results: Top 25 Shmups of All Time (through 2004)

[Nuke]

Reflecting bullets is the best thing that ever happened to shooting games and I'm waiting for Giga Wing to spawn its own subgenre.

[alpha5099]

Reflecting bullets is the best thing that ever happened to shooting games and I'm waiting for Giga Wing to spawn its own subgenre.

I'm glad this is how we've decided to conduct our debates now. It's classy.

[Anarchos]

I agree with raiden, as always. I'm satisfied with the list. Sure, all my babies like Dragon Blaze, Strikers 1945 and Gunbird didn't make it (not to mention Guwange, Dangun Feveron and the likes) but it's a fair list. Gradius and R-Type will always be a mystery to me, but there it goes there it goes.

But! I would like to state the following: new games are better than old. It's as simple as that. Heard somebody saying that we don't remember the classics because we are so busy wanting something new all the time. BULLSHIT.

I turn on a shmup from 1985. What the fuck is this? 1990. Nah man, this is really shitty. 92, 93, 94... dodonpachi!

No but honestly, old shmups suck. They don't hold a grudge against top modern maniacs that give us more furious action, better graphics and better gameplay in terms of fairplay/difficulty. I just can't see why anybody would like those old games, I know I don't.

And oh, who gives a bloody hell about depth? I start playing, if it doesn't suck me it, the game itself sucks!
Dodonpachi is as deep as you make it, what the fuck are you talking about? I've been planning strategies for quite some while, it doesn't need to be full of secrets like som godamn irritating RPGs. Shisch!

[Rob]

No but honestly, old shmups suck. They don't hold a grudge against top modern maniacs that give us more furious action, better graphics and better gameplay in terms of fairplay/difficulty.

[snap monkey]

No but honestly, old shmups suck. They don't hold a grudge against top modern maniacs that give us more furious action, better graphics and better gameplay in terms of fairplay/difficulty. I just can't see why anybody would like those old games, I know I don't.

I have trouble enjoying the "classics" of the genre because I really enjoy the way that hitboxes are handled now (i.e. accurately). Modern shmups allow for higher resolutions which mean more pixels per area so you can specify a smaller, more accurate zone on the ship rather than a massive block that more or less encompasses the entire craft. Of course, I'm probably one of the younger punks on this site so I didn't really grow up with the the old stuff; Ikaruga was my real introduction to shmups.

[shmup-o]

Don't get me wrong, I like new shmups. Here are my votes from this year:

Gate of Thunder
Lords of Thunder
Battle Garegga
Dodonpachi DOJ
Gigawing 2
Raiden
Strikers 1945 II
Blazing Lazers/Gunhed
GDarius
R-Type
Space Megaforce
----

All equal votes. This was just off of the top of my head, if I could re-vote, I would add Border Down as well. Maybe Espgaluda.

Anyways, I think that is varied and not too heavily weighted in any direction. Maybe my problem is I haven't explored MAME enough. But those old classics are just that... classics.

Would you say SMB 1 sucks now? Zelda? Gone with the Wind? Wizard of Oz? Everything is improved, everything has more technology involved, but that doesn't make it "better".

Maybe everyone should vote on their Top 5 or Top 10, no goofy scoring mechanics, but 10 points for 1 and 1 point for 10. Compile that into a Top 25 list. No wonder Gunbird 2 made such a crazy jump, when someone gives 200000000 out of 200400000 points, it adds 24 votes for one person. That's messed up.

[TWITCHDOCTOR]

No but honestly, old shmups suck. They don't hold a grudge against top modern maniacs that give us more furious action, better graphics and better gameplay in terms of fairplay/difficulty.

To Anarchos:
Thats because you were born yesterday!

Yea Rob, that pic rules!!!!!

(Jamie Bunker)

[Shatterhand]

15 hours of gameplay is a lot different than 15 minutes.

What I see many people do with some oldschool games when they are recommended is that:

they play for 5 minutes. They go like "Yes, it's a nice game". Then they go for what is newer, just because.. well, it's new.

