES doesn't really get as much love as it deserves when it comes to shooters. Especially, ports (albeit not perfect) of arcade games.

If you are into older titles, of course.

I agree. It also has one of the best shmups avaliable on any system (Zanac), though it's not really an exclusive and has a slightly better version on MSX called Zanac EX. Also, games like Super Xevious, Sky Shark, Fantasy Zone (two versions!), Gradius, Gunsmoke, Section Z, 1943, Gradius II, Life Force, and much more make the NES/Famicom a great choice for shmups.

The vagrant, it's true that Super Aleste is long, but I'm certain that more than half of those people still think it's one of the better shmups out there on any system despite the length. In fact, about the only complaints I heard are that it's too long and too easy and the too easy part is easily solved by setting it to a harder mode. Also, Compile games are usually pretty long anyway and there are many people out there that find the length of their games to be a breath of fresh air.

[BulletMagnet]

ps: the fact that half the shmuppers find super aleste way too long serves me right.

Well, if that's the case, then wouldn't it serve the other half's argument just as (in)effectively? Not trying to fan the flames here or anything, I'm just wondering how the math works out on that, heh.

[TVG]

wohoo, boring, i got into an useless argument once again.

there's too much stuff to reeply right now, if you happen to like super aleste/axelay/anything else on the snes better than any shmup that was released on the MD, good for you, but that's subjective.

the MD having more shmups that the snes doesnt necessarly mean that it has more good ones, true, but in this case, it does, the MD has more good shmups than the SNES.

my list of snes good shmups was far from exhausive, as was the MD one, i could have listed gynoug, elemental master, steel empire and others.

when i say "toaplan shmups" i dont mean fire shark, i mean V-five, truxton, hellfire, zero wing (ok this one isnt awesome but i like it) on top of my head.

first i say that the title of queen of horis cant be taken from the MD, and that it has more good shmups than the snes, and i speak the truth.

[BrianC]

Yes, the MD does have more good shmups than the SNES, but IMO, a few of those good SNES exclusives really shine. (edit: I took out comments that I thought might be taken the wrong way)

Since when did anyone mention Fire Shark? I mentioned Musha and I don't remember ever mentioning Fire Shark. Where did that come from? I did mention Sky Shark for the NES, but that was a whole diffferent subject.

I never once said that the SNES has more good shmups than the Genesis. Come to think of it, it might not even have as many exclusives. But all I was trying to point out from the beginning is that the exclusives on the SNES are among the best shmups for the system. I personally think the Genesis is a better system for shumps too! Please stop arguing.

BTW, I know about a lot of the good shmups on SNES and Genesis. You don't need to bother with making a list or trying to exaust me. I heard of all the rare games like Glaylancer too.

It's statements like "half the people find so and so game to be like this" that I find to be rather annoying. It implies that I shouldn't like a game that I like quite a bit or that you are trying to get people to agree with you. Maybe that wasn't your intention, but that's how I felt.

[TVG]

fire shark was mentionned by turrican.

anyway, i dont force anyone to like anything, im trying to speak objectively (sol deace is among my favourites MD shmups but since hardly anyone likes it, i didnt mention it)

i think general opinion is more objective than my own personal taste, thats why i mention it instead of saying "imo that and that" its unfortunate you took it that way, everyone likes some games that are disliked by most, you just wont find as many people that like...say x-dazedly ray (a really crappy MD gradius clone, try it on emu for laughs) than people who like TF3. but thats an extreme example of course.

ps: ill gladly stop arguing.

[BrianC]

fire shark was mentionned by turrican.

anyway, i dont force anyone to like anything, im trying to speak objectively (sol deace is among my favourites MD shmups but since hardly anyone likes it, i didnt mention it)

i think general opinion is more objective than my own personal taste, thats why i mention it instead of saying "imo that and that" its unfortunate you took it that way, everyone likes some games that are disliked by most, you just wont find as many people that like...say x-dazedly ray (a really crappy MD gradius clone, try it on emu for laughs) than people who like TF3. but thats an extreme example of course.

ps: ill gladly stop arguing.

ok cool. Sol Deace is one I'm interested in playing. I hardly heard anything about it on the shmups boards, but I used to hear a lot of good things about it. I don't think it's a game hardly anyone likes. It just happens to be a game that isn't talked about much here at the shmups boards. I personally love the Twinbee series, even Stinger, but I hardly hear anything about any of them here. The game I heard the least about in the series is Twinbee Yahho and I love that game.

