shmups featuring biplanes

[Shatterhand]

I don't like to keep mentioning the game I designed since it feels too much like self-promotion.

But... is this a biplane?

[Sengoku Strider]

Yeah I edited the Ghost Pilots one out after I rewatched it (nice catch!) but I coulda sworn the in-game sprite for Bomber Raid was an actual biplane. I yield!

I'm one of Ghost Pilots' few fans (despite the fact that it's one of those ultra-long early Neo Geo releases that I will never finish au naturel), and the pontoons always left an impression on me. Offhand I can't think of another game with a plane equipped with them, or an opening takeoff from a river like that.

Bomber Raid was Sega's attempt to clone 1943 (along with 1988's Scramble Spirits). Random fact, Bomber Raid was the final game released in Japan for the Master System, and its lone 1989 release. The Mega Drive hit at the end of Oct 1988, and Sega dropped the Master System like a rock there ahead of time, pumping all their final games (R-Type, Shinobi, Ys, Double Dragon, Golvellius) out before mid October. Cyborg Hunter and Bomber Raid were the two exceptions - Cyborg Hunter hit in Dec '88, while Bomber Raid was farmed out to Sanritsu and missed the window entirely and slipped all the way into Feb '89 four months later for some reason. Unsurprisingly retailers ignored it, and as a result the JP release is pretty rare going for close to $500 CAD as I type this.

That always sticks in my mind because it's so odd to think the system was summarily killed off in its home turf just as it was getting going in the PAL territories that ended up revering it. Those titles like Shinobi & R-Type that were early staples of the library were in fact the last gasps of a zombie console in Japan.