I've had a background knowledge of this series for many years but have never decided to try playing one until this year. Sayonara Umihara Kawase immediately hooked me (pun intended) and I absolutely love its mechanics and general vibe. The 3D graphics in Sayonara are actually better than the sprite art in previous entries imo, it has a very soulful super monkey ball kind of feel.

Just kino survival horror. I'm by no means the first person to say this but Resident Evil (2002) is pretty much the quintessential videogame remake. Staying faithful to the original but improving it with truly timeless visuals and sound design and changes that add depth to the design without taking anything away.

Also includes G-Darius HD from M2 which is what I used to play this. G-Darius is a close to mechanically-perfect shmup with fantastic design and presentation.

I don't even remember how I found out about this obscure arcade adventure from Namco but I'm glad I did. One of the greatest and most obscure games of its era.

Basically to third-person shooters what Half Life 2 was to first-person shooters. Saved the series/genre but also condemned it at the same time if you know what I mean.

Yes, the memes got me to play through MGR. Not my first time playing it tbf (I first played MGR in 2014) but I liked it pretty much the same amount every time.

Genuinely one of the best takes on genre-hybrid rhythm gaming I've seen, and of course the great collection of touhou artworks and arrangements is much appreciated. Also one of the only Touhou secondary work games with an actually good story that respects the characters and source material. Somewhat held back by the game design being a bit too "snowbally" for competitive play through entire song durations. Some songs last for 6 minutes even if most of the time the outcome of the match is decided in the first 20 seconds.

I think I am addicted to this game. Help me.

One of the coolest beat em ups out there despite there being some low points. A game I should play more.

Sasuga Kamiya-sama. The tension holds up well. B route ending/s are insane and feel like they'll go on forever lol

PC-98 era touhou at its finest.

A visceral run and gun shooter with satisfying design. Does a great job at constantly keeping you on your toes.

Still a great game but I didn't like it quite as much as Sayonara. This is a hot take but honestly I think the graphics in Shun are kinda ugly. Really comfy music though.

Blows my socks off. One of the hardest shmups I've ever managed to 1cc.

Fantastic, confident gameplay just about manages to make up for id jumping the shark in tone and writing here.

A charming little puzzle platformer starring one of the more unlikely touhou characters to be a protagonist. Lacks lasting appeal imo but fun while it lasts.

It's so strange that Andro Dunos of all games was chosen to have a sequel 20 years later. Andro Dunos II is just as basic as the original but with much better level design, bosses and game mechanics. ADII shows that generic can still be good when you nail the fundamentals.

The fact that the devs improved so heavily on the first game in just a year is genuinely astounding to me. It's still a flawed game don't get me wrong, but Sakuya's adventure in Koumajou Densetsu II scratches the classic castlevania itch.

Surpassed my expectations. A cute and silly run and gun, I can understand why Kiki Kaikai still has some cultural relevance in Japan to this day.

If the magic circle mechanic was a scoring system in a mainline touhou game it'd probably be my favourite touhou scoring system. It's a lot of fun so a bit of a shame that it's relegated to a spinoff title. There are a lot of good ideas here but the execution could be better. I'm hoping ZUN revisits this concept later.

A rather divisive entry in the RE series due to it starting the trend of the RE series shifting towards prioritising action over traditional survival horror (and that's not to mention the remake). Honestly I liked this even less than RE0 at first but once I learned the game and how to deal with the threat of Nemesis it became a lot more engaging, albeit still weaker than RE2 overall.

Kinda crazy that a random dev team in the middle of Russia showed Croteam how its done. This isn't gonna win anyone who dislikes Serious Sam over but for me it was quite a nostalgic trip for what was once one of my favourite action game series. Shame I don't really like FPSes anymore.

I really respect Team Ladybug for giving it their all in making a relatively-high production value shmup in the year 2022, and it really does look and feel fantastic, but some of the design choices are very questionable. I'm hoping Team Ladybug don't give up on Drainus and continue to improve it through updates.

Blade Runner.

An ambitious mecha-themed shmup that doesn't quite stick the landing. I can tolerate checkpoints in shmups but the checkpoints feel especially brutal in a 10 stage game as long as this.

A smol game with a big heart. Allegedly one of the major inspirations for Zero Ranger.

It's still got a lot of the qualities of REmake, but the two-character system is a bunch of good ideas with less-than-good execution, and there's basically no care put into enemy placement/level design.

Nep as a space harrier clone. Short even for shmup standards and a bit too easy for its own good, but the music and charm is great.

"Why is Elden Ring, the greatest most fantastic most difficult most brilliant most genius most cum inducing open-world game of All Time, towards the lower end?"

Why I'm glad you asked!
https://backloggd.com/u/LobbyDob/review/351460/

Yes, TOP NEP got me to try out an actual neptunia game. It was a bit better than what I was expecting I guess.

It's worth trying out for sure if you're a shmup fan, but Truxton/Tatsujin doesn't even begin to live up to the legendary reputation it has in some retro circles for some reason.

PC-98 era Touhou at its not-so finest. Still decent for ZUN's first actual Touhou game.

SNK's waifu game. It's aight but you pretty much need to play this with two players for the level design to actually work as intended.

Humble beginnings for what would become the most impactful developer in the history of the shmup genre.

Very playable.

I've pretty much decided that this series, while appealing is just inherently not for me at this point. The RNG breaks me.

This fad died pretty quick huh?

Awkward and clunky design. Not awful by any means, but just play the Mega Drive version instead.

Daddy Mulk is an all-time banger. The game itself, is very much not.

The art does a decent job at disguising the fact that Koumajou Densetsu I is kusoge for about 2 minutes. It's silly how this is the one that the devs have decided to re-release on the switch.

No.