Gradius V's staff roll reads like a fan's happy daydream, bringing Treasure, G.rev, and Konami (with none other than Hitoshi Sakimoto on soundtrack duties to boot) together to work on an all-new entry in the legendary shmup series. As far as the genre's concerned this melting pot of talent is easily on a par with Sega's sublime … Continue reading Shoot the core!
Shmups occupy a strange space in gaming: They "should" be cheap because they're short and because they're shmups - ancient games where you shoot whatever scrolls into view until you die or there's nothing left to shoot - and yet in spite of this mindset following the genre around like a bad smell since forever … Continue reading Review: Sol Cresta
I can remember only three things about Raizing's celebrated/feared arcade shmup Battle Garegga: It's rank-based, which means the difficulty dynamically alters depending on your actions as you play, it's really hard even at the best of times, and counterintuitively to established genre rules you're supposed to kill yourself off at several points due to the aforementioned rank-related shenanigans and other … Continue reading 1UPs for rent
Originally a 1992 Japanese PC Engine exclusive before being finally gifted to the world in 2008 via the Wii's Virtual Console service (the same year it appeared on the PSP's now painfully expensive Soldier Collection) and again over a decade later as part of the PC Engine/CoreGrafx/TurboGrafx-16 Mini line up, Star Parodier is - yep, you've guessed it … Continue reading A PC Engine parody
As someone who was introduced to the PC Engine via a string of Duos and vanilla PC Engines firmly attached to briefcase-like CD attachments (do have a quick look, they're beautiful things) - a world of CD-stored speech, stunning cutscenes, and Nineties anime tie-ins - I always thought HuCards were a bit disappointing. They were the basic … Continue reading A shining Super Star
Silkworm began its overlooked life as a 1988 arcade shmup by Tecmo but I've always known it better as an Amiga game, one of those mostly forgotten home ports that, like Rodland, seemed to be more popular on grey-shelled computers in Europe than it ever was in its native environment. If this was released today … Continue reading One game, two ways to play!
There's a lot to love about Radiant Silvergun: Treasure's good name alone conjures up warm thoughts of imaginative action and quality, but even when judged in its own little vacuum it's still a shmup that's hard not to like whether your first encounter with it is in arcades, on the Saturn, or via the Xbox 360 … Continue reading BE ATTITUDE FOR GAINS
R-Type tried to say goodbye for the first time eighteen years ago, the PlayStation 2's R-Type Final intended to be one last hurrah for a relic of a bygone age. Two portable Tactics games came and went after that heartfelt farewell, but apart from that little experiment R-Type was considered a closed book. Or so we thought. The crowdfund-supported R-Type Final … Continue reading Review: R-Type Final 2
The DS' acronym-giving dual screens are good for many things, including holding the handheld book-style for some adventure gaming, ports of already unusual arcade games, and Sega being so very Sega - but if there's one genre they're definitely not made for, it's vertical shmups. That inescapable gap between the two screens creates an unplayable … Continue reading Dinky dual screen danmaku
Before we get stuck into this game's future it's worth taking a quick look at its past: Cotton: Fantastic Night Dreams was an arcade game first, Success' success followed by home ports to the PC Engine, PlayStation, Neo Geo Pocket Color as well as an even-better-than-the-real-thing semi-remake for Sharp's powerful X68000 home computer. After that … Continue reading Review: Cotton Reboot!
Kimimi The Game-Eating She-Monster 