Your favourite non-serial Konami arcade shooter(s)

[Perikles]

Hooray for uniquely unwieldy thread titles! Wanted to create a little poll where we elicit which games outside of the more popular Gradius/Parodius/Salamander/TwinBee series might win out. Please note that I would've loved to include non-arcade games such as Axelay, Crisis Force or Space Manbow, but due to the limitation (only 10 options are allowed) I had to omit a handful of arcade games as is (Finalizer, Juno First, Mega Zone, The End) and merge a few entries just to cover most of the spectrum. I thought about treating both Thunder Cross games as one entry, but decided against it since they differ more than enough to warrant two separate entities, especially since both are quality titles as far as I'm concerned.

[chum]

Hardly put any time into any of these but Xexex is great, I also like Juno First and Gyruss. Trigon seemed promising as well.

[Deadliar]

There's some great games on this list, but Xexex is an incredibly clear winner.

It just oozes quality, personality and quirkiness - an instant pick.

[Sumez]

Time Pilot is surprisingly cool for its age. But I can't not love Thunder Cross II.

[Xyga]

3 WARPS TO URANUS

[Perikles]

Trigon seemed promising as well.

I would really like the game if not for the obnoxious bullet wobble. Trigon is not first-rate material in any case (a bit too much repetition at work, especially the boss marathon on top of an already sufficiently long game; some stretches and even stages are rather uneventful; the eponymous Trigon is a little bit too erratic, as are the Dragon Lasers etc.), but it definitely is a solid title. It's such a shame that almost 100% of your deaths will come from dodging fairly simple patterns, crashing into the bullets regardless because they alter their trajectory when you push the screen laterally. The only other games I know of with bullet wobble that bad are Master of Weapon and R-Shark, neither of those are names you want to be associated with whatsoever. Combine that with impossible checkpoints in loop 2 and you got a highly frustrating experience. Not that I'm bitter or anything, just saying.



Quite surprised by the amount of votes for Gyruss - I love the 8-bit port but find the original arcade game a bit too dry for my personal liking. I'm also glad that A-JAX got a couple of nominations, it's not a game I would pick myself, yet it also permeates a certain charm. Same with Flak Attack which is about as fundamental as vertical shmups can be and nonetheless oddly relaxing at the same time (unlike the boss fights which are surprisingly twitchy).

[Sumez]

8-bit port? Are you saying the NES port is an improvement over the arcade version? If so, how?

[Xyga]

The NES port looks and sounds more high tech and they've added (lame) bosses, but the sense of depht is lesser imho, and I kinda liked the -indeed dry- yet unique atmosphere of the original more. Also like many I think there's also a bit of nostalgia involved.

[Sumez]

Just checked out a video of it - looks a lot more solid than I had expected from an NES game. Only really familiar with the arcade game.

[Perikles]

8-bit port? Are you saying the NES port is an improvement over the arcade version? If so, how?

Yes, the Famicom Disk System/NES Gyruss is not only much more enjoyable than the arcade game as far as I'm concerned, but also my favourite shooter on the system. As Xyga outlined, it's much bigger in scope. You have a lot more stages, several bosses (which I find to be excellent myself), a splendid audio-visual overhaul, gain these amazing one-time use charge shots that are (literally) a blast to use against the bosses, there's a superb increase in difficulty in the second loop and also a few unique stages thrown in there (where you have to dodge several fireballs, for example). I lastly find it a bit easier to precisely move around the screen, that's probably just propensity/imagination, though.

Since the 8-bit version is so different from the original source I should probably not even directly compare the two since the succinct, methodical nature of the latter is not recreated in the former whatsoever. If you happen to love the arcade game you might find the conversion to be too long or loose, I love the moreso frantic, chaotic as well as longer structure of the port, however. It also runs incredibly smooth despite all the action which is of course not to be taken for granted on the NES.

[Mortificator]

The only ones outside the Gradius / Parodius / TwinBee lines that really grab me are Space Manbo, which of course is not an arcade game, and Time Pilot, which isn't a hori or vert.

Trigon seemed promising to me when I started as well, but ended up not so hot. I actually think I enjoy Ajax more, Xevious bombing and Afterburner rail shooting notwithstanding.

[Gustlik]

While my absolute favorite non-serial from Konami is Crisis Force for the Famicom, from the games listed above I would pick Scramble - it's pretty innovative for it's age, and it paved the way for Gradius games.