Am I out to lunch in thinking Seirei Senshi Spriggan is my favorite shmup on PC Engine? Maybe I haven’t delved deep enough in the library and I’m still fairly new to the PC Engine overall in the past couple of years, but I adore that game with every fiber of my being. The main reason I think it’s so brilliant is it’s basically a game centered around the satisfaction of screen clearing bombs in shmups, and so by making your weapon levels and upgrades also equate to bombs, it’s literally constantly handing you more bombs, and if you time things well you’ll literally be able to drop an explosion that clears half the screen like every few seconds, but it also doesn’t feel like a cakewalk. It’s such a fast paced, satisfying game, it has the cool and unique fantasy mecha aesthetic that reminds me of Aura Battler Dunbine (one of my favorite anime), it has a delightful upbeat soundtrack, and even on stages where the setting and background is darker, it’s always vibrant and aesthetically pleasing. What a great game.
I probably mention this whenever any of the games in this loose family tree are mentioned, but I don’t mind doing it again: M.U.S.H.A. (Mega Drive/Genesis), Spriggan and Mahou Daisakusen (arcade) all share a direct design and developer lineage, and are offshoots of the broader Compile style of STG as codified by Zanac and the Aleste series (and Blazing Lazers and some other one-offs). They’re not all bomb-spammy games but they do tend to share a lot of the same design elements, including featuring a lot of very destructive weapon types, being designed around rhythmically exploiting i-frames from power refills, etc.
It’s also worth pointing out that most danmaku STG want and expect you to use bombs far more frequently than you might use them, so shaking the immediate instinct to hoard them is something that’ll help you improve at most every game.
Incidentally, Terarin just shared footage of a new prototype with a very Compile-esque destructive weapon system:
I still need to play more Compile shmups that aren’t on PC Engine. Their games that I’ve played all have a very certain feel to them and I especially need to check out Aleste. Mahou Daisakusen and M.U.S.H.A. are two games I was unaware of and definitely need to give a go if they’re like Spriggan.
I’m having a good time with Drainus on the switch. It’s got me compelled to try 1CC’ing (icing the cake, if you will, lol) it. It’s also a game that presents its interactive systems in ways that I don’t clearly understand, but feel curious about and “safe” to fail at. It has this system of filling little jars with a blue goo that you allocate mid-combat to different offensive or defensive ship components. It appears the ship has capabilities for all of these beams and shields and whatnot intrinsically, but lacks resources to power them. Or maybe it’s intended to be a mechanical limitation that highlights the in-game pilot’s unfamiliarity with the ship they stole. This is a wonderful anti-linear solution divergent from arcade scrolling shooters I had access to in the early 90s. It’s probably far from the only shooter that does something like this, but it’s the one that’s hitting me now. I also really enjoy scrolling shooters that take big swings at integrating narrative. It’s not that I have to dig the story being told, but I enjoy experiencing folks giving it a shot.
Mahou Daisakusen (Sorcer Striker) got a stellar M2 port for PS4 a while back fyi
Really fun game
Out now:
- RANDOMAX, a vertical STG from veteran doujin circle Astro Port (Gigantic Army, Wolflame, Armed Seven and many others) that seems to be taking as much as they dare take from the survivor format:
- 紅藍細胞 / Red Blue Cell, a retro vertical STG from Liao Kai, the Chinese dev behind the recent STG GanaBlade & the FC Contra homage G WARRIOR, that offers an Ikaruga-esque polarity system atop the aesthetic of FC STG like Recca:
Games coming next week:
- Strania: The Stella Machina EX, a Switch port of G.rev’s sci-fi mecha STG from 2011 — more specifically, this port’s based on a more recent revision released for an arcade platform that pays for exclusive content, and while this port isn’t bringing all the arcade-exclusive enhancements, it is bringing most of the ones that truly matter, and it hopefully means good things for the liberation of other games/revisons stuck on that platform:
- The original MSX version of Compile’s highly influential STG Zanac, via EGG Console for Switch:
Coming soon(?)
- the console versions of City Connection’s recent Under Defeat HD port will be released globally on February 6; the PC version’s still pending but I imagine it won’t be far behind:
- a Steam page is up for Angelian Trigger, a new pseudo-3D STG released on Switch in Japan by Pixel Co.ltd late last year: as with most of Pixel’s games, it was made in collaboration with several veterans, including Akihiko Kimura (Emerald Dragon) on character designs & illustrations, Akari Kaida (Mega Man Battle Network, Breath of Fire, etc) on BGM, Ayako Saso of SuperSweep (Ridge Racer, Street Fighter EX, Tetris TGM, etc) on sfx
- international orders are open for the cartridge release P-47II MD, the first-ever release of an unannounced and unreleased Mega Drive remix of the NMK/Jaleco arcade game P-47, originally developed by Jaleco in 1990; orders close on February 16, and while I don’t see an ETA on shipping, the Japanese version’s out in mid-March and I imagine they’re trying to match that one:
Thanks for this write-up @allcityslopshop 
I’m curious to hear more about the arcade/revision/port/ situation with Strania. Are there new versions of this IP releasing on contemporary arcade cabinets? Are you hopeful this switch release will create more pathways for arcade-to-console ports in general or of shooters specifically?
