An online coop top-down shooter, players must work together to advance through levels, completing objectives along the way. as missions are completed, extra weapons and tools are unlocked for the player to use. Originally an unreal tournament 2k4 mod, Valve hired the mod team and during their employment, they remade the game in the source engine in their spare time.
A doujin shooter that draws heavy influence from Cave's works. Has multiple difficulty settings and passive options ranging from casual (Heaven/Guard) to damn near impossible (Hell/Accel). Very bullet heavy and score-centric, enticing the player to risk waiting on cancels for huge score bonuses. Plus adds more bullets and a slowdown option when the screen is completely full.
A shoot 'em up Game which goes in a very different artistic direction. The varying locations, lots of bonus levels and the Diablo II-like graphics makes the game really a stand alone classic.
Knightmare-styled shmup where you control the titular hero from El Chapulín Colorado. Player 2 controls Super Sam, a Uncle Sam parody which appeared in one of the show's episodes.
A famous manic shooter for the Sharp X68000 released in 1995. Later ported to Windows 98 and released as freeware. Gameplay is straightforward but challenging, especially after beating the first loop. Tip: Stay inside the power-ups to collect all 3 at once! Run in compatibility mode on Windows XP. The original X68000 disc image is also available (provided you know how to work an emulator).
A shmup homage game inspired by Gradius, and Darius. The game plays like Gradius, but has multiple stage paths and fish based enemies like Darius. There's also a bit of Parodius to be seen, as the obstacles and enemies you fight are goofily rendered photos of aquatic creatures and food products made from them. A surprisingly solid, though rather tough game that's worth a play through.
CUBES! CUBES!! CUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUBES! A game were you shoot big cubes into smaller cubes. Using both keyboard and mouse is a bit tricky though. Game is mostly in Japanese but with enough English for you to play.
Currently InDev, You can go around Mining asteroids, Upgrading your ship, blasting Hostiles, refueling, and docking on the one space station - Has a nice selection of ships though.
Worms-like multiplayer action with cute graphics. Equip and upgrade your characters and rise up the ranks. Pretty addictive and perfect for LANs, in fact, playing with someone you know is advised because the community is facepalm fodder (HUA HUE HUA HUE HUA).
Geometry Wars, vertical scrolling, and GUNBOATS. GODDAMN. Crazy action with ships exploding left and right. You can even play this with your MOUSE, which makes the game laughably easy. Made by Kenta Cho from ABA Games (the guy who made Tumiki Fighters and Torus Trooper).
This is what would happen when every great shmup company in existence came together to make a stupidly fun mash-up. Nearly a dozen ships across many quality titles like DoDonPachi, Twin Cobra, R-Type, Ikaruga and many others (you can even play as Hibachi!).
High quality shooting game that's a melting pot of Gradius goodness. Tons of levels to conquer with each mission bestowing a new special weapon. This game is HARD but extremely rewarding, as there's dozens of secrets hidden off the beaten path for you to uncover. Gorgeous 16-bit graphics, a rocking soundtrack and charming Spanish voice actors(!) that blend for some impressive action. Easily better than most commercial shmups of its time.
Princess Pitch never recieves any cristmas presents. Then why would anyone do? Play as the daugther of Goddess of Explosions as you tear through Mecha Santa's factory in this fast-paced arcade action game. Includes multiple difficulty levels, four type of shots, power-ups, suplex attack and unlockable protips.
A 2D shooting game by Daisessen for Windows where you need to fly up by shooting down. Propel yourself by pointing your main weapon in the opposite direction and fly higher in the vertical stages. Use special weapons to build up a combo for higher score and health upgrades. Has some frantic boss battles and an exhilarating finale. Japanese system locale may be required.
Liero is basically Worms on steroids. It was spat out of a Finnish guy's sauna in the '90s and kept the European indie scene on life support for almost a decade. It has destructable environments (kind of), 2-player support and 40 unique weapons, with adjustable firing rates and a lot of other gameplay-tweaks.
Protip: picking the missile launcher makes your friends eligible to physically break your arms.
Postpone a city's destruction by shooting by intercepting incoming missiles. Great music, surprisingly addicting. Basically, an update of that old arcade game, Missile Command.
You are Mighty Mike, the hottest action figure in the toy store, and you have to save the helpless plush bunnies from the hordes of the more dangerous toys. Yes, it came out in the same year as Toy Story, isn't it obvious? Anyway, it's a pretty fun top-down action shooter. Despite the kiddy theme, it's rather challenging. A 90s Mac classic, now open-source.
