"That life bar crap"-Can a good shmup have it?

[Dave_K.]

Best use of a lifebar: NMK's Gunnail. No extendeds, one ship, and the closer you are to death the higher your multiplier!

[Ruldra]

Dangerous Seed is quite a good shmup with a lifebar.

Best use of a lifebar: NMK's Gunnail. No extendeds, one ship, and the closer you are to death the higher your multiplier!

If you're playing for score it's not really a lifebar shmup though, as you need to play 'on the edge' from start to finish.

[Observer]

The entire Suguri series, Sora and the doujin game exception (surreal cubes in cube land with lock-on guided lase missiles) feature life bars and they are all pretty damn awesome.

Cloudphobia is another one with a life bar, which is also tied to the score (bigger bonuses the more you avoid damage).

Seconding Karous.

Twilight RefRain removes lives and uses some sort of "spirit" bar that can help you withstand a couple of shots before seeing the game over screen. By any means makes things easier since it's also (heavily) tied to your score.

[drunkninja24]

I really enjoyed Soldner-X 2. The idea of tying rank (and thus, scoring) to the lifebar I think helped that.