I think I'll try that game for laughs. I'm a huge fan of the Gradius series and I even like Gradius III SNES, though it's certainly not my favorite in the series (and probably not even close. I personally like Gradius Galaxies and Nemesis better than Gradius III). My favorite Gradius games is Gradius Gaiden, the only Gradius game that has a ship with gravity bullets instead of a laser.

I think the Atari 2600 deserves a special nod for having games like River Raid, Spider Fighter, Beamrider, Yars' Revenge, Laser Blast and great ports of arcade games like Omega Race, Gravitar, Asteroids, Centipede, Millipede, Defender, Vanguard, and Galaxian. It certainly isn't the best system for shmups, but it's amazing what some developers did on the system considering the hardware. Vanguard is a good example. This system was original designed for simple late 70's arcade games, but the port of Vanguard, while controlling a bit different from the arcade, manages to pull of a good port of a multi level shooter on archaic hardware.

[Super Laydock]

*Best system for old school/ classic shmups: PC-engine (with CD)
Runner up: MSX

*Best 32bit or up system for shmups: a Japanese Playstation 2 (but only
because of the backwards compatibility for PS1 shmups which seriously
adds quality to an allready quite decent line up)
Runner up: Dreamcast (best GB2 port, Border Down, Chaos Field, Gigawing
are reasons enough for me and others claim Mars Matrix and
Ikaruga to be exceptional -I don't like them much)

And not to fuel any discussion on SNES's shmups credibility, but one of it's best games (Macross: Scrambled Valkyrie) didn't even get a mention .
Also Super Aleste is a bit long indeed and is a bit easy, but graphics are IMPRESSIVE and the game plays really well so it's nothing to play down on as it is a good game.

[Guardians Knight]

it's saturn all the way for me. Lots of top quality exclusives too:
Hyper Duel
RSG
Sengoku Blade (ok so ps2 will have it soon)
Thunder Force pack 1 + 2
Batsugun
Garegga

while still being well suplied with others that also appeared on many systems.

im sure there are more exclusives that i've overlooked too.

[dbd]

I haven't tried all such games on the consoles I do have, so in all truth, I cannot say. Except that I like them all to various degrees.

If it's a budget thing or an availibilty thing, just pick what console is best matching to your prefered type of game style, or what one can you definitely get games for.

If it's definitive lists of all shooter games on every console ever released, then I'd love to have those lists too!

btw - the comparison between sh*t and lemon merangue pie doesn't work now does it, because you can tell by the smell that sh*t it going to taste like, uh, kak.

[mannerbot]

I can assure you, my poop tastes like rocky road ice cream.

[the2bears]

To paraphrase Steven Stills, "If you can't be with the console you love, love the one you've got."

So, I've got an Xbox, GC, and a DC. Thus, my best console for shmups is the DC. And it's no charity to say I love it!

Bill

[BrianC]

*Best system for old school/ classic shmups: PC-engine (with CD)
Runner up: MSX

*Best 32bit or up system for shmups: a Japanese Playstation 2 (but only
because of the backwards compatibility for PS1 shmups which seriously
adds quality to an allready quite decent line up)
Runner up: Dreamcast (best GB2 port, Border Down, Chaos Field, Gigawing
are reasons enough for me and others claim Mars Matrix and
Ikaruga to be exceptional -I don't like them much)

And not to fuel any discussion on SNES's shmups credibility, but one of it's best games (Macross: Scrambled Valkyrie) didn't even get a mention .
Also Super Aleste is a bit long indeed and is a bit easy, but graphics are IMPRESSIVE and the game plays really well so it's nothing to play down on as it is a good game.

I just tried Scrambled Valkyrie on emu recently. From what I played it is a very impressive game. I love how you can change between three different forms on the fly and how they all power up seperately. I really need to try and get Super Aleste and Scrambled Valkyrie. The only reason I didn't mention it before was because I haven't played it.

[jp]

Saturn.



