STRIKERS 1945 II
played this game 20 years ago with my brother, now I can play with him again, and with some friends too.
sometimes it crashes when going back to the title, but it usually works fine
– Real player with 11.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Bullet Hell Shoot 'Em Up Games.
“Strikers 1945 II” is very, very difficult, even more difficult than the original. There’s simply too many bullets on screen to get far without continues, even on “very easy.” The ‘power shot’ is a great addition to your weaponry, but it takes too long to charge up for regular use. You must be strategic, but you’ll likely be blown up to pieces and lose all of its charge waiting for the right moment to unload the massive firepower. On a final note, the music is worlds better in “Strikers 1945 II” over the original.
– Real player with 10.4 hrs in game
Ikaruga
From Treasure, the developer behind classic games like Guardian Heroes, Radiant Silvergun and Gradius V, Ikaruga is the game that really stands out.
Initially launched for arcades, Ikaruga found most of its success on the Nintendo GameCube not only because of its extreme difficulty, but because of its excellence in game design. You can move your ship in 2D, shoot bullets and charge your special shot like any other shoot ‘em up (shmup). But there’s a single game mechanic that changes everything: there’s two types of enemies, black ships that shoot black bullets and white ships that shoots white bullets, and you can change the polarity of your ship to black or white. Simple enough, this latter fact is what made the game be considered a groundbreaking masterpiece among shmups: you absorb enemy bullets to charge your special shot if your ship’s polarity matches the color of the enemy bullet, and you do double damage if your ship’s polarity is opposed. So, as you skillfully change polarities to do damage you also find yourself taking enemy bullets instead of avoiding them. And every single bullet is beautifully coreographed with the stage, with the pacing matching the rhythm of the music, something that seems basically impossible given all the chaos on the screen. It’s absolutely genius.
– Real player with 258.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Bullet Hell Shoot 'Em Up Games.
Ikaruga is a harsh mistress. She is a love you cannot conquer, she is a complex beauty who demands perfection. Your best will never truly please her, she will make you feel inadequate at every moment, and yet you cannot stop trying to win her heart. When you are with her, any mistake you make will sting a thousand times worse. And she will make you furious, she will make you cry, she will drive you crazy, but you cannot stop loving her, because there is nothing else in the world that can compare to what she is.
– Real player with 74.6 hrs in game
Raiden III Digital Edition
Poor Raiden III. This game has had a long history of being bashed for the dumbest reasons, and now it’s getting bashed because the developers weren’t interested in working on a years-old PC port that works perfectly fine on newer PCs.
The slower ship speed was always the absolute biggest complaint… but it ALWAYS comes from people who worship the older Raidens. The game was always called too easy… which is quite mystifying as it’s actually quite hard, and many of the people claiming it’s too easy were playing on an easier than standard difficulty. Many of these people also cannot make a dent in the older Raidens which they are directly comparing to, games filled with absolute bullshit. It’s really bizarre how people will fetishize those older games like that.
– Real player with 21.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Bullet Hell Shoot 'Em Up Games.
A huge fan of the Raiden series. I especially enjoyed Raiden and Raiden II – the latter being one of my favourite shmups of all time. I also played Raiden DX just a bit (very close to the style of Raiden II). I have also played through the Raiden Fighter Aces trilogy on Xbox 360 – Raiden Fighters, Raiden Fighters 2, and Raiden Fighters Jet, and enjoyed them although they are not originally Raiden titles. I tended to dislike the move to 3D backgrounds, as with Raiden III, IV, and V. I played IV and enjoyed it. Raiden V is a bit too long and drawn out with the story inclusion. Playing it made me want to revisit the older 2D background titles. Long story short, I finally came back to play the only title I had never played, Raiden III.
– Real player with 17.8 hrs in game
TENGAI
Good port of the Arcade version
– Real player with 31.3 hrs in game
I was not expecting to see TENGAI on Steam, but just look what the wind put in my way… This game is one of the most charismatic game from Psikyo, a horizontal scroll shoot ‘em up with waifus, ninjas, robots and all sort of weird things… I love this game and i can see in my mind my old times playing on the real arcade machine. This one and Strikers 1945-III are my personal favorites from Psikyo.
Solid STG… I just love everything about this game.
– Real player with 6.5 hrs in game
Defend Felinearth
It’s asteroid version 9000.
– Real player with 16.3 hrs in game
Absolute crap and so unoriginal. Keep your money kiddies.
– Real player with 4.9 hrs in game
DoDonPachi Resurrection
DoDonPachi Resurrection is a port of DoDonPachi Dai-Fukkatsu, the fifth game in the DonPachi series, and it mixes up the traditional DDP formula by adding a “bullet canceling” feature in the form of its updated Hyper Counter system. it’s really starting to become one of my favorite SHMUPs out there, and i’ve been playing it a LOT – and when i’m not playing it, i’m thinking about it in the back of my head. there’s 8 gameplay modes (including two Novice modes), and initially they all look VERY similar, and they don’t really explain themselves too well – but once you do some searching as to how the scoring works in each mode and the slightly different ways they’re all intended to be played, there is a LOT of mileage to get from this game.
