2d Scrolling Shooters

[namco]

I'm looking for the best, and worst, 2d shooters (the type of ones where you are in some flying vehicle) for a bit of research to find the qualities of what makes a good 2d shooter. If you could also give me your views that'd be great too

So other than:

Truxton, 1942 series, gynoug, hellfire, zero wing, thunderforce series, raptor: call to shadows, ikarugra

what can you guys recommend me play (both best and/or worst) and say why please.

Thanks.

 

[Alex.]

Dodgin' Diamond II
- very fun and relaxing to play
- easy to understand system of power-ups
- graphics don't take attention away from the gameplay
- fun enemy patterns

Noiz2sa
- original visual style
- less relaxing to play, due to massive amounts of enemies and bullets on-screen, yet it does have a clean, calm aspect to it, mainly due to its serene music and smooth graphics
- different stages you can freely choose from, rather than having to complete them in successive order
- very elaborate bullet patterns (am i crazy or did the guy make his own bullet mark-up language? )

Powermanga
- great gameplay
- looks fantastic
- intuitive powerups
- gets way too hard after first level, which is too easy - bad learning curve

Bolcataxian (GP32, maybe one day GP2X too? Pleeeease, JBB?)
- smooth controls
- very good merging of sound effects, graphics, and everything else
- impressive powerups
- nice bosses, sometimes more consecutive boss stages, with more than one boss at a time.

*Note that all these are playable, natively on the GP2X, except for Bolcataxian.

- Alex

 

[Amon_Re]

R-Type, it's bloody brilliant!
- It's hard, but not too hard
- Nice tunes & gfx

Gyruss!
- Simple, fun & again great tunes!

 

[namco]

R-Type, it's bloody brilliant!

Damn! never got to play that! - will do later!

 

[FusionSamus]

Don't forget the Gradius series! Not quite as "bloody brilliant" as R-Type, but great nonetheless!

 

[Trip]

I played a quality scroll up screen shooter on Mame about 4 years ago, but I don't remember the damn name of it.

It played like a normal ship shooting game, but all the graphics were chinese style (I think? <_< ) & It was a stunning looking game.
If I remember rightly you were a little guy that drove a horse & cart up the screen while blasting away soldiers & picking up power ups.

I know the details are a bit vague, but anyone got any ideas?

 

[mac-10]

check out parodius for the snes

loved the graphic it was a great game

 

[JUSTiNB]

You should try playing Keio's Flying Squadron for Sega CD I always thought that was a fun game... hard though..

 

[namco]

You should try playing Keio's Flying Squadron for Sega CD I always thought that was a fun game... hard though..

I only have the PAL machine. I've got Soul Star, that's quite fun.

 

[Zeladin]

You could try out tyrian2000 either on dosbox or gameboy version - two completely differnet games really but both equally fun. Btw tyrian on dosbox is... leisurely, not unplayable but not as fast as it should be.

link ;
http://members.iinet.net.au/~vannevar/tyrian/downloads.html

There's a shareware version of the dos version and the gameboy version was never released.

Edit; Tyrian is good, cause... it has lots of weapons options? Cool racy music and not too hard, but not too easy either. Also you can make you own ships.

 

[Goemon4]

Powermanga
- great gameplay
- looks fantastic
- intuitive powerups
- gets way too hard after first level, which is too easy - bad learning curve

you do know your supposed to upgrade your ship right? it gets alot easier once youve done that (you can upgrade weapons, speed etc and even get new ships) hence why this is my favorite 2x shump!

 

[pariah]

Guwange! Now there's a shooter!

Pariah

 

[markiej]

Powermanga

I love this game, but the difficulty between levels and bosses is too dramatic. You're cruising along, powering up, maybe even upgrading the whole ship, then you run into the first boss, and it's a sea of bullets. Little hope to avoid. Dead once = game over.

The only time I ever got past the first boss was when I lucked into a purple powerup (kills everything on screen) and he appeared right as I got it.

So the lesson is. . .
Don't the make the bosses ridiculously difficult compared to the game itself. This is a mistake made time and again in shooters. The first boss should be only slightly tricky, subsequent bosses progressively harder, but never outrageous until the end. I always felt Zelda Ocarina really had a perfect boss monster curve which was its greatest strength.

 

[ketchupgun]

R-TYPE kills! it's amazing.

and I've played many an incarnation of it (Starting with the SMS version) but I've found the best one is on the (wait for it) TurboGrafx16!

SNES did a couple of sequels...but Turbografx is my fave.

Also, don't underestimate Gaires for the Genesis. Hard and intricate, and awesome music.

Ikaruga (?) is that playable on GP2X? I heard of it for Dreamcast and heard it was amazing.
LMK

--k

 

[Rivroner]

SNES:Axelay, Gradius III, Parodius,Super R.Type, R-Type 3,...
Mame not working in GP2X): In the Hunt.

A lot more

 

[namco]

Ikaruga (?) is that playable on GP2X? I heard of it for Dreamcast and heard it was amazing.

No its not playable on the 2x, I just wanted to say that I've heard of it in case anyone suggested it. It's bloody hard to get hold of on ebay and thanks to DC-X (the import cd thingy) I can now have the ability to play it!

 

[saehn]

SNES:Axelay, Gradius III, Parodius,Super R.Type, R-Type 3,...
Mame not working in GP2X): In the Hunt.

I had never heard of "In the Hunt" and so I looked it up. Wow. Shooter fans, check out this awesome looking horizontally-oriented SHMUP. I'm going to try it out the next time I fire up my MAME cabinet!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Hunt

The game was developed by the team who would go on to later create Gunforce 2 for Irem and the Metal Slug series for SNK.

 

[namco]

That reminds me, there is one scrolling shooter that I can't remember.

There was a game I saw on an arcade machine that had a level where you were in a jungle (horizontal scroller) and one of the enemies looked like pygmies/cavemen that jumped on your plane. The plane (of the level that I saw) had a device/powerup that enabled the plane to change the direction of fire - forward and down AFAIK.

Anyone know what this is called?

 

[Cave]

Prehistoric Isle ?

 

[WarmFluffyUK]

Don't forget about Battle Squadron

It's available on the Amiga and Megadrive .

Excellent Music,
Brilliant Game-play.
Fun power-ups.
Difficulty level is good.