Also, there's the trouble of emulation. Not everyone has the patience to do emulation - I know I don't... even though I've played Garegga before, I only truly begun enjoying it after I got it for the Saturn. (Though I've played a couple of shmups on emulation for a long time)

And for "Depth". I think most people confuse "Depth" with "Simplicity", which are 2 completely different things. People like COMPLEX games (Which is nothing wrong), but they like to call those games "Deep".

I always find that Psikyo and Technosoft are the companeis that best shows this difference. Neither Strikers 1945 or Thunder Force 5 are COMPLEX games, but they have lots of depth in the gameplay.

Unlike say, Terra Cresta 3D, which is simple, and has no depth either.


ANd well, it's very clear that different people like different games, like I said before. Some people like to dodge fast bullets, some other people prefer to chain enemy around slower bullets, other people prefer to REFLECT bullets, and maybe others prefer to graze around bullets. People like to play for score, and other people prefer to play for survival (like me)

[Super Laydock]

Please Note: I just realized that there I screwed up the synonyms for Salamander -- so they showed up on the list as two vs. one. I corrected that...which bumped Sally into the HM list. Fixed the various stats -- but combining the games would have resulted in the #13 game, not the #25 game as I originally said.

Why didn't I read this message earlier? At least now I can go to sleep without too much worrying...
God bless Konami for giving us Salamander! (take that any way you want )




Shatterhand wrote:

...and other people prefer to play for survival (like me)

Like...me too!

[MovingTarget]

No but honestly, old shmups suck. They don't hold a grudge against top modern maniacs that give us more furious action, better graphics and better gameplay in terms of fairplay/difficulty.

I agree with alpha.

[Super Laydock]

Ooh, he should be REALLY popular with them girly dogs!

[nullstar]

As the average copyright date of the top 25 moves inexorably forward, I am most gratified to see that the (in my opinion) incomparable genius of R-Type continues to be recognized.

I noticed that you summarized the release dates. I wish I'd added that as one of the miscellaneous tables...won't have time for a couple weeks, however. (If anyone wants to take a stab -- I'd prefer by year for each of top 25 and HM and combined-- I'll incorporate it above.)




As for the several people who suggested secret voting and reigning in what is seen as inordinate skewing of the vote: I appreciate the constructive criticism.

• I'll give secret ballots some thought, maybe put it up for a poll at some point. (I question whether we'd attract the same number of voters, however.)
• I have no intention of reducing the number of games people can vote for. :) Those who think the top 25 and HM is short should have seen the top 10 polls that used to be so prevalent around here.
• Personally, I dislike the fact that the top 25 are ranked; my preference would just be to alphabetize that list like the HM. But I am pretty sure I'd be run out of town for doing that. :) Either way, I think it's important to take top 25 and HM lists as a whole as the closest thing to agreement we're likely to ever get around here -- not as some mystical divination of the True Ranking of Topness or whatever.

As for the suggestion of 25-to-1 scoring: this is actually how the original ("2002") vote was done...and we had a lot of complaints it was too restrictive[A]; many wanted to rank games the same, etc. I'm not saying the current method is without problems...but want to provide some history where the current system came from.
Some other ways to maybe address this concern (if it really bothers enough people):

1. Reduce the weight of votes to score (say, from 2:1 to 5:1...or even 10:1).
2. Go to a straight vote of 25 games -- with no point value; just raw numbers of votes.
3. Allocate an actual number of points, let them split as desired -- 100 points for one game...or 1 each for 100...or anything in between. (From my perspective, this would probably be an absolute nightmare. It also actually seems worse than the current system based on comments so far.)
4. Open to other suggestions (though I see the secret ballot possibility as a separate issue that can be used with any of these methods).

[A] Actually, the way I originally planned the 2002 poll, the votes were tallied as such. The scores were just to be used in the case of ties based on the total number of points assigned to games. The problem with this was there really weren't too many ties -- but IIRC there were plenty of games whose position on the point list was very high while in some cases they would have missed the top 25 by a substantial margin due to a limited number of votes. In the end I really didn't like the idea of having two separate lists with, say, only half the same games on both...so I went looking for some sort of compromise. Again -- just some history.

[Shatterhand]

I personally find the current way of voting excellent.

