what was the first proper 16-bit shoot em up?

[KimagureMachibuse]

I dont how often this question has been asked or has an exact answer. i believe it may have Twinbee as that was developed as early as 1984 according to TCRF and ran on an Motorola 68000 CPU but what do you believe to be the first proper 16-bit shoot em up

[Rastan78]

Gradius also used the 68000 and released to Japanese arcades about a month before Twinbee in early 1985.

[Bassa-Bassa]

Twinbee is from March and Gradius from May (1985). Curious, never thought of either as 16 bit games.

[OmegaFlareX]

Equites
Alpha Denshi Co, September 1984.

CPUs:
M68000 3mhz
8085A 6.144mhz
HD44801 500khz

Source: MAME 0.185b

This is the only one I have in my shmups list (which was based off the Chronology of Shooting thread) with a 68k from 1984. I've not actually played this. The attract screen looks a lot like all the other 8-bit shmups that year so MAME might be wrong. It's an older version, after all.

e: mameinfo.dat is showing different speeds for the CPUs, says the 68k is 6mhz.

[Sumez]

"16 bit games" is purely a marketing term, which to my knowledge was first used by Sega to promote the MegaDrive, but I could be wrong.

Trying to apply any definitive technical meaning to it will only result in a whole bunch of gotchas and contradictory conclusions. Hell, even trying to define how the SNES and MegaDrive are both 16-bit (without the SNES also being 8-bit or the MD being 32) can be a bit of a headache, and at the end of the day whatever conclusion you'd come up with, it definitely won't end up meaning what it means in the heads of most people.

[To Far Away Times]

All I know is that Thunderforce III and IV have blast processing. SNES could never.

[bigbadboaz]

Yeah, a lot of the contemporary arcade games when Sega was trying to draw the 8/16-bit line were actually 8-bit. You can do a lot more on an arcade board with higher cost thresholds regardless of what the CPU class is.

The one that shocked me most in the earlier days of MAME was Double Dragon, which is actually dual-Z80 based.

[Sengoku Strider]

"16 bit games" is purely a marketing term, which to my knowledge was first used by Sega to promote the MegaDrive, but I could be wrong.

The Sega System 16 arcade board that the Mega Drive was based on goes back to 1985, but I'm not clear exactly when they started formally calling it that.

[Bassa-Bassa]

Sure, the first System 16 game was heavily advertized with the 16-bit blurb:

[Sengoku Strider]

Cool. The reason I say I wasn't sure is because I see the 1985 stuff listed as 'Pre-System 16' online. Which I had guessed might have meant roughly the same hardware configuration without the name.

[Sumez]

The thing is, a 16-bit or 8-bit CPU doesn't really make much of a difference for what a game can do. As a programmer, working with a 16-bit one definitely makes a lot of things much easier, but it really doesn't affect the visible capabilities of the hardware. That's all on the graphics chip, which can't possibly be measured by a single numbered stat. Impressive looking games rely on stuff like high palette counts, multiple overlapping background layers, and high sprite limits. Stuff that an 8-bit CPU doesn't get in the way of.

[Bassa-Bassa]

I think most people realize that when they learn about the PC Engine. But in the arcade field it's even more pointless.

Cool. The reason I say I wasn't sure is because I see the 1985 stuff listed as 'Pre-System 16' online. Which I had guessed might have meant roughly the same hardware configuration without the name.

That's surely a Mamedev thing. Though there's a possibilty they thought the System 16 denomination wasn't official until later - the US Major League flyer doesn't use it at all so maybe Sega America took more time before stamping it on their PCBs.

[Sengoku Strider]

That's surely a Mamedev thing. Though there's a possibilty they thought the System 16 denomination wasn't official until later - the US Major League flyer doesn't use it at all so maybe Sega America took more time before stamping it on their PCBs.

Sega Retro gives this description:

The Sega System 16 (セガ システム 16) is an arcade board released by Sega in 1985 as a 16‑bit successor to the Sega System 1 and Sega System 2. Throughout its lifespan, there would be around forty games released on this hardware, making it one of Sega's most successful hardware designs. It was produced in three variants: the Pre-System 16 (1985), System 16A (1986), and System 16B (1987). The only difference between the Pre-System 16 and System 16A are clock speeds, while the System 16B has improved graphics, sound and memory.

[Bassa-Bassa]

They took it from Mame doc then, or worse yet, from here:

http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=695

It may make some sense from a developer perspective, but it's not Sega's nor operators' nomenclature. The "pre-S16" thing, I mean.

[Ed Oscuro]

MAME's Eurocentric bias strikes again?

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

All I know is that Thunderforce III and IV have blast processing. SNES could never.

Dude, Axelay and F-Zero let you enter the third dimension! Got no answer for that, huh?!!

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

Yeah, thought so!

[Sengoku Strider]

They took it from Mame doc then, or worse yet, from here:

http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=695

It may make some sense from a developer perspective, but it's not Sega's nor operators' nomenclature. The "pre-S16" thing, I mean.

That would not have occurred to me, for I do not MAME.

Yeah, thought so!

As a solipsist, you've none but yourself to blame.

[jehu]

Yeah, thought so!

As a solipsist, you've none but yourself to blame.

haha we got ourselves pretty good there, didn’t we?

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

Yeah, thought so!

As a solipsist, you've none but yourself to blame.

haha we got ourselves pretty good there, didn’t we?

Shut up, personality 42!

[Gamer707b]

I'm not going to get technical about 16-bit, but for me, it's the obvious Super Nes, Genesis and PC Engine. With that said, my first game was Axelay.

[MJR]

First proper 16-bit shoot'em up I ever played was probably Xenon on Amiga. (release date february 1988)

[ED-057]

The TMS9900 has been called a 16-bit CPU, so...
https://www.mobygames.com/game/parsec

[Dampfwalze]

Astro Smash (1981) Intellivision
would also be a contender.