F RANK
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I can't argue it being the worst shmup on gameplay, but the stage backgrounds can cause real eye damage and the NSFW bits seem ill-conceived. Deserves to be at the bottom on principle.

F RANK
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The REAL worst shmup; unplayable underwater misery. Amiga gamers were fighting for their lives.

F RANK
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This can't even run on my Genesis, it just locks up on the intro animation. As all these bootlegs go, it's no-name Action 52-tier sludge drawn out to retail game length. Hard pass.

F RANK
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So much effort into this gorgeous rail/tank shooting hybrid gone to waste thanks to bad hit detection and horrible controls. Probably the most miserable experience of the list, and the only one I flat-out didn't finish, even with savestating.

F RANK
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The central conceit of literally raiding enemy bases, infiltrating on-foot and escaping with your comrades is great, but the levels practically copy-and-paste themselves and the hitboxes are some of the worst of any non-bootleg shmup I've ever played. You'll catch damage from bullets that don't even visibly overlap you.

F RANK
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Of all the games to rip off for your dime-a-dozen bootleg, why Dangerous Seed?

F RANK
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Melee weapons with bad hitboxes, bosses that take upwards of 10 minutes to beat if you screw up, ugly Fischer-Price-esque pill-shaded art, mind-numbing music that makes you think something's wrong with your soundchip, - I wish I could find something endearing about this gory display, but it really is that unplayable.

F RANK
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Almost identical in feel to Thunderbolt II and The Earth Defend but the merit of having anime-esque characters and a crazy stupid intro cutscene make this at least somewhat culturally significant.

F RANK
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Maybe it's fine on Amiga; not here. Bad hitboxes, poor weapon balancing, foreground objects obstructing your view and grating sound.

F RANK
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The total antithesis of Silpheed, every assumption of bad western FMV gameplay holds up here, topped off with illegibly-dark backgrounds and bosses that kill you when timed-out.

F RANK
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I hate this. It's ugly, the weapons are too weak for how much firepower they have, the backgrounds totally undermine the otherwise fine object sprite art, etc. It all screams rushjob, there's a reason it's one of the only cartridges on here you can get for pocket change.

F RANK
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"Backloggd user Jenny say the first thing that comes to your mind about Super Thunder Blade"
"stupid"
"thank you"

This game is a big fat meme to my friends and their circles, it's embarrassing to think this is one of only two Japanese launch titles, the other being Space Harrier II. They shot way too high trying to replicate all the architectural vfx from the arcade version when they should've stuck to the reduced style of the Master System and PC-Engine versions (which already have their own problems). Instead, acceleration controls in 10 fps. It's horrible.

F RANK
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It's not done, it runs at 20-ish fps and the enemies at half of that. Unplayable.

F RANK
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Ugly and derivative ripoff of Gradius' theming without the mechanics. Looks like it should be a bootleg.

F RANK
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The epitome of missed potential, this blend of Missile Command's defensive lasers with a purposefully slow-moving ship should be cool, but all the content surrounding it is designed bad and produced worse.

F RANK
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Served as inspiration for the much better Taito masterpiece Rayforce. What's here is a shrill and ameteurish imitation of every other vertical shooter. Art is poor, patterns feel awkward to dodge, bosses have absolutely too much HP, the works.

F RANK
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A sequence of action figure moments, hardly any shmup DNA in here since it autoplays itself except for the times it decides to blindside you. Hope you have fun weaving a giant hitbox between spread bullets.

D RANK
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No real hook or anything to remember, even in a humorous context. It's sad how often I misremember this as a bootleg because of how similar its choppy gameplay is to others.

D RANK
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A fantasy zone bootleg. As with other Genesis bootlegs, the performance is chunky and hitboxes are cheap. Where this one cuts above is the somewhat creative art. It's also pretty feasible to 1CC since every boss dies in 1 hit to the cyclone bomb, and you get to replenish your stock between each fight in the boss rush.

D RANK
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Poorly-produced kusoge jank with an ugly skrunko of an MC. The PC Engine version is better, but better is relative.

D RANK
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Unplayable due to horrible hitbox implementation, think 5 times as bad as Viewpoint. Could've been an underrated classic with all its crazy systems and cool polygonal designs.

D RANK
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A huge drop-off from Musha on every front. Every level feels haphazardly produced, and the scale of the giant mecha bosses is sorely undermined by their rigid animation, claustrophobic attack patterns, and the game's overall impactless sound design. A perfect case study in why the original stands the test of time.

D RANK
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A fan-favorite I really can't get behind, the stages are too riddled with cheapshots for a game with checkpoints as stingy as this. Just a few of its many problems are bosses with obnoxious hitboxes hidden behind limbs and shields, giant octopi robots sniping you from nowhere, poorly-implemented vertical scrolling that can make tight tunnels impossible to get through if an enemy bullet magnetizes itself on it, and a mind-numbing boss rush. Only has the cult following it does because of the circumstances of its release and its larger-than-average scope for the time.

D RANK
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There's this 'evolution' mechanic where your ship gets tiers of transformations and evolutions: you have to keep them active by constantly grabbing more powerups. Sounds cool, but the way you use these weapons hardly changes, so it just feels like a regular shmup but powerups are on a timer. Flavorless.

D RANK
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Totally forgettable, I'd like the blend of air and ground-bombing missions more if the pace changed up more often. Lots of bosses that feel awkward to dodge against without bombs, too.

D RANK
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Unremarkable top-down run-and-gun with sweeping 360 aim just like Forgotten Worlds. Nothing stands out from this except one of the bosses is a gorrila I think.

