Sega Genesis' SHMUPs

[richvgs]

Hi everyone.  I'm moving into more focus on the Sega Genesis as I keep hearing about all the SHMUPs the console.  Can anyone recommend some quality or standouts from the pack as I know there are way too many to try and chase down.

[abe]

If you watch any of Lord Karnage's (Mark Bussler's) Classic Game Room reviews on YouTube, Truxton is one that should be forever ingrained into your mind as one of the best Genesis shmups. M.U.S.H.A. is another good one, but it's rather expensive now unfortunately.

[betelgeuse]

Here's some that I enjoyed:

Fire Shark
Gaiares
Thunder Force III
Lightning Force
Whip Rush

[burningdoom]

^ To add to that great list:

-Bio Hazard Battle
-Raiden Trad
-Wings of Wor

[fauxshot]

If you watch any of Lord Karnage's (Mark Bussler's) Classic Game Room reviews on YouTube, Truxton is one that should be forever ingrained into your mind as one of the best Genesis shmups. M.U.S.H.A. is another good one, but it's rather expensive now unfortunately.

I was just thinking of Mark's channel. XD

He reviews a lot of SHMUPs across quite a few consoles, so I would also give him a recommendation if you aren't already watching the channel on YouTube.

[asmodean]

Bio-Hazard Battle
Empire of Steel
Gynoug
Thunder Force IV
Truxton
Robo Aleste (CD)
Silpheed (CD)

[bikingjahuty]

MUSHA
Arrow Flash
Lightening Force
Thunder Force 3
Trouble Shooters
Gaiares
Sagaia
Raiden Trad
Philios

[zenimus]

Gaiares might be my favorite shooter on Genesis. But there's some really great ones that no one's mentioned:

Elemental Master
Awesome music, great graphics, cool fantasy setting. One of the best hidden gems of the system.

Viewpoint
A port of the excellent Neo Geo title, the music in this keeps you moving.

Grind Stormer
Possibly the only game in existence (outside Neo Geo games) that lets you switch to the original Japanese mode if you desire.

[evilnick]

A long-time favorite for me was Forgotten Worlds, which was like a "shmup version of Contra." 

In reality, the game is not particularly good--it has flaws all over the place mostly from being a very early Genesis game, and a Sega-helmed conversion of a Capcom arcade game, but it has it's charm and my brother and I poured countless hours into it when we were kids.  It also has a unique bug that gives you infinite lives--play the game in two-player and literally the only way to get a Game Over is for both players to die or be dead at the same time. 

[stealthrush]

 Forgotten Worlds, Trouble Shooter, M.U.S.H.A. are some of my favorite NA shmup releases.

[thecrypticodor]

Hellfire is an awesome horizontal SHMUP, also one that doesn't seemed to get mentioned all that much. Probably because of it difficulty it's one of the harder SHMUPS on the Genesis.

[yancakes]

Empire of Steel

THIS

Also, it's not quite a "shmup" but you're in a ship and you shoot things up, Subterranea is friggin' amazing in terms of both gameplay and it's got style out the butt.

[maximo310]

A long-time favorite for me was Forgotten Worlds, which was like a "shmup version of Contra." 

In reality, the game is not particularly good--it has flaws all over the place mostly from being a very early Genesis game, and a Sega-helmed conversion of a Capcom arcade game, but it has it's charm and my brother and I poured countless hours into it when we were kids.  It also has a unique bug that gives you infinite lives--play the game in two-player and literally the only way to get a Game Over is for both players to die or be dead at the same time.

I think part of the reason that Forgotten Worlds doesn't hold up as well is that it was the first game on Capcom's CPS System (I) so it's got a lot of setpieces designed to impress the player with the new graphical power of the pcb as part of the game. The Genesis port of the game is alright, although I feel like the difficulty is really uneven in many places, and it doesn't help that the final boss has a 6-laser pattern that is impossible to dodge most of the time.

[dreama1]

Grind stormer is the best shoot em up on the sega genesis I would say. Probably the most graphically impressive shoot em up as well for the genesis. Check that one out.