Best Shmups from the 90's?

Drew57366

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I'm trying to compile a list of about 10 games or so that would fit the bill of 'best of' for the 90's decade.

So far I've come up with:

The Aero Fighters games
Raiden Fighters games

After this, I can't say that I know of many others! Any hidden gems that haven't been mentioned or maybe even some obvious ones?

Thanks
 
As far as I'm concerned the Metal Slug games are shmups. :D Although technically I guess they're called run 'n guns.
 
'90s games....for the most part to me...meh.


However right at the tail end is when... P2K showed up. So, I'll add

Revenge From Mars
 
I'm not much of a "shmup" fan, because they are mostly all the same game. They are fun for a temporary distraction, but they seem rather mindless to me. I do plan to get at least one though, to swap into my vertical monitor JAMMA cabinet on occasion, probably Raiden or Aero Fighters.

It seems that the "schmup connoisseurs" really like Ikaruga, but that is 2001. Radiant Silvergun is said to be its "spiritual prequel", and that is from the '90s.
 
Mars Matrix was cool, but maybe that was 2000...

Oooooh. Yeah. 2000, but seeing as everyone wants to throw Ikaruga in there, Mars Matrix should count. I love Treasure, but Mars Matrix is vastly superior to Ikaruga IMO. It's #1 on my list for sure.

One of my other major favorites is the Raiden Fighters series. So +1 to that. So much better and a lot more replayable than the regular Raiden series. Kind of screwy that they felt they needed the Raiden name to sell the games.

Giga Wing series is alright. Same developer as Giga Wing (edit: I meant Mars Matrix) and uses a similar system, but not as refined on the design end (MM was a tweak to the GW system). Gunbird series is fun. Then there are the obvious Cave titles.

I'm not big on horizontals, but most of my favorites are either too old for this list (Gradius series/R-Type/Darius) or too new/console based (Gradius V/R-Type Final/Death Smiles...holy cow Death Smiles...just gotta look passed the creepy lolita complex art direction).
 
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I'll stretch it a little, since some of my favorite shmups are from the 80's.

Must haves (at least play once), IMO:


Life Force
Raiden series
R-type
Radiant Silvergun
Ikaruga
DoDanPachi
GigaWing
Strikers series (1945, etc)

I'm sure I'm missing some. The big developer names are: Cave, Treasure, Toaplan, Psikyo along with some Konami or Taito titles.
 
I've only played it on MAME but its pretty cool:
Sengoku Ace aka Samurai Aces!
 
Nice, I tried play a few of these in MAME, but couldn't get them all to work. The ones that do are pretty fun! This genre seems to be uniquely Japanese though - lots of influence anyway.

Is there anyway to use the search function to only find Cave games? I couldn't get it to come up with any results even though they are listed as a Manufacturer.
 
cave-stg.com they have a good forum dedicated to all things cave shmups. Also theres the shmups.com forums as well.

I have a couple games that are independently made that are amazing like Crimson Clover, and Exceeds 3rd Black Package

If you wanna pick some gems up, check out

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

There for PC and about 30 a piece but well worth it, also theres a LOT free, Blue Wish Resurrection is AMAZING, and its free.
 
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