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[heisenbergman]

I recently got hooked on Jamestown and now I'm looking to seriously explore the shmup genre.

So if anyone out there could do so, please recommend beginner/entry-level shmups that I could play. I seem to favor vertical-scrolling doujin-style shmups, fwiw.

[agersant]

Two absolute classics you cannot pass are Dodonpachi and Ikaruga.

[Uykered]

Ya, if you want the quality ones you need to emulate.

[heisenbergman]

Ya, if you want the quality ones you need to emulate.

Hm, okay then. In that case, please recommend anything you see fit. I bet I can figure out how to get MAME working.

EDIT: Also curious if there are any notable shmups that have been here on TIGSource.

[s_l_m]

Mars Matrix, Touhou (I prefer the earlier ones, specifically the second one, but I am the minority), Mars Matrix, Ikaruga, Mars Matrix, Radiant Silvergun

PS: If you do look into touhou, the early ones are also much easier

[heisenbergman]

Is Mars Matrix any good?

[s_l_m]

Is Mars Matrix any good?

Yes, Yes it is

[Schoq]

If you find yourself bored of tapping around the screen navigating mazes of 800 super slow bullets, check out Aero Fighters and the Psikyo shooters (Samurai Aces is good)

For indie stuff I really liked Guxt (2007 spaceship icon) by Pixel. A good beginner title perhaps.
Hydorah also has to be mentioned.

And if you haven't played R-Type you're doing something wrong.

[motorherp]

If you liked Jamestown then you should enjoy pretty much anything by Cave since it seemed to me to be pretty inspired by those games.  Therefore consider checking out the Dodonpachi, Mushihimesama, and ESPGaluda games (there's others too but those are the main series).  Of the top of my head also worth checking out are Gigawing, Gunbird, Strikers 1945, Armed Police Batrider, and Battle Garegga.

[Sved]

If you have few dollars to spare, you may get Sine Mora here: https://www.humblebundle.com/weekly
It's horizontal, but it's good.

Oh, and Tyrian is free: http://www.gog.com/game/tyrian_2000

[Sharkoss]

If you like Jamestown, definitely Progear.  Pick n Mix of some faves off the top of my head (ymmv - and most are horizontals, which is the superior subgenre): Gradius Gaiden, Gradius V, Sexy Parodius, Gokujyou Parodius, Sengoku Blade, Giga Wing, Dragon Blaze, Raiden Fighters series, Lords of Thunder, Hyper Duel, Gynoug, Bio-Hazard Battle.

[heisenbergman]

For now, I'll check out Progear and Dodonpachi, thanks! That's a lot of recs right there, I'm going to have my hands full.

@motorherp: Yeah, I actually just realized today that I should probably be looking at Cave's entire catalog pretty much :p Actually, they have a handful of games available for iOS and I downloaded all of the free versions for my iPhone. Really solid experience so far that I'm thinking of maybe getting a few full versions.

@Sved: I actually purchased that humble bundle several days ago! It slipped my mind that Sine Mora is in fact a shooter. Installing it on Steam right now. Might be right up my alley. Thanks for that reminder.

[Schoq]

oh, also RayForce is a really cool game
and check out everything by Compile but especially Gun-Nac

[Dragonmaw]

Clean Asia.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

my favorite shmups are shoot the bullet, gradius 5, guardian legend (shmup/zeldalike hybrid), darius twin, life force, and gradius

if you want a sort of 'objective list' here are the top 25 shmups as voted by the people of shmups.com: http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=38073

[Türbo Bröther]

Log into Steam and buy the Gundemonium Collection, you're getting three very good games for dirt cheap and one of them (the best one) scrolls vertically. None of these games are entry level in the slightest but don't let that stop you.

I'm always recommending this next one, download Cho Ren Sha because it's free and it's solid and if you end up not liking it you can just listen to all of the music in the sound test because it has really good music. If you're running Windows 7 make sure you set it to be compatible with Win 98 so that the really good music doesn't stutter on you.

Gunroar is fucking cool. You should probably get in on that.

[heisenbergman]

Wow great! I love how there are so many recommendations. I'll try checking out as much of these as I can.

re: Jamestown, it's incredibly fun and officially my gateway game into the genre, but the difficulty level really ramps up from Level 4 to the final level. So hard, haven't done it yet, so I'm doing gauntlet mode for the time being But I highly recommend this game.

In an effort to go balls-deep into shmups, I've started playing some of the recommendations here plus those I've gotten elsewhere. Here's what I've tried out:

- Blue Wish Resurrection
- Patriot Dark
- Warning Forever
- Crimzon Clover (shame though, this is just the trial version)
- DoDonPachi
- ProGear
- Battle Garegga
- Sine Mora

The only one out of those I really don't like is Warning Forever. Its stages are just like a string of boss fights one after another and it gets bland really fast.

Out of the rest - and I feel like I'm gonna get flak for this - the one I'm indifferent to the most is Battle Garegga.

The one that seems the most fun overall so far is DoDonPachi. It's perfectly paced, has just the right amount of action and punchiness, the ships shoot and control great and I've having a lot of fun with this one.

I'm on the fence regarding horizontal shooters I've tried so far - Hydorah, Sine Mora & Progear... I'm getting hit a lot more than in the vertical shooters. idk why that is yet. But in any case, Progear seems the most competent of those horizontal shooters.

I'm not so into Hydorah yet since I find that the controls are a bit too responsive and unforgiving. Sine Mora seems a bit boring.

[rrTea]

Nanosmiles is really good.

[Sik]

Val & Rick. Just remember you need to move upwards for the screen to scroll faster. Also the game becomes bullet hell when you grab the second ship, but you can't die when hit in this mode anyway.

[Sharkoss]

Wow great! I love how there are so many recommendations. I'll try checking out as much of these as I can.

re: Jamestown, it's incredibly fun and officially my gateway game into the genre, but the difficulty level really ramps up from Level 4 to the final level. So hard, haven't done it yet, so I'm doing gauntlet mode for the time being But I highly recommend this game.

In an effort to go balls-deep into shmups, I've started playing some of the recommendations here plus those I've gotten elsewhere. Here's what I've tried out:

- Blue Wish Resurrection
- Patriot Dark
- Warning Forever
- Crimzon Clover (shame though, this is just the trial version)
- DoDonPachi
- ProGear
- Battle Garegga
- Sine Mora

The only one out of those I really don't like is Warning Forever. Its stages are just like a string of boss fights one after another and it gets bland really fast.

Out of the rest - and I feel like I'm gonna get flak for this - the one I'm indifferent to the most is Battle Garegga.

The one that seems the most fun overall so far is DoDonPachi. It's perfectly paced, has just the right amount of action and punchiness, the ships shoot and control great and I've having a lot of fun with this one.

I'm on the fence regarding horizontal shooters I've tried so far - Hydorah, Sine Mora & Progear... I'm getting hit a lot more than in the vertical shooters. idk why that is yet. But in any case, Progear seems the most competent of those horizontal shooters.

I'm not so into Hydorah yet since I find that the controls are a bit too responsive and unforgiving. Sine Mora seems a bit boring.

I certainly hope you don't get flak for not liking Battle Garegga - the game is an absolute mess.  But to find out just how much of an absolute mess it is, you have to read a lot about Battle Garegga - something I don't recommend doing.