I was being vague for the sake of not mentioning the arcade company by name, so allow me to lay things out a little more clearly:
There’s a certain new-ish arcade platform that licenses and/or produces new versions of existing games for their hardware; they work across genre, but they specialise in shooting games, I’d say.
This company contractually mandates a nebulous degree of exclusive content/features for any games released on their platform—the precise nature and extent of those exclusives has varied wildly from game to game, from significant to trivial, but it’s a constant source of annoyance for people who resent games or features being locked to expensive and/or otherwise inaccessible platforms. Perhaps the most controversial of these arcade exclusives is Aka to Blue Type-R, a significantly upgraded conversion of a mobile danmaku STG developed by some ex-Cave folk that might as well be an all-new game, but cannot be ported elsewhere as-is due to the exclusivity contract.
In Strania’s case, this recent arcade version revised the weapon balance and retuned the difficulty settings (including adding a new high-difficulty option), added an additional arranged soundtrack and some other stuff like a new translation and voiced character banter. Strictly speaking, the Switch port isn’t going to have all of that extra content, and they might deliberately be excluding some of it so as to fulfil their contract to the arcade platform, but it does have enough of that content to credibly be considered a port of the new arcade version and is being openly advertised as such, so people are hoping other devs with games on that platform might also be able to find a way to port those versions to home platforms, with Aka to Blue Type-R being the big want.
I’m ambivalent about the platform itself and their business model; I just tend to refrain from talking about them because their CEO’s an asshole.
Thanks for that deeper insight! Do you think that regionally-vibrant arcade scenes are driving some of this exclusivity?
I think it’s more a consequence of the immense pressure felt by arcades to provide exclusive experiences and to avoid having to fight for attention with games that can be conveniently and cheaply played at home—this particular arcade platform deals exclusively in conversions of existing games, so they mandate exclusive features in order to make operators happy, and to provide a point of differentiation from the existing home versions, many of which might sell for 1% of the price of their arcade version.
To their credit, the changes made for their versions can be substantial, and in a few cases (like Aka to Blue) they’re practically different games, but for a lot of these games the alterations are trivial and come across as mere box-checking.
As far as I’m aware, the primary customers for this platform are traditional oldhead Japanese arcades and private buyers, and their software offerings definitely have a hardcore/traditionalist bent… they’ve occasionally made out like they want to be the next Neogeo but that ain’t happenin’, not just because more mainstream arcades don’t have a heavy demand for this kind of platform but because the software library is all niche stuff, and much of it’s based on decades-old games to boot.
Another Compile shmup I hadn’t heard about before? I can’t wait to check this out! Thanks for the write up!
np! Zanac set the blueprint for all the Compile STG that followed and it was super popular in its day—moreso on FC/NES than MSX, but that version’s solid too, especially given that just getting half-decent scrolling to work on MSX was a feat all on its own.
One more bit of news while I’m at it:
out now on Steam: Super Star Shooter Classic, the latest iteration of a doujin X68000 STG from 1991 that’s travelled to GBA, Wii, PSP, smartphones and more; it’s a pure caravan game with 2/5-minute modes:
This week’s Arcade Archives is Final Star Force, a pretty charming 1992 Tecmo STG. I’m not sure it will be anyone’s favourite but it’s a bunch of fun.
- out today on Steam: VARYZNEX, the latest game from veteran freeware-turned-commercial STG dev zakichi (KAIKAN, ZAKESTA, VASTYNEX, etc)—their other Steam releases have been touched-up versions of existing free games, but this one’s an original sequel of sorts to their free Thunder Force homage VASTYNEX:
- X-OUT Resurfaced, a remake of Rainbow Arts’ 1989 euroshmup by the team behind the recent Rainbow Cotton remaster, will be out on February 20 for PC/PS/XB/Switch: they’ve added co-op, redrawn everything & added modern post-processing, got Chris Huelsbeck back to arrange the music, etc
- Cotton Reboot High Tension!, the sequel to the recent remaster+remake of the X68000 version of the original Cotton, has a release date: it’ll be out on PS/Switch on July 24—[they briefly ran down some of the new systems a little while ago () but they’re mostly still talking about the new VA, composers etc & have yet to show much of the game Itself:
-out today
~ shooty news ~
- Edia’s crowdfunded Cho Aniki/Ai Cho Aniki collection is out globally on Switch; as with Edia’s other collections (Valis et al), they’re basic emulation jobs with modest galleries, basic translations where necessary and little else:
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the M2 x Compile Heart STG announced last year has been formally revealed, albeit with very little detail: it’s a Zanac/Aleste crossover game titled ZALESTE, and it’ll be out this year for PS/Switch. It has female pilots, shocker.
