I recently treated myself to an old PSX, having missed it, because I was a saturn fan.I've got some pretty cool shoot'em ups for that one, but what are the best shoot em ups for the PS that are not available for the Saturn? I have Gradius Gaiden, Einhander, Raiden Project and R-Type Delta, and they're very cool and stuff, but I know there must be more. What do you, the experts suggest?

Here's a direct repost from a shackpost complete with some ps2 stuff still in and no hotlinks (GreaseMonkey -> Install it). It's not complete at all (only US games) but it should give you a good jumpstart on what to look for locally.

I've recently been turned on to Harmful Park and I'm really trying to find a copy of Gaia Seed for under $70. A decent list is up on shmups.com which should provide a good starting point. You may want to read the forums there a bit as well (hell, register and post sometime)



Old post:
I was never a big fan of Gradius III and Gradius IV is about as dull as they get :(

Shikigami no Shiro got butchered for its us release but it's not too bad for the price
http://www.gamestop.com/product.asp?product%5Fid=938516

The sequel, on the other hand, is fantastic and improves on the original in every way. the original cutscenes were left intact and were given a hillariously horrible translation. The gameplay is a lot easier to get into than the first game, the graphics are great, and the level designs are interesting. Plus it's only $10
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?product_id=3266523

Zanac X Zanac commands a high price because of its rarity, but it's totally worth it. It contains multiple versions of the original Zanac and the new Zanac Neo is fucking ace.

Shienryu got ported to the playsation as Gekioh and received a budget US release (~$10). Very enjoyable if you like Raiden (it's pretty much Raiden DX 2) but it has some annoying slowdown problems that aren't present in the Saturn release or the japanese/euro ps2 release.

R Type Final is another nice game, but it doesn't really compare to R Type Delta for Playstation 1. R Type Final will run you about $20 new now a days and R Type Delta you can score direct from Agetec for $30. While you're at it, get R Types as it includes both R Type and R Type II (both excellent games)
RTypes: http://www.agetec.com/products.asp?MyView=Shooting&ProductID=20&ProductName=R%2DTypes
RType Delta: http://www.agetec.com/products.asp?MyView=Shooting&ProductID=43&ProductName=R%2DType+Delta
RType Final: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00017X22U/qid=1105149055/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/103-5697129-7759040?v=glan...[amazon.com]

Speaking of Agetec, they've published a few other good shooters here. Sanvein gets ZERO love from most people, though Kiken released an excellent superplay video of it a few months ago. I picked it up on a whim back in 03 and haven't regretted it at all. Really different and really fun.
http://www.agetec.com/products.asp?MyView=Shooting&ProductID=58&ProductName=Shooter+Starfighter+Sanvein

Strikers 1945 II got released as Strikers 1945 and I believe the major change was the omission of the TATE mode and the forced wobble mode. If that doesn't bug you, then look into picking up Gunbird (released as Mobile Light Force) at the same time, as it is from the same developer and has a similar play system:
S1945: http://www.agetec.com/products.asp?MyView=Shooting&ProductID=50&ProductName=Strikers+1945
Gunbird: http://www.gamestop.com/product.asp?product%5Fid=934562

If you can scrape together the cash, I recommend picking up Raiden Project, though it's getting pretty hard to find for cheap:
http://www.gamestop.com/product.asp?product%5Fid=933366
Raiden was rereleased as a budget title in Japan and Raiden DX has been released as a budget title, but if you want Raiden II, you need Raiden Project. Of course, if you imported Raiden DX then you'd probably never want to play Raiden or Raiden II for any reason other than nostalgia... but you still would need a mod chip :(

Einhander is the cat's motherfucking pajamas. You can't go wrong with that puppy. Difficult but very rewarding.

Philosoma is a weird little mixture of literally every shmup subgenre ever done into one product. Each stage is broken into substages and each substage is a different viewpoint. In front of the ship, behind, above, below, to the side, isometric, etc.
http://www.gamestop.com/product.asp?product%5Fid=933349

If you liked the gameplay of Tumiki Fighters, where you could use your enemies as pieces of your own ship, then you NEED G Darius, which is pretty much the high point of the Darius series (though I wobble on that one... it just depends on which game I've been playing the most of recently, Darius Gaiden or G Darius :) ). Awesome awesome game with branching paths, the ability to capture enemies, fantastic music and rocking hot graphics (for the time).
http://www.gamestop.com/product.asp?product%5Fid=933557
On a sidenote, the team that developed G Darius went on to form GRev and make Border Down on the Dreamcast.