Best console for Tecno Soft
Best console for Raizing/8ing
Best console for early Success.
Has best versions of Psikyo's strong points.
Has best ORIGINAL (not sequels and Cave games) lineup.
Best exclusives (Radiant Silvergun, Game Tengoku, Hyper Duel, etc.)
Best vert ever: Radiant Silvergun (or Souky... and it even has a solid version of DDP which some would argue for)
Best hori ever: Thunder Force III, IV, or Hyper Duel, pick your poison.


And its just all around the best shmupping console ever. 2nd runner up would be PC-Engine Duo. Followed closely by the Dreamcast.

[Rob]

Best console for Tecno Soft

Genesis was their golden age and where all of their most well known/respected games came from (specifically Thunder Force III and Herzog Zwei).

Has best versions of Psikyo's strong points.

PS2 has all of Saturn's and more, DC has the best.

Best hori ever: Thunder Force III, IV, or Hyper Duel, pick your poison.

Gradius V, nothing against TFIII and especially TFIV.

[Turrican]

Saturn.

Best exclusives (Radiant Silvergun, Game Tengoku, Hyper Duel, etc.)

Huh, can Radiant be considered a Saturn exclusive? It technically falls under the "port from arcade" category.

The NES version of Salamander, or Snes Axelay are exclusives, you can't play them anywhere else (besides emulators).

[jp]

Best console for Tecno Soft

Genesis was their golden age and where all of their most well known/respected games came from (specifically Thunder Force III and Herzog Zwei).

Has best versions of Psikyo's strong points.

PS2 has all of Saturn's and more, DC has the best.

Best hori ever: Thunder Force III, IV, or Hyper Duel, pick your poison.

Gradius V, nothing against TFIII and especially TFIV.

1. Very true, the Genesis is where they showed up, but the Saturn has all the Genesis TF games as well as Blast Wind, TFV, and Hyper Duel, so me thinks it would be the better console for TS shmups.

2. Very true, I forgot about that.

3. I disagree, but its all good.

[Tomtom]

Saturn.

Best exclusives (Radiant Silvergun, Game Tengoku, Hyper Duel, etc.)

Huh, can Radiant be considered a Saturn exclusive? It technically falls under the "port from arcade" category.

The NES version of Salamander, or Snes Axelay are exclusives, you can't play them anywhere else (besides emulators).

Er, the other two are also arcade ports, if I'm not mistaken. Still, I'd have to agree on the Saturn.

[BrianC]

Actually, the NES Salamander/Life Force is a semi-exclusive. It has some levels from the arcade version, but some levels are new and the levels from the arcade version have been remixed. Also, the NES Salamander/Life Force has a Gradius power bar instead of the instant power ups from the arcade version. I think Gradius III SNES also counts as a semi exclusive IMO. I'm pretty sure Axelay is an exclusive, though.

[BulletMagnet]

Huh, can Radiant be considered a Saturn exclusive? It technically falls under the "port from arcade" category.

I figured that he meant "exclusive" in the sense that it wasn't ported to any other home system, seeing, as Tomtom said, the other 2 games mentioned originated in the arcades as well, but were only ported to the Saturn. Perhaps I oughta add an entry for "exclusive" into the Glossary just to clear it up, heh heh.

[Rob]

1. Very true, the Genesis is where they showed up, but the Saturn has all the Genesis TF games as well as Blast Wind, TFV, and Hyper Duel, so me thinks it would be the better console for TS shmups.

Crazy talk. Elemental Master is better than those games.

[Turrican]

Actually, the NES Salamander/Life Force is a semi-exclusive. It has some levels from the arcade version, but some levels are new and the levels from the arcade version have been remixed. Also, the NES Salamander/Life Force has a Gradius power bar instead of the instant power ups from the arcade version. I think Gradius III SNES also counts as a semi exclusive IMO. I'm pretty sure Axelay is an exclusive, though.

Yes, I knew that. I specifically used those two to show two different kinds of exclusivity: Salamander NES would be a port, but there's so much new content inside, that it ends being an exclusive (the power bar comes from the Lifeforce japanese coin-op, by the way).

Axelay instead, it's a proper 100% exclusive. Like, say, Gradius V or R-Type Delta.

(edit: I disagree Gradius III Snes can be called a semi-exclusive... There just isn't enough new stuff in it)