Genesis/MD Shmups, Ranked - v2

Re-doing this list now that I've played a few more and have more thoroughly-articulated thoughts about each game.

Ranking is based on the Genesis versions themselves. Truxton on Genesis sucks lmao.

Genesis got some good shmups. Go play them.

Sagaia
Sagaia
Maybe not as fun as Darius 1's MD port but it's much more balanced and I've always been more prone to D2's soundtrack. There's a lot of little design quirks from the arcade version that are missing here - no Tuna Sashimi line, and no bossfight inside Alloy Lantern, - but it otherwise cleans up that game's feel and progression to perfection. I've No Miss'd this game about 3 times already and knowing myself I'm probably gonna do it again soon

1

Battle Mania Daiginjou
Battle Mania Daiginjou
Peak Genesis style and execution. The music, the character designs, the setpieces, the shot and bomb system, the creative boss patterns - it's all extremely well done. Only problem is, it's way too easy!! This is the only shmup I've ever beaten on my first attempt besides Steel Empire & GG Aleste. On the other hand, the lower difficulty makes it accessible to even people outside the shmup scene.

2

Darius
Darius
Extremely good port of a punishing but VERY addicting game with all the content spread across its varius PC-Engine ports. There's a ton of replay value here with how every route has a unique boss. Great time overall. I refuse to spend 60 bucks for the Extra Version cart tho

3

Thunder Force IV
Thunder Force IV
A triumph of a shooter - an insane audiovisual experience with a great strategic/routing twist on the traditional horizontal formula. Weapon system was further refined here and it's shockingly clever and forgiving for an early 90's shooter, where most other games were giving you linear powerups that permanently fade after death.

Main thing I have against it is that the game's so visually intense that the bullets get kinda lost in the mess. Shot collisions also are communicated pretty poorly, and out of its 10 stages, level 4 and 8 are very low points, with boring main stages and aggravating boss fights - and ironically, they have the best music in the game. Very high difficulty barrier.

4

Elemental Master
Elemental Master
Technosoft's most well-rounded MD shooter. No major issues with difficulty or structure, just a good clean fun shooter. If you were someone who wanted a genny shmup with the strongest gameplay loop out of the box, this is the one to play. It's definitely more forgettable than other games out there tho, and I have less inclination to replay it than other games.

5

Super Fantasy Zone
Super Fantasy Zone
Infinitely more polished than the first Fantasy Zone but not quite at the peak kinocity that II DX achieves. Bosses are all fun to fight, and very glad there's no fucking spider boss this time around. The darkness and electric floor stage gimmicks feel a bit out of place but don't actually interfere with the game's quality.

6

Bio-Hazard Battle
Bio-Hazard Battle
The best combination of ambiance and sound direction here for sure. The side weapon system is kinda clunky but I LOVE the standard charge shot. Play this in stereo.

7

M.U.S.H.A.
M.U.S.H.A.
Very distinct and fun. Enemy designs and patterns are really good, and I like how the power-up system enables both offensive and defensive progression. Very polished and well thought-out for a console where most of its early titles feel like they were made on lunch money. And that Genesis grind is there in all its glory.

8

Granada
Granada
A really neat top-down tank shooter and probably Wolfteam's best game from a mechanical standpoint. Surprising amount of depth and a lot of fun to speedrun through.

9

Twinkle Tale
Twinkle Tale
There's a lot of little things this game does that suck but the core idea is executed well and it has fairly good production value. We Shall Not Speak Of The Flying Stage

10

Thunder Force III
Thunder Force III
A really strong visual experience for its time, refining basically everything II tried to do mechanically. That said, it kinda plays on auto-pilot and lacks in the challenge department - except for a couple sections where memorization is mandatory.

It's pretty shallow relative to other games, but the strong pacing and flow help make it easy to come back to.

11

Grind Stormer
Grind Stormer
The only Toaplan shmup I've ever been all that invested in. A bizarre homunculus of Truxton, Slap Fight, and what would eventually become Donpachi, all rolled into the dirtiest rag ever. Weapons system is fun, enemy patterns are fun, level aesthetics and sound play to the Genesis' strengths a bit better than the other Toaplan games, and the huge pool of optional lives and continues makes it easier to learn. The screen crunch makes bosses a nightmare tho.

12

Phelios
Phelios
Missing a lot of aesthetic elements from the Arcade version obviously, but still fun. Charge shot system is very rhythmic and appealing. I like the level settings and gimmicks a lot, with the exception of stage 3's chase sequence - great music, but a BITCH to play through.

13

Forgotten Worlds
Forgotten Worlds
I like this game a lot but this port definitely could've been better. Position on list reflects that. If this port wasn't missing stages, it'd definitely be higher.

14

Slap Fight MD
Slap Fight MD
Arrange Mode turns a mid Toaplan experience into some epic Yuzo Koshiro-fueled action. It's cheap in spots, but the short runtime made learning the game a very satisfying process, and its simplified gameplay approach makes for very tight-knit design.

15

Thunder Force II
Thunder Force II
Hella rough but kind of a good kusoge shmup to pop in now and then.

The side-scrolling shmup sections here are just flat-out terrible, it feels like Technosoft didn't know how much they should copy Gradius/R-Type and how much they should be unique with, so you just get this hodge-podge of uninteresting enemy scenarios in hellishly-designed obstacle courses.

The top-down areas aren't half-bad honestly, but they're a mess and really tiring to navigate through. I think this game would've been way better if it stuck to just top-down and tried to refine that formula.

