Horizontal and Vertical Scrolling Shooters!

Hello everyone! It's time to discuss this supreme genre!
Ok so side scrolling shooters have been around since the dawn of gaming (starting with Space Invaders!) and they've come a long long way! But what's happening to them now? Are they starting to die out or are they still going strong? Europe certainly doesn't seem very interested in them anymore. If I'm right, there are still scrolling shooters being developed by 'Cave' in japan, and maybe some other companies.

Okay well what sequels do we want to see next??? Gradius VI? Yes please! And maybe the Radiant Silvergun series could continue? C'mon Treasure! Give us more gold!!! The latest one I've played was Raiden III, and it was just....awful. Such a disgrace to the series...

Anyways, I think these are my top 5 favourite horizontal/vertical scrolling shooters:

1.Thunderforce IV
2.Radiant Silvergun
3.G-Darius
4.Gradius V
5.Raiden II

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Ah yes Ikaruga is damn good! Brilliant fast paced action and awesome music! Although I can't seem to avoid being killed multiple times on the 4th stage (the one with hundreds of bullets coming out of that big core)!

I just picked up a copy of Gunbird Special edition recently. I wasn't too impressed by the 2nd Gunbird, but the 1st one was really fun, and yeah very funny too!

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Ah I haven't heard of these japanese shooters you are mentioning NoMaD! Yeah why don't they release them outside Japan?? How rude! Well as I said before, outside japan I don't think there's much of a market for these games. Everyones still obsessing over 'superb graphics' instead of wanting some hardcore intensive action!
I really hope that we get another scrolling shooter as revolutionary as Ikaruga again sometime soon, so people might start paying more attention to the genre!
I'll mention a few more classic shooters now just for the hell of it! -

Axelay (SNES) - brilliant graphics, music and gameplay! It was cool because the player had all the weapons at the start of the stage, so there were no powerups. You just had to hang on to your weapons! It featured horizontal AND vertical scrolling levels. Loads of fun!!

Gynoug (Megadrive) - I'm not sure if this is a well known one or not. You take on the role of an angel guy, who shot the crap out of reeeally strange enemies. Some of the bosses were VERY disturbing! I'd like to see this game with a graphical update, it would be truely scary I think! Yeah, well, cool style, but the gameplay is kind of mediocre.

Zero Wing (megadrive) - Hah, well this game is pretty dam mediocre! Fun for the first level, then it just gets sooo boring! But it's just legendary because of the 'engrish' on the intro screen, I'm pretty sure I don't need to explain what I'm talking about!

Xenon 2 (megadrive) - This one is probably below average I think! First of all, it featured one pretty lame music track that repeated over and over, which was incredibly annoying. Secondly, the rate at which you fire is just, horribly slow, you end up missing half the enemys. It was just a pretty dull game! But...there were some cool powerups, you could get bullets and lasers firing everywhere!

Bio-Hazard Battle (megadrive) - This is an AWESOME horizontal shooter! You play as bio-ships (look like bugs), that shoot at organic things, including bees, eyeballs, big worms, bats, and err plenty of bugs really! Graphically its stunning for a megadrive game! Plus, you have these reeeally cool charge up shots. Did I mention it's simultaneous 2-player too?

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Ah I don't have a Turbo-Grafx 16! Although I know how great the original R-type is! : D I understand that the commodore 64 had a whole load of excellent scrolling shooters! I've never got to play on one of those!

Does anyone know of some really obscure shooters that are really good???

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Ah yes Fantasy Zone! I forgot about that! That's an odd one, because you can travel left AND right. Yeah I've only played the Megadrive version 'Super Fantasy Zone', its really good! Cute characters and really nice super happy colourful environments

Hey nice link, wow I didn't know there were so many Fantasy Zone games! I shall have to play them!! Those Space Harrier type ones look interesting. Lol at the NES box art. Was there no communication between the box artist and the rest of the team?? I think I'll start a 'crap box art thread'!

I was speaking idiomatically.

My god! These games can magically predict terrible futures! Either that, or there was a terrorist on the development team.

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Hey that game looks really interesting! Its a nice idea to combine different genres together.
I remember Rocket Knight adeventures on the megadrive had a few side scrolling shooter sections! (for the rest of the game is a 2d platformer)





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Lol and this level here reminds me of Parodius, with the flying heads!



And at the end of this level, you had to fight this pretty difficult Pig spaceship thingy!!



Oh yeah, and on the Snes version of Sparkster, there was a vertical scrolling shooter level, which was fun!



And it ended with a battle against that evil Rocket Knight. Both of you took control of big robots and punched the crap out of each other!

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Okay lets discuss immensly difficult shooters!
We all know that shoot'em ups are generally very challenging, but some are just ridiculous! So which of these games have been so hard for you that it's frustrated you to death??
I can think of 2 off the top of my head.

Gunbird 2

Just too many bullets, how on earth do you avoid it all???



Gradius 3



This game is just so hard! If you die once, it's pretty much game over because you lose all of your powerups and it becomes impossible! The part of the game shown in the image is just....mental. Trying to avoid these jerky legs is extremely hard. Plus, if you don't destroy these walker robots quickly enough, they just squish you into the corner! How unfair!