[alpha5099]

Of course, I'm probably one of the younger punks on this site so I didn't really grow up with the the old stuff; Ikaruga was my real introduction to shmups.

It's got nothing to do with age. I'm also one of the youngest people around here (18 ), and I didn't grow up with shmups. I had a Genesis, but I never once remember encountering any shmups for it. I didn't start shmupping until a few years ago, and I gravitated towards the old school. It's just personal tastes.

I personally find the current way of voting excellent.

Aside from my complaints of the possible skewerings of votes, I agree, the system works well. If people want to bitch about a more straight forward voting system, they're free to vote that way. Nothing said you had to give ten thousand points to your top game and 3 points to the bottom one. You're free to give the top 25, the next 24, so on and so forth.

I personally enjoyed the liberty of not having to decide which I prefered more between certain games, I could just give them all the same number of votes. The system lets us focus more on choosing what games to include, and less on arbitrary orders.

EDIT:

Even if no one seems to be totally happy with the results, at least its sparked some heated discussion, so it's definitely been useful.

[ST Dragon]

Ikaruga.
Not the best of examples...

[ST Dragon]

DoDonPachi has the most destructive primary weapons I've seen in a shmup.

How does it compare to Part II & III on PS-2?

[shmup-o]

I have no intention of reducing the number of games people can vote for. Those who think the top 25 and HM is short should have seen the top 10 polls that used to be so prevalent around here.

As for the suggestion of 25-to-1 scoring: this is actually how the original ("2002") vote was done...and we had a lot of complaints it was too restrictive[A]; many wanted to rank games the same, etc. I'm not saying the current method is without problems...but want to provide some history where the current system came from.

I thought the biggest complaint people had in 2002 was that they didn't have 25 shmups to vote for. Which is a valid observation. That's why I suggested voting for 10 games; you can still have a Top 25 or 50 or whatever, but saying "these 10 games are my favorites" is much easier than 25.

I would prefer to see the voting done in a fixed point format of some sort; under the current voting I can give all of my points to one game if I wanted, which defeats the purpose of what this poll is trying to do.

Don't get me wrong guys, I love the annual vote. That's why I'm trying to discuss the vote in a reasonable manner so that we can keep improving it!

[BulletMagnet]

DoDonPachi has the most destructive primary weapons I've seen in a shmup.

How does it compare to Part II & III on PS-2?

You oughta play Batsugun, heh. "Where'd the rest of the screen go?"

DDP Dai-Ou-Jou on PS2 has similarly-empowered weapons of mass destruction, though they look more "metallic" than the energy waves and such from the first 2 DonPachi games...DDP 2 was never brought to a home console, and further wasn't made by Cave, just licensed out, IIRC.

[Bydobasher]

I noticed that you summarized the release dates. I wish I'd added that as one of the miscellaneous tables...won't have time for a couple weeks, however. (If anyone wants to take a stab -- I'd prefer by year for each of top 25 and HM and combined-- I'll incorporate it above.)

Sure, I can do that. I'll post it later today.

[Bydobasher]

Breakdown by Year

Code: Select all

YEAR	TOP25	HON.M.	OVERALL	TITLES
1981	  0	     1	     1	   Galaga
1982	  0	     0	     0
1983	  0	     0	     0
1984	  0	     0	     0
1985	  0	     1	     1	   Gradius	
1986	  0	     2	     2	   Salamander, ZanacEX
1987	  1	     1	     2	   R-Type, LifeForce(NES)
1988	  0	     1	     1	   Gradius2
1989	  0	     1	     1	   Gunhed
1990	  1	     3	     4	   TF3, Gaiares, Gradius3(SNES), MUSHA 
1991	  0	     1	     1	   UNSquadron(SNES)
1992	  1	     5	     6	   TF4, Axelay, GoT, Recca, Sldr.Blade, S.Aleste
1993	  2	     2	     4	   RayForce, Batsugun, LoT, Raiden2
1994	  1	     1	     2	   RaidenDX, DariusGaiden
1995	  1	     1	     2	   DonPachi, S1945
1996	  1	     4	     5	   Souky, 19XX, Garegga, Tengai, SexyParo
1997	  6        1	     7	   DDP, GradiusG, S1945II, APB, TF5, Einhander, GDarius
1998	  4	     4	     8   	RS, GB2, ESP, RTD, BlazStar, Cyvern, Feveron, RFJet
1999	  1	     2	     3	   GigaWing, Bakraid, Guwange
2000	  1	     2	     3	   MarsMatrix, Dimahoo, DragonBlaze
2001	  0	     3	     3	   GigaWing2, ZanacNeo, ZeroGunner2
2002	  2	     1	     3	   Ikaruga, DDPDoJ, Ketsui
2003	  2	     2	     4	   SnS2, ESP2, BorderDown, Parsec47
2004	  1	     1	     2	   GradiusV, ImperishableNight

