Skycadia
This is by far the most exciting thrill ride of a highscore leaderboard battling game I’ve played in many years.
At the start, you are set to begin unlocking the other pilots and weapons (3 of each). It may seem like a huge hurdle, but once you get your mind past the unlocks and just concentrate on the leaderboard, it becomes all or nothing.
Set in a retro 90’s look with it’s vibrant landscapes and scan lines, you feel right at home. (Well I do).
The chiptune music sets the scene for the 3 stages the game throws at you. First a light tune as the first wave of enemy ships spawn in, then a faster arrangement as the flying centipedes swoop around and finally the boss music kicks, and you know by then, things are gonna go down.
– Real player with 34.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Shoot 'Em Up Old School Games.
“Pixelized, Fast paced, Action packed flight shoot em up'”
The more and more i played the more challenging the game got, keeping me at my toes with it’s rouge-like enemy system, as soon as i had overcome a difficult enemy a new enemy would appear and kill me several more times.
The controls are simple and easy and the smoothness you can achieve once you’ve mastered the plane is awesome. I did have to toggle the inverted vertical controls, as flying felt much better that way.
The daylight cycle makes the game more interesting as the environment changes with the lighting. At night you can watch your bullets light up the clouds and environment as you blast enemies. and vice versa
– Real player with 11.8 hrs in game
ionAXXIA
It has potential.
I’d like to see Keyboard control. Left and Right arrows to rotate clockwise/counter, Up arrow to move forward.
– Real player with 5.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Shoot 'Em Up Tactical Games.
This game has a lot of potential with its charming 16-bit style and almost endless customization with ship type, weapons and much more that actually have impact on the gameplay and your success.
My only wishes as for now is keyboard support and a soundtrack
– Real player with 2.3 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
Read More: Best Shoot 'Em Up 1980s Games.
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
Raptor: Call of the Shadows (1994 Classic Edition)
EDIT: On a widescreen monitor, you may need to change DOSbox settings (edit RAPTOR.CONF in Notepad to change “aspect=false” to “aspect=true”) to fix the aspect ratio. You may also need to disable Steam Overlay then, since the pop-up will get stuck in the margin.
This is a classic top-scrolling shooter from 1994, with an upgrade shop system being the main selling point. That is, your score is measured in credits which you can use to buy upgrades for your ship between levels. The graphics are pretty detailed for the time, similar to an Amiga or Atari ST game, especially the scrolling terrain. Sound effects are crunchy and satisfying, and the cheerful MIDI music is simple but effective. Keyboard, joystick, and mouse control schemes are available.
– Real player with 18.9 hrs in game
Raptor: Call of The Shadows Versions is an Awesome MS-DOS Game, I’m a Professional at this game & I grew up with this Old DOS Classic.
Your engine’s turbines roar as you scream out of the sky. Startled troops look up just in time to see your wing cannons blaze. You feel the plane buck slightly as your missiles streak toward their targets. A flash in the distance tells you that they have done their job and so have you. MegaCorp pays well, for those good enough to survive. They call you into the shadows with dreams of wealth, and you answer, the only way you know how.
– Real player with 9.3 hrs in game
Retro Classix: Heavy Barrel
The arcade version that most of us likely never played, having only had access to the NES and its simplified controls. You can easily tell the vast difference between the two when you go up a couple screens and dozens of enemies flood the screen very slowly. The difficulty is not really balanced for two people and is more like Serious Sam. You get sections where enemies just pile up on the screen and even have multiple bosses join in and follow you if you try to push through dying repeatedly. You have unlimited credits, but this is not something you can speedrun alone, since enemies chase you and those jetpack guys will circle you forever. BRING A FRIEND.
– Real player with 0.7 hrs in game
Now I don’t have to bug my mom for more quarters.
– Real player with 0.5 hrs in game
Stargunner
EDIT: On a widescreen monitor, you may need to change DOSbox settings (edit STARGUN.CONF in Notepad to change “aspect=false” to “aspect=true” if it isn’t already) to fix the aspect ratio. You may also need to disable Steam Overlay then, since the pop-up will get stuck in the margin.
This is a pretty solid side-scrolling shooter from the nineties. Sound and graphics are similar to what you’d expect from a classic Amiga action game, with bouncy MOD format music, pre-rendered 3d art and animation, and parallax scrolling.