Top-down space shooter, you do the basic space sim routine of mining, exploring, shooting, etc. The 'Ndata' can be tricky, if the installer doesn't get it for you, DL it manually from the downlods section.
Space Invaders with pissed off aliens. Refined shooter with rudimentary curtain patterns that become increasingly more manic as your level rises. The box surrounding your ship "eats" bullets if they stay in it for a short duration, encouraging players to risk nomming grazing bullets for a higher score.
Link Lost
Paroparo
Windows
A brilliant parody of Parodius, since Konami can't be arsed to make cool shmups anymore.
An amalgamate of refined gameplay elements, Patriot Dark has all of the trappings of a Cave-branded arcade shmup. There's strong emphasis on chaining (DoDonPachi) and "gaining" (Espgaluda) through use of your laser. If you don't like the regular music for some reason, apply this alternative sound pack.
Thought Touhou was hard? Good luck with this shit. This game defines challenge and complexity, mostly due to being unintuitively intricate. In general most ships have infinite lives where deaths and "pains" are merely strikes against your end score. Advanced techniques and endurance are essential for a good end score turnout. The game is still a WIP, but it's playable in its current form.
The dude behind this Flash game (xdanond) is obviously an enthusiast in visual novels and probably Sigma Star Saga, and it shows: on one hand, there is a surprisingly well-written Firefly-style story for a Flash game. On the other hand, he sucessfully mixed RPG elements into shmup mechanics (character leveling, ship upgrades, weapon shopping) without breaking the game. His friend, auriplane, also turns in a fantastic score. The game is long, and you'll be using save feature a lot. It's a fucking shame this is a Flash game.
rRootage
Windows
rRootage, like Warning Forever, is essentially an endless boss rush shoot-em-up. It features 4 different game styles that spice up gameplay, as well as having a fuckton of stages; all you do is pick a game style, and then a stage, and then you play until you die. One of the game modes is basically Ikaruga! A must-play for shmup fans.
Ten minutes. That's it. Self Destruct is a game that only let's you play for ten minutes, then you self destruct. In that ten minutes, you have a fast-paced, over the top shoot 'em up, in which your goal is to rack up as many points as humanly possible. Very addicting. Includes an online score keeper and a leaderboard! Made by the guy behind Don't Look Back.
Journey through a procedurally generated pair of solar systems to collect $50,000 for a disgruntled mob boss. Buy upgrades to make your ship more powerful along the way.
You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada. A fan-made recreation of the arcade seen in the 80s cult classic movie The Last Starfighter (which didn't come out back in the day because Atari got cold feet).
A space adventure game originally released for DOS, It was released as freeware and remade into The Ur-Quan Masters. Features Top-down space combat and exploration. Hard as balls without a wlkthrough.
Remember Tempest? This is Tempest on steroids. You're racing down this tube, sometimes at over 4000km/h blowing shit up. The graphics and music help to put you in the mood too, kind of has the same feel as Rez. It's not a game with a whole lotta depth, but it's fun to play every now and then. Also unlockable In 'Blast Works' for wii.
After the nuclear war, an artificial intelligence from the old regime decides to become the new boss, and it's up to you and your shapeshifting space fighter to free mankind. Fan remake of Sega's Transformers ripoff for the Master System (aka Astro Flash, aka Nuclear Creature).
A Tempest fangame, but this one is a sort of mix of the widely known Tempest 2000 and the far more obscure Tempest 3000. Fun game, with very trippy visuals.
A cutesy looking shmup that's sort of a combination of Katamari Damacy and Einhander. After you kill enemies you can pick them up and use them as a weapon or shield. Made by the same guy that did Torus Trooper. Was also made into a game for the Wii called Blast Works, which it's also unlockable within.
A fan remake of Jeff Minter's Jaguar classic Tempest 2000. Stunning upgraded graphics, fantastic soundtrack (shamelessly cloned from the original game), and the crazy intense action that you expect from any Tempest game. Absolutely must download.
The best DOS shmup ever, with tons of plot, secrets and stuff! After lots of expansions, the creators eventually made it freeware. After being converted to Windows in the form of OpenTyrian, it was picked up by GOG.com, which is the preferable way to acquire it, since it is just install and play!
A unique boss rush shoot 'em up where every level is an increasingly complex boss that learns from the previous boss. Did the previous boss kill you with missiles? In that case, the next boss will shoot more missiles. Each boss is killed the same way: by using your multi-directional aiming to blow up every individual part until all that's left is the core. A very clever twist on the traditional shmup formula, Warning Forever is so good that it's a permanent part of the traveling game exhibition known as Game On.