Some notes:

1. In the "Titles" column, top 25 games are listed before the honourable mentions. For example, in the 2003 row, which has two top 25 games and two honourable mentions, SnS2 and ESPGaluda are top 25, while Border Down and Parsec 47 are Hon.M.

2. I'm not sure about the date for Giga Wing 2. I have it here as 2001, but I've seen some places on the web that have it as 2000. Can anyone confirm? Of course, if anyone spots anything else that may be incorrect, please say so.

3. I have the date on Life Force (NES) as 1987. Actually, LF is dated 1988, but Salamander (Famicom) is dated 1987, and as they are basically the same thing -- give or take an option -- I thought 1987 was more appropriate.

4. 20 of the 65 games listed here -- almost a third of the total (!) -- are from the three year span of 1996-1998.

5. 1992 does particularly well for itself, with 6 total entries. I've always felt that 1992 was a good year for shmups; it can boast of titles like Gley Lancer, Last Resort, R-Type Leo, Viewpoint, Mystic Riders, and Truxton 2 in addition to those games listed above.

[Rob]

I'm pretty sure Giga Wing 2 was released in 01 for the arcade and DC almost simultaneously.

[Bydobasher]

That's what I think as well, so we can probably leave it as is unless someone shows otherwise.

Thanks for your input.

[uwfan]

I personally find the current way of voting excellent.

so do I. Nullstar, my opinion is you dont need to change a damn thing. The idea of secret ballots is especially paranoid and silly.

Guys, just deal with it. Some of your favorite games might not be precisely where you think they should be.
This is because.....*newsflash*.....other peoples opinions may differ from your own!!! OMG!!

[Shatterhand]

Yes!

And well... I could have put more points to Zanac Neo so it would make to the Top 25, and could had chose other games besided Gyruss or Beamrider, as I knew they would never make it.

But I thought that would be stupid. It's MY top 25, so I have to be sincere.

I personally think that influence the whole list by giving absurd scores for your own favourite game is silly. Zanac Neo didn't make it to the top 25, but if it was 1st place, would I be happier, richier, wealthier or something? No, it would just say that more people like Zanac Neo, and that's the whole point of the thing.

but everyone to each own, I guess.

[Neon]

I put all my votes towards DOJ because I feel it's the best shmup, not because I wanted to skew the results.

I also couldn't really figure out how the voting worked ah well. Maybe I'll vote for a few other favourites next year.

The idea of secret ballots is especially paranoid and silly.

It's not paranoid and silly, it ensures a more accurate list by not allowing people to influence it based on the votes of others. Thus it more accurately reflects the 'top 25'...which is the whole goddamn point.

[nullstar]

I thought the biggest complaint people had in 2002 was that they didn't have 25 shmups to vote for. Which is a valid observation. That's why I suggested voting for 10 games; you can still have a Top 25 or 50 or whatever, but saying "these 10 games are my favorites" is much easier than 25.

I have two observations here.

First, it is correct to say that a number of people complained (both for the "2002" and 2003 votes) that coming up with a full 25 games was too hard. However, there were always an approximately equal number of people complaining that 25 was simply too few to do the genre justice. Ergo, there was no consensus on the issue; opinion seemed pretty well split; ergo I figured 25 was a good number 'in the middle'.