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Cotton Reboot! High Tension, the all-original sequel to Cotton Reboot that was recently dated for July 24, finally has an official trailer:
- City Connection announced a few more Saturn Tribute reissues, one being Steam-Heart’s x Advanced Variable Geo Saturn Tribute, a two-pack of games that originated with TGL’s computer eroge brand Giga and both feature character designs by the late Takahiro Kimura, but are otherwise unrelated; Steam-Heart’s is not a particularly interesting STG on its own merits, but a STG it be. This collection’s coming to everything on May 29, and CC has another EGL-related Saturn Tribute release queued up for later in the year, too (not STG-related, though).
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Cosmo Machia’s crowdfunded Shikigami no Shiro/Castle of Shikigami III PC port has a release date; it’ll be out on Steam on March 14. ICYMI, this one skipped Switch and other consoles for a few reasons, some of which included a lack of info on Nintendo’s next hardware, but perhaps they’re more willing to make a move now that Nintendo’s finally made an announcement.
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Success has started sharing screenshots of Sonic Wings/Aero Fighters Reunion, their upcoming all-new Sonic Wings/Aero Fighters game being developed in collaboration with several ex-Video System folk; I don’t feel like going to twitter to dig them up, but they look super not-final and are not especially illuminating.
I really dig these news briefs @allcityslopshop . Thanks for the work you put into them!
Hey STG fans, come play some Soldier Blade 2-minute caravan mode and show the noobs (me) how it’s done
- the new City Connection port of G.rev’s chopper STG Under Defeat is out globally on consoles and PC today—for the unfamiliar, this game hit Japanese arcades and Dreamcast in 2005/6 and received a HD remaster/revision across PS360 and arcades in 2012 or so; this port’s based on the HD version and includes all the updates and DLC it originally got, plus some other little touches like a visible rank counter, subtitles for the brief bits of German dialogue and an extra (and some might say extremely unfitting) arrange soundtrack from Shinji Hosoe: UNDER DEFEAT on Steam
- also out globally today for PS/Switch: Macross Shooting Insight, a cheap format-swapping Macross STG from Bushiroad and MOSS (Raiden series) daughter studio Kaminari Games—this game came out in Japan a while ago and did not impress, and due to licensing bullshit, the global version’s missing content from certain Macross series:
- a trailer and Steam page is up for Sonic Wings Reunion, the new Sonic Wings (Aero Fighters) game being developed by Success in collaboration with some of the original devs; it’s due out in a few months, not that you’d know it from how it looks:
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Night Striker GEAR, the recently-announced sequel to Taito’s sprite-scaling STG Night Striker being developed and published by M2 for PC, just got confirmed for Switch; there are also some new screens on the Steam page.
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along with that announcement, Taito announced that the M2-dev’d Operation Night Strikers collection is also coming to Switch in addition to PC. They also announced more games for the collection: in addition to the arcade versions of Operation Wolf and Night Striker, it’ll include the arcade and SNES versions of Operation Thunderbolt, the arcade and Master System versions of Space Gun, plus the FC, NES & Master System versions of Operation Wolf and the Mega-CD version of Night Striker.
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staying on the Taito kick: the next Zuntata Night stream, scheduled for February 15, will feature both of these games alongside an announcement of some kind—it should be noted that these games are being heavily promoted in tandem with the USB Cyber Stick peripheral, which is not officially supported by any of the current consoles, and the inference about how they’ve been rolling out news on these games so far is that they’re going to announce some sort of official support for Cyber Stick on consoles, but who knows:
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the recent Dodonpachi Saidaioujou Switch port, which was recently delisted in several countries due to a ratings issue, should be back now
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Arcade Archives Viper Phase One, which hasn’t been purchasable on PS5 for whatever reason, should be available now
@Karasu, thanks to your editing work I feel like I’ve re-read half of this thread now – thank you for doing this (and for reminding me of all of my bad STG opinions)
I’m happy to be of help! It’s been really fascinating going back through everything (and I disagree-- your opinions on STGs are broadly great)!
I wish I could tell 2022 Karasu to stop doing so many pointless quotes though!