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

[moh]

The culprit for getting me seriously in this hobby would be...

Espgaluda II... the iOS version...

oh drach...

say it isn't so

[Nasirosuchus]

For me, it was a few games.

Chaos Field
Espaluda
Mushihime Sama
Donpachi
Dodonpachi
Dodonpachi Dai-Ou-Jou
Perfect Cherry Blossom

[hail good sir]

no

[blackoak]

I played Life Force NES as a kid, and later Ikaruga in college. At the time I thought of both as "impossible" to beat with just 3 lives... and like many I credit fed through them a couple times, shrugged my shoulders and had no lasting impression (other than loving the music in Life Force, and enjoying playing it with my Dad). I was more into RPGs and strategy games back then. And for several years I mostly stopped playing games in favor of music stuff.

When I entered the desolation of adulthood and the protracted nightmare of student loan repayment, hounded with the anxiety of ABW (!A.lways B.e W.orking!), never having more than a couple hours of sanity in a day... well, a lot of things changed then, but I also started to be interested in games again. But in the interval console RPGs had become interminably boring to me. So I started picking up skill-based platformers for an experience that fit into my meagre and insulting allotment of "free time." Then I discovered Thunder Force and the megadrive shmup library generally. I really cherished the mental time-dilated zone these games put me in. Sometime later I found my way here and got the nerve to try DDP... the rest is history

(actually the rest is a really long incremental journey from laggy mame LCD frustration to finally, candy cabs and pcbs when possible)

[PC Engine Fan X!]

I recall the golden age of the arcades back in the early 1980s with arcade shmup titles like Tempest, Space Invaders, SI part II, Xevious, Interstellar, etc. that sowed the early seeds of the shmup genre to it's current modern-day danmaku offerings from the likes of Cave, Moss, and other 3rd party publishers. It wasn't until I saw the USA region Romstar version of Hyper Dyne Sidearms at Marriot's Great America amusement park in April of 1987, that it'd be a profound experience in my lifelong arcade hobby.

Fast forward to the spring of 1988, a lone Sidearm PCB enhoused in a generic Dynamo cab was placed inside a local burger joint across from my high school and a few quarters is all it took to seal the deal right then and there. Eventually, could reach the final mechanical end-game boss, Bozon, on my first life but it'd take a second quarter to polish it off for good, thus making it a true 2CC affair. After watching the various SA replays on the Capcom XBL offering, the scores of 2.7+ million is quite such a lofty goal to attain (when on the average, my scores'd be in the 1.4+ & 1.5+ million range per credit). I'd use the full-on single auto fire power as the gold choice to get my first life to the very end of SA. I never knew about the SA arcade bug of ending your three remaining lives on the final boss would result in those astromical and insane scores -- those early 80s arcade game publications like Joystik, Video Games, Marvel's Blip, etc. were long gone by the time the silver age of the arcade shmup titles arrived on the arcade scene.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Xeno]

Mushihimesama futari, the video everyone knows on youtube.

THIS. When I was younger I did play some shmups like Life Force, but after seeing the worlds hardest video game boss ever video my life has not been the same.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Apart from a large number of Touhou players (they breed like lemmings ) it's interesting to see such a diverse selection of games and time periods.

A couple of years ago a similar thread was made and most ppl seemed to enter STGs in only a couple of ways. Arcades (back before man learnt to walk upright), MAME, Blue Wish Resurrection and Touhou.

It's good to see that so many ppl entered STG through Futari it just reinforces my belief that a Mushi HD or a series double pack in PAL / US would work wonders for the genre as they are sure fine games.

[adpag]

Defender (and Planetoid on the BBC Micro). Also Moon Cresta and Galaxian.

[Never_Scurred]

Dodonpachi via MAME.
Ikaruga (NGC) was the first current-gen (at the time) shmup I bought.
I've always had a soft-spot for shmups in the past, but I found my passion for the genre when I discovered emulation back in '06.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Gradius V is the game that made me think of shmups as a genre (wouldn't differentiate between them and the rest of 2D shooting games with hard SF settings before).
Raiden III made me take them more seriously (play without continuing).
Zanac Neo is the one I went crazy about. Got a PSX for the thing and I seriously consider getting a Vita.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I always liked shmups like Life Force for the NES, and Gradius V for PS2 (that I happened to pick up on a whim, awesomely delighted), but I didn't really get into shmups seriously until I started playing Touhou...

At least I've since 'graduated' to other shmups.