Second: One goal of the top 25 was to limit -- but not necessarily eliminate -- the weight provided by relative newbies to the genre (which I always perceived as an issue in the informal top 10s we used to see every month or two). The goal isn't simply to have everyone toss their vote no matter what -- it's intended for people who have both a broad and deep first-hand understanding, knowledge of, and familiarity with the genre. When you've spent substantial time playing -- I dunno -- 400 or more shmups and don't have enough fingers (but might still have a toe or two left) to count the number of systems you've played on, I have a very hard time believing that the problem is coming up with 25 games that are bona fide contenders for a `top' spot. (The trouble of whittling a list down to 25, however, is something I can relate to.) As I try to say every year at the start of voting: the goal isn't to be completely exclusionary to folks who've only played, say, 50 or 100 shmups -- but they really aren't the type of player I'm anxiously waiting to see a vote for. The number of games that got one vote this year was just over 260, as I recall -- if someone hasn't played 90-95+% of those, I again have a hard time believing that their vote isn't skewed toward the limited number of games they've played. I scanned the list a couple nights ago (yes, I'm still going to post it...in this thread) and had to go something like 150-175 games in before I found anything that I personally felt was just inexplicable. Again, this isn't intended as a slight against relative newbies, but I don't want to misrepresent my (at least) ideas on this particular poll.

edit: er: 90-95%, not 90-55%...

[raiden]

I don´t think secret ballots are silly, but I´d prefer keeping it public, because that does 3 things:

- it "characterizes" voters in the category this board is concerned with: I´m not interested particularly at what cars or music people like in here, but when talking to someone, having read their votes before gives a pretty detailed impression on where they stand concerning these games.

- it encourages reflection on other people´s votes: well, at least it does that to me. There are some people here whose opinion I value higher than others´, and by reading which games these people consider the best, I´m inclined trying to understand their votes. If I know the game, I´m reflecting its qualities, if I don´t know it yet, I get curious about it.

- another point is the fact that keeping it public maintains a certain kind of conscience. When you know other people are reading your vote, you are bound trying to do it pretty seriously. This in itself is a way to limit irrational votes or people "pushing" games to a certain extent.

So I have two suggestions to make on how we can keep it public: one way is to publish votes after voting has ended, the other one is to limit the number of points which can be given on one game. For example, we can still say everybody´s pie has the same size, but no game can get more than 10 points. A scale from 1 to 10 should be sufficient to differentiate enough between games, there were some people using funny multiples of 10, 100 or 1000 for cosmetic reasons, but didn´t actually need the finer scale being given by that method.

[Shatterhand]

I have two observations here.

First, it is correct to say that a number of people complained (both for the "2002" and 2003 votes) that coming up with a full 25 games was too hard. However, there were always an approximately equal number of people complaining that 25 was simply too few to do the genre justice. Ergo, there was no consensus on the issue; opinion seemed pretty well split; ergo I figured 25 was a good number 'in the middle'.

I agree completely. I made a top 25 list, still left some good games out. For me 25 is a good number, it assures that I have enough room to put the best games there, but also assures that I won't start to have to put some "above average" stuff just to fill up the list.

Second: One goal of the top 25 was to limit -- but not necessarily eliminate -- the weight provided by relative newbies to the genre .

Yes, I agree 100% with that, and everything else said after that.

[tehkao]

Argh, DDP won AGAIN????

[NoboruWataya]

This is an interesting debate, as to why people prefer newer shmups.

In every other genre I tend to prefer older games. I think RPG's have become to pretensious, relying on being far too story driven. Platformers are always in 3D if they are released on consoles, and I don't like analog sticks; I tried a few times to play some of the newest GTA game but failed for this very reason. In fact, when modern games made the switch to 3D almost every design rule had to be rediscovered, causing the quality of the games to still be, on average, very poor. So, I pretty much stick to the classics outside of shmups. Mostly a Link to The Past.

But shmups have kept the same rigid design rules throughout thier history, and therefore they have shown much stronger cumlative improvement. The smaller hitbox is a very good example, as soon as this was discoverd it was almost universally adopted across the whole genre.

A shmup today can still be identified as having alot in common with one 20 years ago, this is just not so for other genres.