15 Shmups That Teach How Shmups Work

Awesome work on this video my friend! I bet it was a huge undertaking putting it together!

If you're a developer, I'd say you absolutely HAVE to get into Yagawa style games - Battle Garegga, Armed Police Batrider, Ibara, Pink Sweets. They are very hardcore but there are way too many great ideas there to ignore. Even if you don't find them fun, treat it as research & homework. I'd recommend everyone watch this run to get a taste : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tPVBpjcrxE For actually playing the games, a good way would be to get a taste of dynamic difficulty/resource economies in Blue Revolver's Hyper mode. Then move to Muchi Muchi Pork which is a very simplified take on Yagawa's style. After that Battle Garegga & Batrider shouldn't seem that scary & obscure. Also a nice guide! Covered just about every game that'd come to mind. Maybe a "how to learn" follow up is in order ;) IMO getting decent at these games is a must...it's the best way to build your dev intuition. Even if that only means you can no death clear some hard bosses with savestates, or get really good at scoring in early levels.

Nice. It feels though like most modern shmups are the bullet hell kind. I miss the hero adventure kind like UN Squadron where it feels like you are lone pilot on a galaxy/world saving mission. Hydorah from Locomalito was a nice nod to that lost genre.

I dumped a lot of quarters into Raiden at my hometown arcade way back when I was in high school.

I love all but 2 of these, but if there's one game I would always recommend people, it's Axelay. It's short and sweet, boasting excellent presentation and a feeling of adventure with stakes. Beautiful richly detailed graphics with bold audio. It's a game you play not to 1cc or set a high score but to experience. Not that it tells a phenomenal story or anything, but it's the way the game carries itself through it's tone and powerful aesthetic across varied stages that have subtle hints of world building ending in impressive bosses. It gets you invested to see it through to the satisfying ending sequence making you feel like a hero. It's weapon system allows you to personalize a loadout and doubles as a very beginner friendly health system. It makes it very easy to get into being a touch easier than other Konami STG's. It's everything I love about higher echelon Super Nintendo gaming. A masterpiece from Konami.

This is hands down the best introduction to the Shmup genre I've ever seen. Excellent work!

I always recommend any Raizing game (once you become decently comfortable with shmups) to learn how to explore scoring systems, rank, etc.

A Lazy Devs featuring A Skeleton !? This is a shmiracle 🤩

As a new guy trying to get into Shmups recently, I greatly appreciate this amazing work with all the resources you put together. Thanks to this I'm starting to understand more the intricacies and history of this addictive genre.

INSTANT sub. With being an avid fan of shooters (what I remember calling the genre before there was a real need for distinction from, at least, first-person shooters) AND being a ‘Day 1’ Transformers fan, the chapter/guest transitions AND the coverage in this video speak to me *at my core*. The guests and overall effort is AMAZING here. EXCELLENT!!! Shout to Zanac (Atari’s Space Invaders, and then, Zanac, were how I ‘cut my teeth’) and pretty much anything in the ‘Aleste’ realm… AWESOME… cheers! \m/, 😊 ,\m/

the shmup community is so tight knit its amazing

Great vid featuring some truly legendary Shmups!! But I gotta say I'm a little sad that you didn't mention any "Euro" Shmups like Sky Force and Jets'n'Guns which I personally had a lot of fun playing. Anyways keep it up!

Hahaha the MJ reference was amazing 😂 such a great vid and something that I think is hard to put together!!! This can be referenced for a long time...

I will finish my Ikaruga demake. I actually feel a bit ashamed that I never saw it through for the end of "season 1" but this will surely give me the kick the up the arse to get going again.

the games that got me into wanting to make a schmup is indie dev's Masayuki Ito's Bullet Hell Monday, and .Decluster Zero, they both have their own kind of feel i havent been able to replicate with other schmups, probably because it was on mobile before getting steam ports, and were hella accessable

The entire yt shmup pantheon in a single video :D

There are very few shmups that can lay claim to being "atmospheric". Maybe just a couple of the R-Type titles (especially the original arcade R-Type) and the original arcade 3-screen Darius with stereo sound come to mind. Even the very top-tier STGs I would not really associate with the term "atmospheric". This is an under-developed area in the STG formula I think, or at least long-forgotten.

My personal recomendation is resogun - a gradius-style shooter from housemarque with perfect arcade structure.

Great video ! Can't wait for what's coming next. My recommendations are Guwange, ESP Ra De, GigaWing and Progear !

Great video, thank you for taking the time to make it. And thanks to the guests for all the great suggestions for games to play and research! A recommendation from me would be a flash classic called Frantic 2. It has an awesome soundtrack and a really unique aesthetic. I got the idea of vacuuming remaining bullets to the player from the game. Unfortunately it's not easily accessible anymore since the discontinuation of Flash Player.