The best game ever made. Brilliant stage design, incredible music, an aggressive, dynamic gameplay style, and with wonderful direction, peerless in it's field.

The Enigmatic king of 90's shmups. Would stand tall on it's own as a traditional STG, with incredible presentation and one of the all time great gaming soundtracks, but the sheer weirdness and depth of the Rank system with the game's mechanics and incredibly high difficulty make this a game you can legitimately play for 20 years and still yearn to improve at.

I changed my mind. A game that is both an innovator and then explores the utter apotheosis of what that one concept could do, combined with one of best soundtracks of any game outright. Idiosyncratic and weird, and god knows i wouldnt want every game to be like this, but the mottled dove is something else when it clicks.

Doujin Progear x Ketsui, with fantastic gamefeel, stage design, and mechanics. Sadly, the Presentation is downright bad, with a terrible sense of perspective and mediocre art. Still, a fine game.

Hishousame is 35 years old. Whilst that comes through in it's graphics and indeed a bit in it's very simple gameplay, Hishou is also a game that is nigh on perfect. Incredible level design, pacing that is as good as Ketsui's, good music, and a challenge that is just balanced right - it's the perfect classic STG, and the best showcase of how Toaplan's grip on core game design unmatched in their day.

Metal black is a game I could spend as long picking apart as i could gushing about it. Insanely flawed, messy, scrappy, you name it. The bonus stages are downright awful. But it possibly has the best OST On this entire list... and will never, ever not be cool.

Gameplay wise, Darius Gaiden is merely good. As an interactive music video for a Zuntata concept album, filled with great early 3d effects and the eternally charming Fish battleships of the Darius series, only Metal Black is really quite like it, and Gaiden's production and gameplay outshine that game... somehow.

Dodonpachi DaiOuJou (DOJ) shares a lot of it's aesthetic, gamefeel, and even code with Ketsui, albeit less refined and having some honestly pretty weak scoring for my money. It gains, however, from having an incredibly well realised somber tone, thanks to artist/director Junya Inoue and Manabu Namiki's gorgeous soundtrack. The first, third and fifth stages in particular are incredible.

And frankly, the key art of this game is one of my favourite pieces of videogame artwork. It represents the game extremely well.

Cave's first true classic and an outstandingly influential game in the genre, ESPrade holds up fantastically thanks to an engaging core gameplay loop, excellent boss fights, some of the best arcade sprite art and backgrounds you'll ever see, and an unusual, almost creepy presentation that carries it even further.

Ms Garra is also arguably the best boss in any shooter.

Absolutely outstanding old-school shmup. On first glance and even first play, it feels rather generic, a Raiden ripoff maybe? But no. The emphasis on speedkilling, chaining, bombing, and just wonderful stage design elevate this to the level of something truly awesome.

The madman fucking did it. There's plenty of good touhou, some even great, but UFO is the true standout - a game with great stages, a good gimmick and some of the series' best bosses and music. It's a game that flows so much better than normal touhou and is just so well designed, and is also in the era where ZUN's art became kinda good.

Recca 2: Horny edition.

This fuckin shitpost is the second best game legendary programmer Shinoubu Yagawa has made. Incredibly stupid, for sure, but funny and has a very solid core gameplay loop. Reminds me of Earth Defense Force 2.

Treasure made a shmup, and with that came all it's strengths. Countless fantastic bosses are this game's main strength for my money, but a really cool narrative, weird tone and great atmosphere bolster it further.

BE ATTITUDE FOR GAINS.

Taito's maybe most undisputed classic, god Rayforce is sick. Great scoring, great pacing, incredible level design and god tier music from Tamayo Kawamoto. TAITO WHY ARE YOU SO GOOD.

Tamayo Kawamoto after making a 12 minute incredible song that's one of the best in the entire genre: "Yeah i'll do it 3 more times"

Raycrisis is peak late 90s and absolutely lightning paced. Rayforce is more "perfect" but the sheer speed, turn of the milennium energy and radness of raycrisis is hard to match.

Gun Frontier is a game that does not get it's due. A massive inspiration for Battle Garegga, it's a game with incredible presentation and tone whilst having a strong gameplay system and particularly good level design. Ridiculously cool.

