2-D shooters SHMUPS

[HercTNT]

Aggie, i have never heard the term "bullet hell shooter" before. Its so true though, i don't know how anyone can find that frenetic action enjoyable. to each his own. I love 2d shumps, not really a huge fan of 3d ones. There are a few good ones, terminal velocity for dos comes to mind. Overall though i find the 2d ones much more enjoyable. For dos tyrian 2000 is the creme de la creme for me. Turbo just has so many its unreal. Turbo = shooter heaven for me. Drakon, agreed on spriggan, just an amazing game.

[Tatsujin]

In earlier times, they were also called bullet-sprayer.
I very much enjoyed the early times of these shooters. I believe batsugun was
a very early type of this spec. genre. which then was continued
by cave peeps after toaplan closed its doors.

Donpachi is probably still my fav. one, and it was also caves debut in that genre.

After that, this serie and all its mutant versions became more and more weird.
But i would say, that until late 90s the games were still much fun to play.

Also handraw graphx was more and more replaced by ugly prerender shit.

[fragmare]

Verts
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I'd probably say my favorite all-time shmup has still got to be Dangun Feveron.  I'm no Cave fanboy, by any means, but that game in particular is just gold.  It plays like one really long time-attack level, minus the time limit.  No gimmicks, just blow shit up as fast as possible and collect as many medals (discomen) as you can along the way.

Then I'd have to say Raiden II/DX... because sometimes, I'm masochistic, and like to be slowly and excruciatingly ground into dust by sniper bullets and slow-scrolling backgrounds.  :p


Horis
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I have always had a general dislike of the Darius games, but the one exception to that, Darius Gaiden, is probably my favorite all-time hori.

After that, it gets a little muddy.  It's a bit of a toss between various arcade and console shooters like R-Type, Thunderforce III/IV, Gate of Thunder, Aldynes, Gradius II, etc.

[SamIAm]

I've 1CC'd Radiant Silvergun in both arcade modes and almost in the Saturn mode.

If you can chain 3A, 3B, and 3C properly and beat those three bosses 100%, you'll already be strong enough at that moment to beat any boss in the game quickly enough, including the final boss. If you don't go out of your way to chain at any point but beat every boss 100% through the whole game, you'll be just fine. That goes for both gameplay modes. RS doesn't demand perfection to play it, it just demands that you don't completely suck.

Anyway, Soldier Blade is probably the most fun I've had with a PCE shooter. The pacing is just perfect. Aldynes on the Super Grafx is right behind it.

[Tatsujin]

wingleader to base, wingleader to base.

just a couple more shots.

[Arkhan]

shump shump shump!

SHUMP SHUMP SHUMP!

SHUMP YO GROOVETHANG

[Nec.Game.head]

LORDS OF THUNDER LORDS OF THUNDER LORDS OF THUNDER !!! That's the the one game that pisses me off the most from the shooters Ive played for the Duo so far .. But I absolutely love that game !!! The music on that game is just straight kick ass ... And I also just love how whatever element you choose to pick will really determine how easily you will beat each level once the element's power is maxed out ...

[turbokon]

Lords of thunder and sapphire are the only shooter I have beated on the turbo.

[esteban]

I love old-skool shoot-em-ups. 8-bit/16-bit are the peak, for me (eventually I'll get around to playing modern stuff, by which I refer to last 15 years of stuff).

I don't need an exceptional game. I just am simply a whore for the genre and will play any game, no matter how mediocre.

ROCK ON, for example, has provided me with entertainment. It's not total crap.

I suppose the reason why I am willing to play (and enjoy) the mediocre shoot-em-ups is because I've played all the great stuff and I want more...BUT, I'm not willing to invest much time/money/energy into the bullet-hell stuff (yet). I'll eventually get into the more modern shooters, but I'm happy playing the old-skool stuff, for now.

I also do not have much free time to play games these past few years, which has allowed me to fully immerse myself in old-skool shoot-em-ups without getting bored (I still have a lot I barely/never played!) and guilt-free (I used to worry about the bullet-hell games I was missing...now, I don't care. I trust I'll eventually play 'em).
http://junk.tg-16.com/audio/Monster_Maker/Track_10.mp3

[Nec.Game.head]

Well put esteban .. I'm more into the old school games because as time moves on forward those are the games that will become harder to find for a decent price .. And can eventually become too expensive to justify buying them just to own them and try them out on their original console .. Plus I'm an old school kind of guy. Tg16 and all the other retro consoles are from my childhood which is just too cool .. The way I see it, I got plenty of time to catch up with the modern style of gaming that I'm missing out on right now in the present .. Hell who am I kidding ?? I may just always stay in the 90's for all the awesome shooters, fighters and platformers .. Gotta master the basics before I move on to the move advanced shooters ..

[rrob78]

Ive always loved shooters, but I'm terrible at them, but still fun to play.

[Firebomber7]

...what is your favorite part of the 2-D shooters?

Blowing things up, and the slightly feeling of satisfaction I get when I do so.

...and what game got you hooked?

River Raid. Then Life Force got me more hooked. Then G Darius got my even more hooked. Parodius made me feel funny inside. Then DoDonPachi put me over the edge.

how did you find out about that game?

River Raid- everyone had it back then. When I went to my friend's house about a block away when I was a kid to watch Saturday morning cartoons like Robotech, G.I. Joe, Pee-Wee's Playhouse and Gummi Bears, we used to play his Atari 2600 when the good shows weren't on. River Raid was my favourite game on the system.

Life Force- One of my other friends had this back in the day. I loved it. I probably rented it every couple of months for a two year period before I finally got a used copy.

R-Type- the local blowing alley had the arcade version of this. I don't think I ever made it past level 3 on the few quarters I had to spend as a 10 year old, but I had a lot of fun trying! (Saint Dragon was right next to it, and I used to like that one as well. I was pretty darn happy when I realized this was on the PC Engine)

G Darius- the first game I ripped, after Toukon Retsuden 2, when I got my PS1 modded back in about 1997 or 1998. It blew me away.

Parodius Da!- played this on an SNES emulator in 1997 or 1998 or around there. Pure heaven for me.

DoDonPachi- got a boot of it for my white Saturn back in 2000. Pure joy.