[Udderdude]

I played a lot of shmups over the years, but the one that really changed my perspective was Dodonpachi. I played the PSX port of it and was never the same D:

[RNGmaster]

Definitely the Touhou games. I think EoSD was the first that really monopolized my free time.

[BPzeBanshee]

The last arcade place we had in Darwin had quite a few arcade cabinets below the cinema, but one game stood out from the rest: Raiden Fighters 2.

I believe it may have been a 2000 version but I couldn't really hear the music (which is pretty friggin loud in the 2000 versions that had their chips replaced) so I don't know if it's a version available in MAME or not for certain. What I could see and hear was quite excellent though: seeing the Raiden MK-II's lock-on beam curl around the place was something to behold in a mostly dark room where the purple lights up the place.

I didn't know it was an actual genre but I thoroughly enjoyed even watching it go through its attract cycle as a kid. Then a few years later I found Raiden Fighters JET in a sports club (it's floating around in poor condition at a different sports club now). When I looked up the name on the internet at school I stumbled upon the Raiden Fighters Emporium, and from there Xeno Fighters EX.

Some years later I lost my copy of the fangame so I looked it up again and found this forum, with Alluro's thread for the remake about 3 or 4 pages in. Needless to say the series and the fangame has been quite something of a catalyst for me - it has a certain touch that I don't see in most newer games let alone shmups.

[Aquas]

I used to go to a bowling alley / arcade / bar place with my buddies a lot back in '04 and '05. The main games our group played were Soul Caliburs and DDR, but they also had a Raiden Fighters Jet machine that a few people I knew there would play. At one point they actually switched the Raiden Fighters Jet into one of those cabs that has the walkable gap between the control panel and the monitor, which was raised. It was really cool but at that time I didn't really play the game much.

After a while of watching others play I noticed there were some scoring tricks they were doing so I asked questions and learned about them. A few months went by and I was obsessed with playing RFJ there, playing credits for hours in a row. Even taking hour long bus trips and spending the day there: back to back credits and smoking cloves and cigarettes. (When you could still smoke indoors)

My buddies would try to play it every now and then but it just didn't click with them like it did for me, despite explaining the scoring tricks to them. I guess the difficulty set them off, which was too bad. There was a guy there who had a 101M Slave score and I never really played Slave that often myself those days. I played Ixion, Miclus and Fairy mostly. After a while I had 40,50M+ scores in most of the ships on the cab. Eventually the monitor was having problems and they tried to fix it, but then it came back darker, then it came back cropped poorly. Not sure what was going on. But then they got rid of it completely. At that point it was about '06 and I had came upon this forum, desperate for info on shmups etc. I'm happy now that a few years later, in STGT I was able to get a Slave score higher than that guy's at the arcade.

[CptRansom]

Raiden Fighters Jet was the kindling back in college when I thought getting 10M was "good" (lol). I didn't know shit about credit feeding, 1cc... hell, I never even thought to look into the genre.

Somehow in early 2009 I got into Touhou. Some sparks flew. Nothing huge.

Raiden IV and Futari were the fire.

Clearing Mars Matrix was like taking that fire and pouring flammable shit all over it then setting the house on fire and maybe even the neighbor's house too because seriously fuck those guys.

Cool story, bro. Etc etc

[oboewan42]

Tyrian 2000 was my first love, and Geometry Wars 2 was the first game I played for score (since a few friends own it and it shows your friends' scores right on the HUD), but I don't think those really count.

That one YouTube video put me off from the genre, but Jamestown was the spark that got me thinking "yeah, this is a thing that normal humans can do!"

After that, I started playing toehoe a bit, but I didn't go full shmup until I started getting into MAME. Playing the first level of DDP for the first time was practically a religious experience.

[kathy]

m.u.s.h.a. for the genesis!

[weretable]

Gradius for the NES was the first one I played. But it was not until the Super Nintendo that a shmup really got me addicted, I picked up Super R-Type and played the heck out of it, and then I found Axelay and Space Megaforce and proceeded to play them obsessively for months.

[DQuick]

R-Type on the Sega Master System was my first love.

[emphatic]

Hishouzame!

^^This. For me, it was in 1987.

[man9child]

I had always liked Gradius and R-Type, and growing up I would play Strikers 1945+ all the time in the arcades. I didn't really understand the idea of playing for score though until Ikaruga. I think the fact that Ikaruga's scoring system is really visually obvious and so clearly integrated with the mechanics made it understandable and appealing.