– Real player with 286.7 hrs in game
After playing through Mushihimesama I was very excited to learn that CAVE would be releasing another game on Steam. While I would have preferred Mushihimesama Futari, I wasn’t about to turn down the possibility of playing an entry in their longest running shooting game series. DoDonPachi Resurrection (also known as DoDonPachi DaiFukkatsu) was released in Japanese arcades in May 2008. Since then it has been released on Xbox 360 and mobile devices. Perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise that this is the game CAVE chose after having already made it so widely available.
– Real player with 234.4 hrs in game
Mushihimesama
Mushihimesama is a game that I went back and forth over buying for quite some time. I’d heard stories of CAVE’s arcade shmups (especially DoDonPachi, Espgaluda, and Ketsui) for years, but had never actually had the opportunity to play any of them. Upon seeing Mushihimesama on Steam I was excited, but after watching the trailer I decided to hold off on it. I’m not sure exactly what it was about the trailer, but it failed to sell me the game. I’m sure the rumors I heard that it wasn’t a very good port didn’t help matters either. Eventually I decided to pick it up anyway, and I’m really glad that I did. Perhaps you shouldn’t always judge a game by its trailer.
– Real player with 111.4 hrs in game
Mushihimesama is a brilliant CAVE shooter that is a direct port of the 360 version, available for people on PC for the first time. Mushihimesama sets a standard in terms of modern STGs and cave games in general that we can get a taste for and is absolutely worth your time.
Gameplay
Vertical shooter, you control 1 ship called Reco and you have a choice of 3 different shot types they are :
M-Power (best all round shot type)
W-Power (wide shot type for clearing large groups of enemies in stages, low mobility)
– Real player with 30.7 hrs in game
STRIKERS 1945 III
Consider this a borderline positive. Strikers 3 is a pretty, creative and exciting game to play ‘for kicks’. It has beautiful graphics combining sharp pixel art with some subtle pre-renders, interesting enemy designs and compelling settings, and if you’re just looking to credit through the game and enjoy the ride, it’s perfect for that.
As a deeper gameplay experience, my thoughts on it are less positive. Even on Easy, the difficulty curve is too harsh, smacking like Gunbird 2 and Battle K-Road from the same devs of greed for credit-feeding or just plain being in a rush and not playtesting or tuning the game well. In this game outside of bosses, most enemies just fire directly at the player. On your initial stage this will seem fine, but the number of bullets on screen ramps up dramatically immediately after your first boss. This might still be approachable for casual to medium skill players were you in a very mobile ship, but you handle like a boat, especially when moving backwards or side to side. The game becomes too imbalanced too quickly and good runs just feel like luck rather than skill most of the time. To clarify on my experience level I have 1CC-No-Miss completed Nemesis, 1CC completed Mushihimesama, Crimzon Clover Evolution, Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu and perhaps most tellingly, Strikers 1 and Strikers 2. I can’t see myself 1CCing this ever because of the dodgy gameplay balance and frequent unfair deaths.
– Real player with 5.7 hrs in game
I love and hate this at same time. It’s literally impossible to complete at least 4 level without Continues even with 8 spare lives, because every Continue will reset your score you gained.
And it also don’t have free control with mouse where you can control your plane easily at any speed depends on your sensitivity you set, especially with mouse-control. It’s almost impossible to evade massive enemy’s bullets SPAM with only 2 bombs on board and with fixed movement speed. This is where Android version of this game is much sensible and even easier on EASY and NORMAL difficulties
! (mostly because of plane upgrades and possibility to BUY additional bombs during gameplay and even hiring IMMORTAL AI Partner) while PC version of this don’t care if you set Very Hard or Easy difficulty: all the enemies will be shooting at you with the same HUGE amount of shots.
– Real player with 4.4 hrs in game
Minimalist Space War
It’s a good game for a good price. It made me feel very nostalgic! It starts off easy, than gets progressively harder. Just what you’d expect in a space shooter game. Recommended!
– Real player with 4.3 hrs in game
I liked a lot this geometric space shooter game. It slowly progress to more challenging levels letting you understand new weapons and power ups. I recommend, its fun and relaxing at the same time!
– Real player with 4.3 hrs in game
Meteorite Defense Command
Do you remember enjoying or playing the old classic MISSILE COMMAND?!
..If you loved old school Missile Command like I did, then read no further, just go buy this little gem NOW!
I love, love, love this remake of the old classic city protection hit and this game made my new series I call “ZIG: Zaxtors Indie Gold” and earned it my rare “Must Buy!” recommendation!
Watch my “First Play on Launch Day” Zaxtors Indie Gold video right HERE:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-Vq9-a31FY
Impressive and amazing first game for the single developer going under the name “Digital Software” and I look forward to seeing what he comes out with next after playing this amazing little indie gem!
– Real player with 2.9 hrs in game
Like the old school missile defence game.
Increasing difficulty as you progress through the levels.
Nice grapics that can really trick you sometimes with smaller asteroids emerging from the blast.
– Real player with 1.2 hrs in game