D RANK
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Produced as a training project for Toaplan's new hires and only turned into a commercial product after the fact. As such, all the stages have great art direction and music to back them up, but the gameplay experience totally hollow. Your grab mechanic is an afterthought and the challenge is all over the place.

D RANK
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Novel humor, only 5 real stages long, most of them don't feel complete and yet it still feels like too long of a game because of how little fat there is to chew. Daiginjou is the full realization of 1's prose.

D RANK
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Typical Midway quarter-muncher, at least the twinstick workshopped solutions are clever and fun.

C RANK
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Like Darius without the multiplexed weapons or variety of locales and enemies that make a Darius game feel complete. It doesn't play terribly admittedly, but there's little to see.

C RANK
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Hitoshi Sakamoto's soundtrack is the selling point. Too easy until you die, and then recovery becomes almost impossible. Shame, because the PC-E-like style of gameplay with a small ship and lots of popcorn has its appeal.

C RANK
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I don't like After Burner and this isn't as good a port as Complete. I guess the music's cool.

C RANK
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Masaya's shmups have a good aesthetic hook but aren't very competent. Some early bullet hell feel from your giant weapon range and complex bullet patterns from bosses. But the first 4 levels here are all too hollow and boring, and then 5 is too hard, and 6 is a grueling bossrush capped off with a horrible fetus boss that only takes damage once every 10 seconds in a microscopic hitbox.

C RANK
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Impressive a pre-rendered game like this can run at all. It's not well optimized as a result, lots of slowdown, lots of enemies with hard hitboxes to dodge, too long and arduous to justify learning. But the pragmatic vibe still shines through the spritework and house soundtrack, and everything looking like a toy makes their deaths that much meatier.

C RANK
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A downright evil port of an already-evil game. This could be hearsay, but if Shmup Junkies and other peeps are to be believed, the enemy AI shoots at the position you're heading towards rather than where you presently are. Pair that with more screen crunch, bosses so tanky they have to be timed-out, and aggressive dive-bombing popcorn enemies for an impossible experience.

C RANK
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Ugly Tonka truck shenanigans. Closest thing on Genesis to a Cabal-like. Its extremely short length makes it easy to loop through. Bosses use melee mechanics that feel like mashed potatoes to deal with.

C RANK
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Very ingenious of Toaplan to make their first hori and immediately come up with a unique mechanic for it, but by the time it got ported, so many other Genesis shooters did the multi-direction aiming shtick better. This feels slow, unforgiving and stinky in comparison,

C RANK
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A cult classic for its high production values and visual flair, But it's just not competently designed. The option formations can only be chosen at the start of the game and there's at least 1 or 2 levels where a different one is totally useless. It could get by on being an easy shmup if its hundreds of little issues didn't amount to such a slow, toothless game. Acceptably neat on the Switch/PS4 port that features R-stick aiming and option-switching, just a novelty in its original form.

C RANK
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A very early hori shmup, the production value is very low but there's freckles of a great game in here. The shot of the space colony crashing into Earth and parting the sea is one of the coolest scenes in a game, shame it happens in a level where you scroll ahead for 5 minutes with like 2 enemies to fight at a time.

C RANK
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A proxy for the 'complete' version on 32X, mostly an objective improvement from the Genesis port of II (which is technically a finished version of I and had an arcade port, unlike Space Harrier II which is a new game altogether and not in arcades). I don't like After Burner, but what's here has lots of control options and rich production value for people who do.

C RANK
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Sinister and demanding of mastery in a way only NES games tend to do, would be more worth the effort if checkpoints and lives were more plentiful. I refuse to practice a final boss like this in a game that sends you to the start of a level after death.

C RANK
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I could never get into Raiden in spite of my best efforts. It tries to be a more pristine alternative to Toaplan's formula but forgets that the jank is what flavors the slow-burn runtime of Toaplan games. Mostly a fine port but the extra level they added to this port is horrible - thank goodness it's an optional post-game thing.

C RANK
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A very infamous game, but it isn't a horrible loop once you get past the misleading boxart and bad framerate. Actually pretty bite-sized and novel. I get a kick out of spamming the option rotator to make a near-invincible death circle.

C RANK
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Has some unconventional cinematic bits for a vertical shmup, otherwise a pretty stock Toaplan-adjacent game, cheapshots and all. The soundtrack only has 1 song and gets really repetitive but that doesn't change much if you're listening to a podcast.

C RANK
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A little clumsy, sounds bad, looks better than Trouble Shooter but still kind of murky, mostly plays fine. The closest the console had to a more 'environmental hazard'-focused shmup until later games like Eliminate Down.

C RANK
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The rawest form of a Thunder Force game, every weapon is some crazy flavor of multi-directional spread and there's a dozen of them. Top-down levels would be very satisfying to master if their layouts and programming weren't so shoddy (why can I suicide my way through all the walls? why can't I stop in place or strafe?), the shmup sections are solid except for the few times they demand pixel-perfect memorization (what's with those closing gates, level 4????).

C RANK
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This port of Truxton has always irritated me, the bosses already disrespect your personal space so much, adding screen crunch on top of that is overkill. I can't see what's flying at me until it's too late. Fine port for most people and definitely a good launch window MD shmup, but not my thing.

C RANK
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I generally dislike Cotton's gameplay but respect the high-spirited visual humor and gorgeous color palette choices. I feel especially so about Panorama, it's impossible to believe a game with so many seamlessly-transitioning super-scaler environments is running on a stock MD with no helper chips, but the actual gameplay is rough. Cotton's signature magic system never felt right, and it feels even more nonsensical here. Probably worth a look but I didn't personally like it.

B RANK
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The less is said about the protagonist the better. