anyone play these?

i've been slowly growing attached to them over the past couple years and i'm really impressed with the quantity and diversity of great shooting games. it's easy to think of shoot em ups as being very samey, but you get completely different experiences out of Giga Wing vs something like Donpachi, and those are both in the bullet hell sub-genre.

a bunch of Cave games have been popping up on Steam recently so i'm putting a lot more effort into learning stages and shit. i don't want to spend 30 bux on a game just to suck at it.
the best i've played so far is DoDonPachi Dai-Fukkatsu (or Resurrection if you like pounding nails through your dick). it's got the traditional bullet hell fast shot/slow laser/screen-clearing bomb plus a hyper that kills bullets and a lot of choice in customizing your playstyle. i like picking the fast ship in power mode so i can zip around like an asshole and annihilate everything. it's way too hard that way tho so i stick with strong mode if i want to not die. something about the stage and boss design in this game is just really engrossing and i'm not 100% sure why

anyway here's a classic shoot em up tribute to get you in the mood for good games

used to love playing Touhou, haven't really played any shmups recently

i havent played any shootan lately either, gettin too old and crusty

as far as cave shooters go i enjoyed ketsui and esprade/galuda, galuda especially has a nice aesthetic even if it is fairly easy

i havent touched touhou in years though, i think the last one i played longer than five minutes was double spoiler

we're in a pretty good age for shootan game though, lots of good ones out there now for all sorts of skill levels to enjoy

Does Undertale count?

i havent played any shootan lately either, gettin too old and crusty

as far as cave shooters go i enjoyed ketsui and esprade/galuda, galuda especially has a nice aesthetic even if it is fairly easy

i havent touched touhou in years though, i think the last one i played longer than five minutes was double spoiler

we're in a pretty good age for shootan game though, lots of good ones out there now for all sorts of skill levels to enjoy

ketsui is a lot of fun but i get absolutely destroyed any time i try to play it
they actually added a mode to dai-fukkatsu where you have the ship and multiplier chips from ketsui and you fight doom at the end
i like it a lot even though i always get too score happy and crash into shit

had this game called tyrian on the school pcs back in like 3rd that was really neat iirc. had a cool upgrade system n shit. prob way too easy if ur used to touhou tho

i really love shmups, even if i kinda suck at them. but i guess ive been playing them so long that i do slightly better than the average person. i love konami's arcade shooters from back when they didnt suck (gradius, parodius), I love dodonpatch and ikaruga, I really haven't played enough touhou but i think ive gotten a little over halfway through eosd.... anyone ever play blazing star? it's kinda easy (i mean... as far as shmups go) but its really aesthetically pleasing and enjoyable to me.

I'm not the best at bullet hell shooters but I love traditional shmups, altho for the most part what I mean by that is really "I love gradius". I think there's a sort of "80s anime" vibe to lots of old shmups that came out around that time, the music is upbeat and exciting and the colors are usually really vivid. The music in Gradius is super good, altho this specific song is my favorite, followed by the high score music and the original dogfight theme.

I think the PC Engine CD version of Gradius II is the best overall Gradius, probably, but I like playing Gradius III more. The Edit Mode is really fun, and the E. Laser takes time to charge up before reaching max power, meaning you can build up this laser ball at the front of your ship by holding down the button and then just kamikaze enemies while it's still charging to destroy them. It's really effective at taking out enemy spawners and giant enemies, and once you have max options it's like you're a fucking death machine.

As far as other shit goes, I love PC Engine shmups. Most of those seem to be vertical, and I kinda prefer horizontal.
Blazing Lazers was a pack-in title for the TurboGrafx and it kicks ass, Soldier Blade fucking rules, I'm sure there's more shit I like that I'm forgetting since I just woke up. There's also cuter stuff like Coryoon and Magical Chase and Air Zonk, etc.

The Genesis has Thunder Force, which looks incredible and comes with matching music.

Other than all that shit I like other Konami stuff, I like Twinbee and Parodius and I still need to play more Life Force.
There's some neat games on the NES too like Recca and GunNac and the shmup levels of Guardian Legend.
Namco's Dragon Spirit games are really good, altho they're also really hard since you're a huge target. The music is good in both the first one and the sequel, tho.

There's some neat games on the NES too like Recca and GunNac and the shmup levels of Guardian Legend.

oh yeah recca is really good. and guardian legend is one of my fav games. though ive never finished it. like most games i play nowadays. and i need to check out some of those other more obscure ones

also did i mention r-type. i really love r-type