There's something quite special about Progear that's hard for me to put my finger on. It's mostly vibes, frankly. Therre's a melancholy to everything in progear, and a great sense of desperation. It helps that it has rock solid mechanics and really strong stage design as well.

The soundtrack being crunched to shit by the CPS2 hardware is the only blemish on this melancholic masterpiece of Cave, a shmup that lingers in the memory.

It makes me feel warm inside.

It also is a well designed, fun, engaging STG which makes great homage to classics, is extremely approachable for new players, has a lovely silly sense of humour, is cute, has 6 completely unique ways to play and has a banging soundtrack.

Wait, what?

Effectively judgement silversword 2, Eschatos combines the elegant gameplay of JSS with amazing presentation and one of the all-time great STG soundtracks from Yosuke Yasui. Basically nothing is as hype.

Specifically the special version.

Toaplan's final game and about on par with Hishousame. Much like that game, it sparked a revolution in STG design, and its commonly attributed as being the first bullet hell (something you can argue for ages pointlessly on the shmup discords). And whilst it's not as perfectly designed as Hishou is, it's pacing, level design, bosss and great difficulty cure makes it a fantastic shooter. Junya Inoue's stylings also play a big role here, much like the later ESPrade and Progear.

DOWN. WITH. THEM.

GGA3 is a love letter. A couple of old STG devs, including Manabu Namiki and Kaz Nakashima from Raizing, basically got together and produced a truly pleasant love letter to the STG genre. For the game gear in 2020. It's too long, extremely laggy with slowdown on, and has like one bad level, but is also just a super special experience.

Metal Black 2 - it's not as cool, nothing is, but on a mechanical level it's both unique and fantastic. And whilst it's not metal black, it's presentation is still batshit and awesome, just in its own way. G.rev's finest.

the slow, methodical R-Type formula sped up a bit and made far more forgiving in terms of recovery - whilst being incredibly groovy and with the series' best level design. 3, 2, 1 LETS GO

A truly unique adaptation of an already kinda weird old shooter in Slap Fight, MD's new arrange is truly fucking great, and yuzo koshiro's music is wild as well. Turns slap fight from a
pretty good curiosity into a classic.

Ridiculously good backgrounds, music, and frenetic gameplay. Apparently the macross 2 movie is shit but this game rules, could maybe be higher if it was a bit more freeform like Thunder Dragon 2 and not so ridiculously tightly routed.

Incredibly, stupidly rad. NMK releasing this in the same year as Thunder Dragon 2 is outright remarkable.

G Darius' PC release is by far the best version of the game released, with both main versions, the PS1 port, exhibition mode and lots of cute shit. Wonderful.

You will see the creation of new lives...

Mushi>Futari is a bit of an odd take but 1.5 really makes the original the better game i'd say. Stage 4 is one of the best stages have ever designed, and the game as a whole embraces a great simplicity in a lot of ways other cave stuff (particularly futari) just doesn't.

Also just a sweet little fairytale of a shmup.

Considering how old this damn game is, Fantasy Zone remains a shooter with a great deal of charm, some unique and interesting ideas, and strong gameplay throughout. Holds up incredibly well and will remain cute forever.

There's probably a universe out there where Same3 is Toaplan's best game. It's got fantastic music, great stage design, fun vibes and everything Kyukyoku tiger has. But it's also a cruel, cruel game. Sniper boats, nigh impossible recoveries, super long length, impossibly fast bullets and bosses that you have to point blank to basically hope to beat. It's fuckin great.

Far and away CAVE's most underrated game, ESPgaluda 2 is for my money a straight upgrade over the original - much harder, better music, with exceptional stage design and some of CAVE's best boss fights. The 360 port also has a fantastic amount of different ways to play, most of which are great.

Ridiculously awesome conceptually with some messy execution, Shippu Mahou Daisakusen is still really fucking good. It's music and presentation in particular are top-tier

K tiger is Hishousame's sister title, coming out a few months later and carrying a similar design ethos, whhilst being much harder, longer, and not quite as good. But still, a fantastic classic shooter with a great degree of challenge, and incredibly fun checkpoint recoveries in particular.

If you can spot the pattern of this list - scrappy, interesting stuff often gets rated higher than polish. Sol cresta is the apotheosis of that. Technical mess and probably not meeting all the potential it has... But great fun.

