Best Full Freeware PC shmups?

[heisenbergman]

After a quick search through the forums, most of the old answers pointed to the shootthecore website. Unfortunately, that site no longer exists.

The closest I have to a list of freeware shmups is this one:

http://www.sk8tokyo.com/shmup/free.htm

But there's A TON of games there and I've started to try out some random games... but in an effort to expedite my exploration of that list, maybe please point out what the better ones are?

I've already tried Blue Wish Resurrection and Patriot Dark --- both are games that I enjoy. I also just downloaded Eden's Agis and it also seems cool. Looks to be made by the same person that made BWR.

So if there are notable games on that list that you feel are worthy of special mention, please do opine on this thread.

And if there are other notable games that are not on that list, those recommendations would be appreciated too.

Thanks!

[friedrich]

Hydorah is the best one I have played.

http://www.locomalito.com/hydorah.php

[Drachenherz]

Edens Aegis is also quite nice, it's from the same guys who made the blue wish games.

[KennyMan666]

Twin Seeds is the answer.

Also, though I'm not sure how "freeware" it is since the download was taken down, GwangeDash. I have it mirrored, is it kosher to post the link?

[rancor]

Glad you're enjoying my site.

My personal fav's from the list are:

BWR +
Cho Ren Sha 68k
Reflex
Alltynex Second
Flying Red Barrel
Demolition Gunner
Warning Forever
Zillion Beatz
XOP: Black
Sonic Ironstorm
Patriot Dark
Satazius
Ether Vapor HD


You have no idea how much pure shit I had to wade through - games I had to install, and literally destroy my computer - to get that list. I havent updated in 2013 I think, so I'm sure there are one or two more recent games that are worth playing. 99.9% of Doujin games are shit, but sometimes you'll come across gems like Crimzon Clover or Blue Wish Resurrection+ and be astounded. Oh, and be sure to watch this as well:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... JEr4d7BsdQ



Oh, and get the Crimzon Clover demo here:

http://www.vector.co.jp/download/file/w ... 02734.html

[KAI]

Thanks for the list Rancor, gonna check those.

[SuperSoaker360]

Leiria -Stargazer-

A very underrated EspGaluda clone by NonLinear that deserves more love.

You can download the game here.
please play it and populate the barren high score thread I made for it

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Since I am an Espgaluda whore, I am compelled to play.

Does overmode rank work like Galuda 1 (reset on death) or Galuda 2 (never resets, once you crank up overmode, it's there for the entire game, extra gems yay)?

Is there a way to change the controls? The KeyConfig in the options seems to be broken - no matter how much I mess with the controls, they remain the same ingame.

[Pteriforever]

These aren't on the list, but they're awesome freeware shmups for PC so maybe you'll like them:

Lunacy Star
Trigonometry Wars 3 Redux
Crimson Phoenix

[Jaimers]

Kaikan
Another very good freeware shmup with crazy medalling.

Magical Singular Day -Absolution-
I would call this game on par with some of Cave's shooters. Extremely frantic gameplay especially if you get the rank up.

Phantasmagoria Trues
Extremely crazy shmup with tons and tons of gameplay mechanics. There is also a mode without all the bullet cancelling mechanics.

Scarlet Meister
Brutal shmup with a hyper chaining mechanic.

DoTonPachi Maximum
Parody of what you can guess. Still really good.

Trigonometry Wars 3 Redux WL/BL
My Little Pegasus: Kizuna DoPonyPachi
Very good games made by our own Giest118.

Sonic Sisters
Very simple but fun little game.

EX -Extra-
Another inspired Cave shooter.

Further seconding Leiria Stargazer and all the X.X games.

Does overmode rank work like Galuda 1 (reset on death) or Galuda 2 (never resets, once you crank up overmode, it's there for the entire game, extra gems yay)?

You lose 1/7th of the bonus if you die. It's the powerup icons on the Accel bar.

[SuperSoaker360]

Is there a way to change the controls? The KeyConfig in the options seems to be broken - no matter how much I mess with the controls, they remain the same ingame.

I believe the keyboard controls never change from the default so changing the controls only works for controllers.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Ugh, I wanted to play this with keyboard but I guess I'll have to go get this working with a pad. Probably need to setup Joy2Key I imagine. The default controls are really horrible. :'(

Having different bombs for each shot type is a nice touch.

[Erppo]

Or just use Autohotkey to rebind your keyboard keys to whatever you want.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

The installer doesn't seem to work. I get the screen asking if I want the express or custom install, but when I click on either, doubleclick, select enter, etc, nothing actually proceeds to install. Even the other hotlinks in the installer window don't seem to work.

