What game sparked your interest in shooters?

[RNGmaster]

It's funny that I got so worked up about a 1cc of Imperishable Night on Normal. I was using Border team (by far the strongest characters) and has lives set to 5. It's darned easy even in comparison to the first 4 stages of DDP, but it didn't feel like that at the time.

1ccing is just an amazing feeling, and I've been chasing that high my entire time here.

[Schrodinger's cat]

Saw the "hardest video game boss EVER" Youtube Futari vid, which I thought was amazing and prompted me to google up Cave. Then I downloaded DDP on Mame and was hooked. Having fond memories of Sky Shark, Tiger Heli, Thunder Force 3, and other old games when I was little probably helped as well.

[renardqueenston]

Life Force on the NES was my first exposure, and shortly after that, Fox Ranger, a not-so-hot DOS shooter from Korea.

[Deca]

As much as it pains me to admit it, the game that got me to start playing shooters really seriously was Perfect Cherry Blossom around 2006 or so

I'd enjoyed stuff like Gradius, STG Strike Gunner, and the Thunder Force series in the past, but I never really had spent a lot of time concentrating on specific games until I played PCB.

[infamas]

Rob's videos got me into shooting games. Mars matrix in particular.

[spadgy]

I'd always loved them on the Amiga, but it was Psyvariar Revision on PS2 and Ikaruga's GC PAL release that tipped me into obsession territory.

[Drachenherz]

obsession territory.

This describes it so well!

[Slump]

It was galaga for me. Used to play it on my uncles original cab for hours as a youth. It led to my appreciation of gaming and especially classic games in general.

[Leandro]

Mars Matrix back in 2003, then Battle Garegga cemented it

[Pixel_Outlaw]

I think my first shmup was "Stinger" for the NES. Played it quite a bit.
I later got Gaiares and played it quite a bit.

Many years later, here I am too cheap to import still playing the classics.

I still can enjoy the number of bullets the modern games can put onscreen.
Once you learn to calmly see the negative space, the shmup Zen can be found.

[Yoshi]

The first one I remember getting into was Galaga in the arcade. Then I got Life Force on the NES, followed by ThunderForce III on the Genesis. I slipped away from the genre for a while, but Pulstar pulled me back in. I lost interest again for a bit but got back in with Death Smiles. I think I am here to stay this time.

[apple arcade]

Ikuruga

[HamidoOs]

Hah, I didn't know about shmups until like... 2 years ago. Someone gave me a Gradius V high loop gameplay, and I got all hyped up.

Now I'm a Cave junkie.

[DEL]

I don't know whether it was Devil Zone, Gorf or Phoenix. Probably Gorf. Never forget my Uncle taking me to a local fish n'chip shop and playing Gorf with a Tron-like handle and hearing the machine say 'Gorfian Robot' in a digitized voice.
I guess I played Space Invaders before that, but it never grabbed me.

[crackfox]

Used to play stuff like Gradius and R Type when i was a kid...
Stopped playing games for probably 15 years...
Then 6 months ago played DDP... Now I'm hooked again!!!

[Kazuya]

In Arcade system was R·Type and Truxton as console game.

[Van_Artic]

the very first one was Galaga, my father told me how much he loved that game
then i forgot about shmups, until R-type Delta on PS1, though i was a kid, and credit fedded it to death

then i forgot about shmups again; one day in 2006 i looked out for the best dreamcast games (i bought the console in 2007) and Ikaruga came up, now it's where i am

[Ed Oscuro]

i confess, it was quake

[moozooh]

Gentlemen, we have a winner.

[monkeyman]

Technically my 1st shmup was atari 2600 space invaders, but the games which made me fall in love with the genre were Gemini Wing (c64) and R Type (Amiga).

Oh the memories!

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Apart from 1 or 2 cheap game and watch clones and a Red Tomy Donkey Kong Table Top I got for xmas (I bet it would of been worth a fortune if i still had it as ive never come across another or even seen any info about it) The first video game played on a CRT was Space invaders that was inbuilt in a 2nd hand 2600 I got the following Xmas. Considering I never got any other games for the machine it got played allot untill I got a +2

[charlie chong]

always played them(i would play any arcade game as a kid).a lot of pubs had the tabletop space invaders,asteroids etc.centipede and asteroids on 2600 were early ones i would play for hours.then r-type on s.t and arcade shooters such as twin cobra,aeroblasters in local shops and swimming pools etc.i think i lost interest after the megadrive era altho at that time i was more into beat em ups.i remember dowloadingz the romz of gigawang on dreamcast and i guess i thought it was too hard,i couldn't understand how you were meant to dodge all that shit then i found mame and
BATTLE GAREGGA .i've been addicted ever since.battle garegga,dodonpachi and batsugun i guess are the ones that triggered my true addiction

[PinkSweets]

Saw the "hardest video game boss EVER" Youtube Futari vid

Ditto.
Subsequently I looked up more Mushi Futari videos and was amazed at how aesthetic a video game could look. That later led to looking up Cave and the rest of their games along with a handful of other STG. The Imperishable Night final level and boss was pretty insane too...