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Hmm how very odd, I can complete Gradius V quite easily. The thing is, by the time I get to those robots I have lost all my power-ups and I'm trying to defeat them with a pea shooter. Yeah the arcade Gradius III is damn hard, I barely scraped my way through that!
Sorry what do you mean by Tubular Shooters? I do not know of this Gyruss game.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Elixir

And if you think Gunbird 2 has alot of bullets, you've clearly been missing out on the CAVE shooters.

Actually I've played Mushihimesama and I thought it was pretty easy compared to Gunbird 2. There may have been a load more bullets, but it was waaay more predictable.

A shoot'em up construction kit? Dam I wish I had that when I was younger, I could have made loads of bad ass shooters! Oh well!

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Hmm okay, well you see, in Mushihimesama I always use the tactic of dropping a bomb just before I die! I think I'm probably better at this game 'cause I've played it a lot more. It is really good! I just love the insect theme, I am a bug maniac btw.

Overkill: Yeah that wikipedia page was interesting! I didn't realise Shoot em ups had been put into so many different catergories! Well this topic can also include Tube shooters, and 3d shooters like Star Fox and Panzer Dragoon too!
The only Tube shooter I've played is Tempest, and its very good.
Has anyone played the arcade version of Tempest with the vector graphics?? It's sooo nice, everything leaves these little trails of light behind! Amazing! Why aren't there more vector graphics games in arcades??

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Aah no I haven't heard of Legendary Wings! It looks like fun!
Dammit there's so many shooters I don't know about, I'll never get time to play them all! Righteo I'm gonna have to try and get a copy of ESP Galuda 'cause it looks awesome!

Well, anyway, someone mentioned Radiant Silvergun...now I friccin' love that game! So lets just remind ourselves of how great it is...

Here we go! Shooting a crazy boss here with a nice fading out to purple background! : D



Ahh yes the almighty big, er sword thing. I can't remember what its called now. Radiant Sword??



Another crazy boss! Swipe them pink bullets up and charge up that sword dammit!



Hah, lets not forget 'be attitude for gains'!



And here we have, the final boss, a big glowy man!



Wow! What a game! So dynamic, and reeally long for a scrolling shooter too!

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Well I had a hard time deciding which one I liked best...but I feel that Radiant Silvergun is better because I think it has more personality. Also, the anime sequences were awesome! Does anyone actually understand what exactly is going on in the end sequence??

::Ending sequence SPOILERS!!::

I think I read a translation somewhere along time ago, but the story goes something like this...
Theres a broken Legoman Robot and a big ass Diamond (stolen from Raiden II) found underground. I think it was called the 'Stone-like'. Okay and then theres lots of enemy ships trying to destroy the world....I think the Stone-like controlled them.
Righteo, so the Stone-like sends the heros back in time (10,000BC I think??) And then, they die when the Stone-like explodes, possibly. Legoman is on earth, and has DNA of the pilots, so brings them back to life by cloning them.
Okay thats all very well, but, why does the Stone-like come back to life again in the future? Did Legoman repair it?? Oh and I think at some point during the game, the Stone-like kills everyone on earth with that big white light!
Sorry, can someone correct me on where I'm completely wrong, or just write the whole story up so it makes sense! I think that would be really cool and interesting!

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Hey I just watched that video with the guy playing Ikaruga with the 2 ships! That is....amazing! How on earth do you have coordination? It scares me that people can dedicate so much to one game! It's a shame he loses a life on the boss eh?

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Shin

You're an idiot.

Sorry, but you are.

Fair enough the Megadrive version of Xenon 2 was pretty wanky. It was a poor copy of the awesome Amiga version which was one of the finest scrolling shooters ever made. The "Lame music track" was called Metablast by Bomb the Bass and was possibly the first piece of computer game music produced by "serious" musicians and represented a huge leap forward in the mainstream acceptability of computer games. Also, it's an incredible tune.

The game itself borrowed from R-Type and so on but was graphically very impressive on it's first release and never suffered from any slow down. It's a seminal piece of gaming history and you're an idiot.

Other scrolling shooters I've enjoyed over the years were Apogee's "Raptor, Call of the Shadows" which while a little repetitive after a while was certainly frantic enough to keep you interested.

SWIV was another awesome Amiga game, especially two player (Sucked to be the jeep though).

Anyone who owned an Acorn Archimedes computer will surely agree that Nevryon was one of the finest games ever made for any computer.

More recently, Alien Hominid is the only scrolling shooter worth playing on modern consoles but it is fucking awesome. ^_^

I know that track was supposed to be something special, but I just thought it sucked. I'm entitled to an opinion right?

Oh and I did use to have an Acorn Archimedes! And I did use to have Nevryon, and you're right, its utterly brilliant! I've been recently trying to get it to work on an archimedes emulator, without any success (I still own the original disc!). Oh, and Nevryon had WAY better music than Xenon 2 and that wasn't composed by a 'serious' musician .

Originally Posted by evilboris

and Megalith Beast, you should read up the translated script on that emuxhaven site that someone already linked to in this topic. It clears up quite a lot of the game.

Yeah I had a look at it, it was very interesting! It's really nice when these kinds of games have a deep and intrigueing plot. It adds a nice depth to the game which I think makes it far more satisfying to play since there is more purpose.

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