But I got an older version to work fine, and remapping is a lot easier and doesn't need a reboot like with another program I've tried. Thanks!

Any idea if there's a way to get a script setup to do autofire in it?

[MathU]

Cho Ren Sha 68K (the best of the best)
Vacant Ark
Hydorah
Genetos
Linley Henzell’s shooters (Garden of Colored Lights, White Butterfly, etc.)
Everything by Kenta Cho
Hyper Wars (too bad it'll never be finished)
nomItest
Varia
Galshell (warning: contains nudity)
Go Beryllium!
Psyche Metal: The Bleeding (comically ugly but fun game)
Cactus made a couple shooters as well (Clean Asia has a lot of bullet sponge enemies but Ad Nauseum 2 is a short, silly, enjoyable little game)
Warning Forever

[BareKnuckleRoo]

$*z::
While GetKeyState("z","P")
{
Send {z down}
Sleep 10
Send {z up}
Sleep 10
}
return

HOLY SHIT CHO REN SHA IS ACTUALLY PLAYABLE NOW WITH KEYBOARD AUTOFIRE



autohotkey is literally the best thing ever, erppo will you have my babies

[Erppo]

HOLY SHIT CHO REN SHA IS ACTUALLY PLAYABLE NOW WITH KEYBOARD AUTOFIRE

That too!

autohotkey is literally the best thing ever, erppo will you have my babies

Eh, why not. I'll PM you the address.

[Bananamatic]

I never realized that tapping fire in chorensha is bad

[hermit crab]

No autofire makes for a more intensive experience! BareknuckleRoo has just busted his fingers fighting and can't play without it and goes on rants about it whenever a game doesn't have it.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

carpal tunnel syndrome is too hardcore for me, sorry guys

[Bananamatic]

if you havent experienced carpal tunnel surgery you don't belong in the chorensha club

[hermit crab]

Mashing buttons while playing arcade style games may well be the thing that saves me from carpal tunnel that would otherwise result from using a mouse all day every day and living a generally unhealthy lifestyle.

[MathU]

Cho Ren Sha 68K really requires a very low base tap rate to achieve its maximum fire rate, I'm always surprised that people feel like they need autofire for it.

[Erppo]

Probably because monotonically tapping a button is pretty much the opposite of the concept of fun.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Cho Ren Sha 68K really requires a very low base tap rate to achieve its maximum fire rate, I'm always surprised that people feel like they need autofire for it.

lol, no

Go play Giga Wing. That's actually a game I don't mind without autofire because you really don't need to tap fast to max out the fire rate (and they were smart enough to give its console ports autofire available anyways). The cannon starts slow if you hit shoot once, and with steady tapping it changes to max speed and requires only 2-3 taps per second. In shmupmame, setting it as slow as 2.86 hz (setting 20) is still enough to keep autofire maxed out! Cho Ren Sha is fucking awful by comparison with how quickly you need to mash to keep the speed up. I'm only slightly exaggerating here; it's not as bad as shmups where one button press = one bullet, but it's still quite awful nonetheless.

Requiring tapping to use a machine gun type weapon just makes no sense. The cannons on a jet fighter don't require the pilot to button mash, because that would be stupid. It's not armed with a semiautomatic pistol or rifle! If you need, you can hold the trigger and blast away, you can tap it for small bursts, or not shoot at all.

Probably because monotonically tapping a button is pretty much the opposite of the concept of fun.

Especially when you're tapping that button for 99% of the game. That's the antithesis of fun.

[nasty_wolverine]

Chorensha 68k
Gustavs Games
Rozyrg Games
ABA games
BWR guy games

Thats all you need to keep busy
check out Flying V (Rozyrg), parsec47(ABA) and MBS(Gustav)

[MathU]

Go play Giga Wing.

That's actually a pretty good comparison. Cho Ren Sha's tapping requirement for max fire is only a slight bit more than Giga Wing's.

[heisenbergman]

Magical Singular Day -Absolution-
I would call this game on par with some of Cave's shooters. Extremely frantic gameplay especially if you get the rank up.

I downloaded the zip file on the descriptions but it has no exe. How do you run this?

[Iori Branford]

Magical Singular Day -Absolution-
I would call this game on par with some of Cave's shooters. Extremely frantic gameplay especially if you get the rank up.

I downloaded the zip file on the descriptions but it has no exe. How do you run this?

It's a module for Danmakufu engine: http://dmf.shrinemaiden.org/wiki/Main_Page

[CStarFlare]

http://touhou.wikia.com/wiki/Touhou_Danmakufu