Irem's In the Hunt made it to the US as well, though it's a bit heavy on the slowdown. Some pretty good action is still burried in the game (I correct the slowdown problems in MAME by overclocking the main cpu, but on the playstation you're pretty much shit out of luck). It's been rumored that members of the team behind In the Hunt and GunForce 2 would leave to form their own company and develop a little known game called Metal Slug, but those rumors mostly stem from gameplay and graphic similarities between the games.
http://www.gamestop.com/product.asp?product%5Fid=933212

RayStorm and RayCrisis, sequels to the excellent RayForce/Galactic Attack/Layer Section (on Saturn) aren't quite as good as the original but are well worth checking out. Basic gameplay includes the ol' lock on laser and two planes of movement to contend with at the same time (similar to Dragon Spirit, Xevious, etc)
RayStorm: http://www.gamestop.com/product.asp?product%5Fid=933372
RayCrisis: http://www.workingdesigns.com/games/playstation/raycrisis/index.html

ThunderForce V (sadly, the last of the series) was an excellent game on both Saturn and Playstation (though purists refuse to play the game on the Playstation because it's graphically inferior to the Saturn version), and sadly only the playstation version made it to the US (thanks to Dickhead Ireland's company). Good luck finding it for cheap, though you can always order it directly from AssPumper Himself:
http://www.workingdesigns.com/games/playstation/thunderforce_v/index.html

Regarding Thunderforce V, is the Saturn version only available in Japanese? Is the language in the game menus English or Jap? Might try and get a copy someday for an emulator as I loved TFIV.

Ice

Great post. Don't forget the Cotton series of games, and I also recently purchased "Castle Shinkagami II" for PS2 which looks kind of like a Cave shooter, haven't opened it or played it yet, it was under $20. Similarly, there is of course Gradius III/IV for PS2, and Silpheed.

I almost had a copy of TFV for Jpn Saturn, I reserved a bunch of games for purchase at a Software Etc. once, but when I went back, that game was sold out from under me. :( I ended up with Golden Axe: The Duel and some other Jpn Sat. games still though. Oh, and I think that there is a "1943 collection" for Saturn too.

I wish that someone did a spot-on exact port of nearly all of the great Toaplan shooters from back in the day, on a compilation collection. That would be supremely ace!

> Great post. Don't forget the Cotton series of games, and I also recently
> purchased "Castle Shinkagami II" for PS2 which looks kind of like a Cave
> shooter, haven't opened it or played it yet, it was under $20. Similarly, there
> is of course Gradius III/IV for PS2, and Silpheed.
>

Castle Shikigami 2 rocks. Bought the SE on Dreamcast and then ended up buying a couple of copies for PS2 when it came out in the US.. hillariously bad translation mixed with awesome shmup action (seriously, they fixed pretty much all of my complaints with Shikigami no Shiro in the sequel). Goes for less than $10 at Walmart, too.

Silpheed...meh.. I know some people that really dig it, but it's not my cup of tea. At all.

Ditto for Gradius III/IV. Beyond V, I don't much care for the series at all, really. When it comes to horizontal shmups, I'll taken an Irem over a Konami damn near any day of the week :)

> I wish that someone did a spot-on exact port of nearly all of the great Toaplan
> shooters from back in the day, on a compilation collection. That would be
> supremely ace!
>

Oh hell yea, that'd be ninja-tight. A rerelease of Batsugun on Playstation 2 would be awesome.

> Regarding Thunderforce V, is the Saturn version only available in Japanese? Is
> the language in the game menus English or Jap? Might try and get a copy someday
> for an emulator as I loved TFIV.
>
> Ice
>

Only in Japanese, no idea about the menus, and I'm sure it runs in SSF by this point, so feel free to fire it up (assuming you have an SSE2 processor)