Rayforce for cool people.

The effective sequel to Battle Garegga. It's also the King of Fighters of Raizing STGs. It's also a homage to Escape from new york? There's time travel?

Batrider honestly has no right to work as well as it does. It's not as good as Garegga, and I do think it maybe leans in a bit too hard to the inscruitable, mad side of Raizing's games - but its presentation is top notch, there's a ludicrous amount of stuff to do and explore, and it plays incredibly well, even having more beginner friendly options and the soundtrack (of which basically spawned Japanese Music House Basiscape) is amazing. The Apotheosis of Raizing, whether you're into that or not, you've gotta respect the madness.

Brutally dificult sequel to Rayforce that doesn't quit work as well but still absolutely rocks.

Ceramic heart one of the best tracks in the shmup genre.

Has taken me a recent replay to truly appreciate how fucking good PCB is. Easily the best purely conventional touhou, with a great vibe, great bosses, absurdly amazing music. A bit melancholic, a bit majestic. God bless Zun.

The final boss' themes are absolute god tier.

ZR is a weird game for this list because on gameplay alone it might not make the list at all - but it's presentation and integration of story elements that spin the tropes of the STG genre is absolutely incredible.

Cave's final STG, as of time of writing, and practically, the last we're going to get. It gets a lot of flack for the anime girls and a not-incredible 360 port, but SDOJ works really well as an inversion of DOJ's tropes and aesthetic, and also as one final, triumphant STG from the masters of the genre.

RFJ is about 15 minutes long, and by the time you've finished it it feels more like 50. This is a game that throws everything at you as quick as it can, bullets, levels, the music - running at a BPM way above anything reasonable. It's 15 minutes of the most frenetic shooting you'll ever play.

If games like Ketsui and Garegga are fine wine, RFJ is a shot of absinthe stuffed straight down the gullet. I wouldn't want it any other way.

In particular, Cardinal SIns

This is a weird one. A large part of the reason for this, is that despite being a 1993 title for whats effectively the master system, GG Aleste 2 (which is this game's actual name wtf backloggd) is a remarkably mature feeling shmup, with a lot of the kinks of early design worked out whilst retaining a huge amount of the pure simple appeal. Also has frankly fantastic pixel art and one of the best Soundtracks of this lineage ive ever heard, and great pacing. The bonus levels are also a delightful meme.

Futari is great. On balance, probably the most perfect of Cave's shmups and will always be grazing the top of community lists. But the vibe of Mushi 1's fairytale quality in particular i feel is lost a little here, and I appreciate a bit more variety in my shmups. Unquestionably a fantastic time though, and liable to rise on this list again in future.

Lumines, but with a darker edge and for shmup fans. How the fuck does something this good basically have no presence anywhere???

Arguably not a shmup at all, granted.

AC Asian version - Japanese versions are hell

The best non-japanese made STG. It's close between this and Zeroranger, but this edges out thanks to it's better designed gameplay systems, scoring, and the excellent mission mode.

PSIKYO's best game by a ludicrous margin, Dragon Blaze is best they got at basically every facet of development. A neat, and extremely well realised gameplay gimmick married with their best art direction, a harsh, but engaging difficulty curve, and good stages and bosses - it works really well. The core hook of firing off dragon shot never, ever gets old.

Gloriously mad.

I need to play a lot more Senjin to make a true judgement on it. But it's good.

Gets Brownie points for sheer coolness and FEESH, but frankly I can't justify putting this any higher. It's aesthetic is amazing, but the stages aren't.

Tatsujin Oh is the purest test of old school shmup challenge there is, and has wonderful presentation. If the game wasn't legitimately 3 times as long as it needed to be, it would be way, way up there, arguably around thunder dragon 2 levels.

The game is mid as hell but the soundtrack is absolutely absurd. Legitimately has some of the best production ive ever heard in... anything.

An approachable, generally good shmup with no real weaknesses, besides maybe being a bit bland. Having such a fucking cool ass title maybe elevates it a few spots, frankly.

Dad shmups should suck.

Absolutely evil, and has perhaps the stupidest scoring of any shmup i've ever played. But it's adorable...