The most notable thing about Axelay in my opinion is how "proto-Treasure" it is, as in the company behind beloved games such as Gunstar Heroes, Alien Soldier, and Ikaruga. It's already known that much of the team behind this game would immediately clean house at Konami and move over to Treasure after completing its development, but even without this knowledge it's hard to shake the feel of Treasure's design philosophy off of Axelay. It's in the incredible art direction, the rocky surfaces in stage 3 and their cybernetic underbellies, the jittery stop-motion movement of the stage 2 boss, all the insane technical feats on display, and so on and so forth. It really sits right at home with Treasure's next few years of work down the line, and in my head I sometimes consider it an honorary member of the Treasure catalog. I might actually prefer it over Radiant Silvergun, their next shmup to be released.

Not quite my favorite shmup on the SNES, but it's very close, only being beaten out so far by R-Type III and maybe Space Megaforce. It's worth a look for any fans of the genre and any fans of Treasure's output. It's ruthlessly difficult though, perhaps even moreso than R-Type III, so it'd be best to stay on your toes if you give it a shot.