[sunburstbasser]

Space Megaforce on Super Nintendo. It was for sale for $9, with box and manual, at the local rental store. I had rented it before and loved it, and it became one of my favorite games ever. I also had Super R-Type, but didn't like it much.

When I got back into video games after not touching them for about 2 years, I tried out Darius Twin which was another I recall enjoying. I looked into the Darius series and found that the PC Engine (I'd never heard of it before that) had some Darius games. So I grabbed an emulator and Darius Alpha and was very perplexed when a boss showed up out of nowhere.

As I looked for more shmups, I found this site and saw the rave reviews for DoDonPachi. Seemed it was really something awesome. So, I got MAME working, and one of the first games I grabbed was DoDonPachi. I was HOOKED. When I saw the love for Battle Garegga, I tried that and got even more hooked. Been shmupping since then.

[NAVVARR]

I've always liked them. I remember playing Space Invaders in the 70's at a caravan site on holiday in Devon. The ones the really got my attention after that were Scramble and Defender.

In the 80's I played a number of Mega Drive shooters but then left the genre for years following the advent of 3D and the PS1.

It was the Dreamcast that got me into shooters again after I bought Gunbird 2. The rest is history, large shelfs with lots of expensive games and all sorts of imported consoles.

Similar start to yourself- playing Scramble in the arcades- then Defender, Defender 2, Sinistar, Starforce, and moving on to games like R-Type, Gradius, X-multiply etc etc.

I love my horizontals- more than the verticals- but hey- I enjoy most of them regardless.

[Sushi Assassin]

Gradius on the NES in 87' I also enjoyed Centipede, Haleys Comet in the arcade. Owned nothing but Nintendo systems until 2000. So naturally all I ever played was Stinger, Life Force, Gradius III, Axelay, Phalanx, R-Type III, U.N. Squadron etc... In the arcades I would play Raiden, Sonic Wings, Aero Fighters, Nam 1975, Blood Bros, Cabal, Ikari Warriors, Time Soldiers, Metal Slug etc.... And of coarse Contra and Super C back at home. I kind of lost touch when the N64 was released simply because there was nothing on that systme unless you imported the treasure games. The game cube and PS2 reignited my love for the genre with Gradius V, Chaos Field, Ikaruga, and Alien Homind. But, mostly Gradius V. Anyway, decided to search for games that I missed and in the process bought a Genesis, Saturn and Dreamcast and found out about Mushi, Espgaluda, Ibara thru a clerk at an import store in L.A.

Long story, short........ I haven't looked back since.

[Clessx]

I had played lifeforce , twinbee and isolated soldier on nes when I was a child , but was never too much into them , and was more of a 2d fighter game fan , until year 2008.

I had a small mame collection , which I got from a friend , and it had contained mainly neogeo \ capcom fighters , a few classics like donkey kong , and donpachi. While I was browsing mame folders noticed of it , and without having anything better to do , launched it , not expecting anything special..... and thenfirst thing I remembered was that 3 hours have passed since I started playing it... I loved it , different experience and fun than anything I played before... Than started searching about cave , downloaded esprade, guwange, dodonpachi (loved this even more than its prodecessor) and Psikyo games , Gunbird2 , Strikers1945 , Dragon Blaze... ... I was playing shooters on mame all the time...

Then last year I found about Touhou , and doujin scene , Ether Vapor , Stella Vanity , Twilight Insanity ... a lot of new favourites for me....

But to answer simply : Donpachi !

[ArcadeNerd]

Oh man. Twin Cobra started it when I was little kid. Then picked up my first arcade cabinet which was Twin Cobra. Following that, the DC shmups were big into getting me into the newer shmups. I FRIGGIN love Twinkle Star Sprites and playing it with some of my shmup friends. Classic battle type system combined with vertical scrolling shooting action!!

[1up]

played 1942 constantly on my C64 back in 1988. Then later on I put a lot of money in Sky Adventure and R-Type in the arcades. Then I lost interest in shooters till 2005-6 when I tried Strikers 1945 in MAME. I was reeled back in instantly

[Matskat]

Years ago I was reading an article (written by an obviously American, non-shmupping gamer) ABOUT "The Hardest Video Games Ever"....

He included shit like Ninja Gaiden on the XBOX, Ghosts & Goblins on NES, etc...

Then I read the word... DoDonPachi...

The way he described this game was hilarious, making broad generalizations like you must be Japanese and have superhuman genetic properties to even consider playing the game successfully. I probably am not doing it justice but whatever. It got me to bot up MAME, rotate my monitor and Play DDP for the first time.

I fell in love.

I scoured MAME to find more games like it, and discovered Cave, Raizing, Toaplan and Psykio...

This was probably 5-6 years ago...before that I LOVED 1942 in the arcades, but DDP was like that girl back in highschool who let me have sex with her, for my first time. It wasn't easy, or graceful AND I didn't even finish - EXACTLY like my first DDP run. What it DID do was keep me coming back, again and again.

Lookin' to score