I don't usually post links to Electric Underground videos. I figure shmup fans are either already subscribed to his channel, or they don't like him and don't want to see him. But I thought, eh it's a slow week, why not?

This is an excellent introduction to bullet hell shmups, and was mentioned by 1CC JAM in the Meet the Player podcast.

Hi folks -- after having to remove them a couple of months back, the deal tracking links in the sidebar have returned. If you're looking for current discounts on shmups, give them a look! I don't get any kickbacks, or affiliate credit or whatever. They're just links to curated watchlists.

The short version of the story is that I lost access to my IsThereAnyDeal account and had to reconstitute the shmups-only watchlist by hand. I finally got around to finishing it.

Shorter version of the story: Steam tags kind of suck!

If you find anything missing that should be added to the list, let me know!

Via Retronaut's Retro Re-release Roundup, week of November 21, 2024. The relevant part of the article:

>What's this? A digital hub offering access to the arcade catalog of the venerable Japanese developer Toaplan, active from the mid-'80s to the mid-'90s and particularly famous for their shooting game output; in addition to offering emulated versions of 25 games with region variants, various control and display settings (including vertical display support and support for external wired and/or wireless controllers) and more, it also includes a customizable virtual arcade frontend with 3D models of arcade cabinets and other accessories that can be arranged at will. > >Which games are included? The base download includes Truxton/Tatsujin for free, as well as trial versions of Tiger Heli, Sky Shark/Flying Shark, Pyros/Wardner, Brainwashing Game Teki Paki, and Snow Bros; other games available for purchase include Get Star/Guardian, Slap Fight/Alcom, Kyuukyoku Tiger/Twin Cobra, Rally Bike/Dash Yarou, Hellfire, Twin Hawk/Daisenpuu, Demon's World/Horror Story, Zero Wing, Fire Shark/Same!Same!Same!, Out Zone, Vimana, Ghox, Truxton II/Tatsujin Ou, Fixeight, Dogyuun!!, Grind Stormer/V-V, Knuckle Bash, Batsugun and Snow Bros. 2.

Bringing a little clarity to the "Dariusburst" line of Darius games.

Damn.

Amongst the non-shmup titles shown, there's news about:

-Earthion EXA Label -Demon Front EXA Label -Batsugun EXA Label 1.5 -Airgallet EXA Label

There's also word of a new version of Wild Guns Reloaded called "Wild Guns Rawhide" for any gallery shooter fans out there (think Cabal, or Neo Geo's Nam 1975).

If you don't have an arcade nearby, all you need is about ten grand to get an eXa cabinet and a game cart for yourself -- OOF.

Galaxian is a proto-shmup to be sure, but I thought this was an interesting obscurity. Not surprised we didn't get this over here, since I'm pretty sure Gundam was relatively unheard-of back when this got made.

From the description:

>In episode 075, MetalFRO and Addicted look at a spooky shooter that delves into the nightmares from the perspective of a child's inner mind - NeverAwake!

And, just a quick personal update: I'm going to start posting and modding this community from my alt account because as much as I love lemmus.org, I've run into a couple of federation issues -- like whole threads of comments not showing up.

Chapters:

00:00 Intro 01:24 Sonic Wings Reunion 02:55 Super XYX - Console Release 03:51 Six On Fire 04:38 Operation High Jump 05:17 Wolf Fang / Skull Fang Saturn Tribute 06:17 Undeadline (MSX) for Switch 07:07 Super Spacefortress Macross - Arcade Archives 07:52 Toaplan Arcade 3 / 4 - Evercade 09:06 Kamikaze Lassplanes 10:00 Crystal Breaker 11:03 Airanblade - Release 11:44 Rogue Flight 12:32 Lunar Lancer 13:13 Neon Inferno 14:43 Mekkablood 16:02 BUN GA RUA - Girl's Extreme Fist 17:08 Wrap Up

FTA: "It will launch on May 29, 2025 in Japan with support for English, French. German, Portuguese, Japanese, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese language options."

So if it doesn't come out internationally (no word on that yet), you could still grab a physical edition from Japan without having to cope with Japanese menus (\cough DOJ \cough).

From the article:

>Angel at Dusk (Sanuk, 7th Nov, $14.99) - The newest answer to shmups. A game which is "uncompromisingly skeletal". That is, a game in which every last ounce of excess has been cut away, and only its framework quintessence remains. Bones free themselves of flesh, laying waste to needless entrails! Revealing a skeleton of extraordinarily strength.

The relevant bit from the larger article:

>Following the recent delisting of Live Wire's port of the arcade shooting game Mushihimesama, they've just announced that their remaining Cave ports will also be unavailable for digital purchase from December 2 due to an expiration of their publishing license. As they stand, DoDonPachi Resurrection is currently available on Steam and iOS and will remain available for the foreseeable future, but Espgaluda II's previous ports (a Japan-only Xbox 360 port and an iOS port) are long unavailable, meaning there are no current commercial alternatives to the Switch version. Do note that both games have received separate physical runs in North America, Japan and, very recently, Europe, so you may want to look into those while the prices are still somewhat reasonable.

That Radiant Silvergun package looks neat.