I liked Ikaruga so much when it came out on Dreamcast it got me to pick up a Saturn and Radiant Silvergun. And oh hey, there are some Strikers games on the system too! Maybe being I have the console already I should try this Battle Garegga and what the hell is a Dodonpachi?

etc, etc

[TransatlanticFoe]

Star Force and 1942 were what got me as a kid. Then, when I was a little older, I was obsessed with Flying Shark (although I could never get far into stage 2, because I was about 7).

I didn't know bullet hell/manic was even a thing until I randomly picked up Giga Wing on the DC, looked at the back and thought "hey, not seen a 2D shooter in years". I don't think I've even seen a shmup more recent than Raiden II in an arcade. After that point it was the occasional older shmup tucked away somewhere and the rest of the arcade was driving/light gun/fighting games. That's British seaside resorts for you

[O. Van Bruce]

The culprit for getting me seriously in this hobby would be...

Espgaluda II... the iOS version...

That is certainly unique...

[Uzumakijl]

Ketsui Death Label

No other game had my blood pumping so hard and my head spinning, after Ketsui Death Label i was able to truly appreciate all kinds of shmups and when Ketsui got MAME'd i came.

Batrider, Ketsui, Ibara, Mushihimesama, Border Down, Radirgy and many many other gems that i had never experienced changed me forever...

I was sexually abused by Ketsui.

[O. Van Bruce]

I was sexually abused by Ketsui.

But it felt good right?

I'm now trying to loop it so he's touching me in my perverted places

[Uzumakijl]

But it felt good right?

After it happened i found myself begging like a cheap whore for another taste of it, Been hooked since.

[Drachenherz]

The culprit for getting me seriously in this hobby would be...

Espgaluda II... the iOS version...

oh drach...

say it isn't so

The culprit for getting me seriously in this hobby would be...

Espgaluda II... the iOS version...

That is certainly unique...

Yes, yes, it is indeed. At least, leading me to play shmups "seriously" and not like one of those creditfeeding sods...

Okay, I liked playing them before, actually since "vanguard" for the atari vcs 2600. And the amiga shmups like "menace", katakis or blood money... And don't forget the nes, mega drive, snes, pc engine, playstation and all that... R-Type, Thunderforce series... Lords and gates of thunder... And many more... I had and played them all, but not ... Seriously... And as shmups disappeared from the mainstream and console and computer went the way they did (i.e. "3D"), my interest in shmups waned...

For years. Many years. Until this faithful day when I tried Esp II on my iPad - going for the hiscore and the 1cc.

Then I found shmupsfarm... And ever since then, I hardly play anything else...

Okay, I could say I knew and loved shmups for a long time, but only since this fateful moment (gold ingots!!!! Thousands of them!!!!) am I really passionate with the shmupping. Mind you, I said "passionate", not "good at"...

[Stealthlurker]

Always liked shmups. Stuff like Galaxian, Phoenix, Galaga, 1942, Xevious, SideArms, Gradius, LifeForce, R-Type, Forgotten Worlds.... Even stuff like Silkworm, Battle Squadron, Katakis, etc on the Amiga.

However, the game that actually made me want to specifically seek them out was:

Rayforce / Gunlock / Layer Section / Galactic Attack

As a broke college student at the time, I couldn't buy too many games or expensive ones at that. Around the mid 90s or so, I saw an interesting game on the shelves at Toys R Us for 20 bucks. Graphics looked cool on the back so I thought why not. Game really, really wowed me.

A few weeks later I noticed in the options screen that there was a strange video mode. Tried it out and noticed the playfield was larger. I happened to have a perfectly square TV on all sides, so I rotated it. First time I ever tated for a shmup. Blew my mind. Also discovered that if you leave the TV off for a while during the rotation process, it helps get rid of the color problems (since most TVs didn't have a degauss).

Prior to that, I was in Osaka around 1994. First time I saw a modern "candy cab" with a 29" vertical screen. The screen seemed huge compared to vert cabs in the states. In addtion, the image seemed crisper, brighter and more colorful too. I had no idea what shmup was on it, but all the crazy explosions, flying ships and pixel art looked amazing. First time I pumped in that many coins into a shmup in the arcade. Especially since at the time I was fighting game crazy. Also happened to see a crazy cool looking fighting game I never saw before that day. Couldn't tell if it was NeoGeo game or what because it totally had that Neo style, but it didn't have any "markings" to signify if it was Neo game. Later discovered the game was Dragoon Might. However, I never figured out what that shmup was....

.

[manatworks]

ummmm, Recca on Nes
that's when i was like 10 , my dad get me famicom and let me chose random game from the shop,they have pirated version of Summer Carnival'92 's Recca there.
then i jump to psx , and i remember that i buy any shmups that i find on that machine.