– Real player with 39.3 hrs in game
I first played Stargunner in 1998 when a free copy of the game was bundled with my PC. I didn’t expect much from it but I was pleasantly surprised and it soon became my favourite way to kill time during my lunch breaks for a couple of years.
With Stargunner being a mid-1990s game you should expect a level of difficulty that is uncommon in modern games. With that being said I don’t think it’s all that much more difficult than other titles in the bullet-hell genre. The game demands that you have more than just good reflexes as the upgrades you buy and when you choose to use nukes makes a big difference (for example: having a credit drone in the second level during the asteroid field will earn you a lot of credits).
– Real player with 15.2 hrs in game
Demon Blast
Introduction
As I absolutely adore the DOOM series and similar titles, Demon Blast naturally caught my eye on Steam’s Store Page immediately. Its colourful, cartoonish art style, along with the promise of killing hordes of demons, was enough for me to give it a try, despite it being in the Early Access. The harsh reality is that this game is unfinished and clunky to play, as you would expect from the Early Access. However, the promised updates are still not released, which is why I finally decided to write a review, as the game’s current content does not offer enough to justify its price for me.
– Real player with 1.7 hrs in game
Written By Hidden Gems Review : https://store.steampowered.com/curator/38624426/
The idea of a roguelike with a touch of doom is reaaaally great, in fact was pretty fun until…
There are 2 bugs are killling me (literally)
1st one the enemy range atack pass the doors and hits you
2nd one the have a issue with the mouse like if you change of dpi for talking with npcs of hitting stuff with your hands.
I know it’s an early acess and you expect bugs but this make the game nearly unplayable and really hard
– Real player with 1.4 hrs in game
FORTRESS DEFENDER
Well this came out of nowhere. Paying homage to the shmups of ancient times Fortress Defender will completely chew you up and spit you out..and that’s on Easy.
Not for the faint of heart nor the easily frustrated you will find absolutely no modern day hand holding here so be forewarned! With that said I enjoy a good challenge. Daunting at first glance with broken english for ship descriptions and some not so clear game mechanics one may feel slightly overwhelmed with FD. It took a bit of time but once familiarized with the controls and the game systems things quickly started to click. This shmup feels like a bit of a mash up between Gradius and possibly Gates of Thunder but with it’s own unique subsystems and powerup/shield system. Enemy design and attack patterns are well suited, bosses are challenging to take down, and the action is constant never letting up.
– Real player with 8.7 hrs in game
It’s a good retro shmup.
– Real player with 3.5 hrs in game
Killing Sun / 抗日大刀队：日军总部
A few non-exclusive store bought assets here and there, but overall is a lot of fun! Loads of levels, secrets and enemy types. All weapons are fun to use and ammo tends to be quite plentiful.
– Real player with 6.0 hrs in game
you = shooting projectiles
enemy = raycast/hitscan
come on, man!
– Real player with 0.8 hrs in game
TWINKLE STAR SPRITES
so is this game a good game? hell yeah, this game is super fun. a competitive shmup with puzzle elements which works like a charm. its colourful too and has a nice aesthetic, and a good soundtrack. each character plays a bit differently too, different shot and movement speeds, of course each character has a different charge shot and bombs, standard affair with a shmup.
is this port a good port? absolutely not. this port has slow down and that ive never had happen when playing this on fightcade or supercade (when it was still around). like, the game does have slow down naturally here and there when theres a whole bunch of projectiles on screen, but with this port it happens a lot more frequently. it even happens when some characters throw out a bomb, especially with memory. and when i say slow down i mean the game chugs to like, 5 frames a second, basically unplayable until the slow down decides to stop. it’s also got a weird issue with sound where certain instuments will sometimes not sync up with the other ones.
– Real player with 9.3 hrs in game
This is one of the best versus shoot’em ups ever made.
However, what you get with this re-release is an easy to use ROM+emulator bundle with some additional features. The game ROM is not even openly accessible so you cannot use it with the emulator of your choice and are stuck with the given configuration options and the given launcher.
Besides, the Neo-geo original version is not the absolute best version of the game (the Saturn version had more content).
The additionnal features are a leaderboard, multiplayer and achievements, but every one of them is flawed:
– Real player with 8.6 hrs in game