16

Twin Cobra
Twin Cobra
League of Legends

17

Gynoug
Gynoug
Kinda overly-tame for the first four stages and WAY too hard for the last two, but c'mon man

Penis Abominations

18

Fire Shark
Fire Shark
Rock-solid Toaplan game once you get past the stock military theme and terrible sound quality.

19

Advanced Busterhawk Gleylancer
Advanced Busterhawk Gleylancer
Fantastic presentation and sound help pick up the slack where the gameplay depth and challenge consistency sorely lack.

20

Eliminate Down
Eliminate Down
R-Type if you took out the routing-based structure that makes R-Type kinda irritating and replaced it with cocaine brainrot difficulty spikes. Even on easy I can't get past the halfway point.

Music's also REALLY kusoge, there is NO music theory behind these tracks and whoever wrote this was clearly bullshitting it. I kinda like it for that tho.

21

Gaiares
Gaiares
9/10 experience fucked over by an obscene checkpoint system, it's literally the only thing you need to remove to make this truly great

22

Truxton
Truxton
This port of Truxton sucks ass, to be blunt. I'm also just not a fan of Toaplan's design tropes - R-Type tiers of mandatory memorization with none of the narrative spectacle. But it's still pretty fun despite how much I suck at it

23

Sol-Feace
Sol-Feace
Very ambitious and structurally-cool despite how jank Wolfteam games tend to be. I think the weapons system isn't as user-friendly or useful as it should be but it's functional and serves the greater scope of the game's mechanics well.

Stage 3's boss is king shit

24

Arrow Flash
Arrow Flash
All the money got poured into the art and the ship-switching mechanics. Those elements are cool, but the rest feels pretty mediocre.

25

Whip Rush
Whip Rush
Good ideas marred by rough execution and really poor sound design. It sure is a Vic Tokai game.

26

Trouble Shooter
Trouble Shooter
Very slow, very ugly and not all that exciting, especially when you could play Daiginjou. But it's still okay.

27

Burning Force
Burning Force
More ambitious and smooth than Space Harrier II but not too great in the collision detection department.

28

Steel Empire
Steel Empire
The epitome of a 6/10 shmup - it's easy, it's comfortable, the style's nice, and I don't feel a whole lot else about it. I don't think the impact of shots feels good in the way other shmups do, you get this nasty 'doink' sound that makes the game feel too toy-like. It also really drags in the later half. I liked it a lot my first time through, but I don't anticipate replaying it.

29

Hellfire
Hellfire
the gun system is cool, and i like that stage 2 is randomly a pyramid stage out of nowhere. don't really have the motivation to learn it rn tho

30

Vapor Trail
Vapor Trail
I liked it the first time but I can't say I'd play it again, there's some real bad sections near the latter half. Music is repetitive in-game because they loop the same track for the main stages, which sucks because it's actually EXTREMELY good music. The instruments are UNREAL levels of fidelity.

31

Zero Wing
Zero Wing
definitely a shmup that gets worse on replays. it's slow as fuck and takes a disgusting difficulty bump in the last 2 levels. Shame, cause the rest of it's handled pretty well.

32

Air Buster
Air Buster
Overly gimmicky and just bland as far as its setting and color scheme go.

33

Master of Weapon
Master of Weapon
Feels more like an obligation than something made out of passion or desire. Boss 1 is a miserable roadblock and nothing that follows justifies the suffering. Arcade version is probably miles better

34

Fire Mustang
Fire Mustang
Hard mid. I don't really have any desire to learn it but I also don't think there's anything egregious here.

35

Dangerous Seed
Dangerous Seed
Feels a bit bootleg-ish - the repetitious tunnel backgrounds ellicit that almost 'pornographic' feeling, furthered by the weird feel of the weapons. Not a very compelling game beyond the abstract.

36

Raiden Trad
Raiden Trad
I don't like Raiden. This is a mid port of Raiden.

Eh.

37

Super Smash T.V.
Super Smash T.V.
I can put this on for five minutes, say 'that was fun' and walk away content. Not something I would EVER have the patience/passion to complete though.

38

Bio-Ship Paladin
Bio-Ship Paladin
Very good idea that's actually executed pretty well held back by a complete lack of money and polish. Feels like a bootleg tbh.

39

Verytex
Verytex
Very close to being a nice shooter but it's one of those 'if you fuck up once there's no way to recover' games. I'm kinda hypocritical for saying that given that Darius is one of my favorite franchieses but also uhhhhh this game isn't ANYWHERE close to as fun as Darius

40

Insector X
Insector X
Ugly fuckin' piece of shit game, I will murder every wasp in cold blood

41

Task Force Harrier EX
Task Force Harrier EX
this feels like a master system game

42

Curse
Curse
Heartbreaking: The Worst Game You Know Has Really Good Boxart

43

Gadget Twins
Gadget Twins
i hate video games

44

9 Comments


2 years ago

Good list. I would personally rank Gaiares a lot higher but that's because I'm one of the few weirdos who actually likes Gaiares.

2 years ago

Its a game im sure id like more once i learn how to beat it

2 years ago

The Genesis is so cool man

2 years ago

Genesis is better than SNES for everything other than Scrimblo and RPG

2 years ago

nah i think it's just a matter of quality over quantity, snes is a much more balanced game library while genesis has a couple really strong hits and the rest is mid to shovelware

but i do agree that genny shmups are unambiguously above snes

2 years ago

Good list, I have yet to play any of these but I might have to change that sometime. Always wanted to try Super Fantasy Zone and M.U.S.H.A.

2 years ago

super fantasy zone and II DX are kino. Even fantasy zone 1 is pretty good

2 years ago

gadget twins is too low + ratioed + blocked cope + cry about it + redpilled

2 years ago

i ratio'd your mom last night


Last updated: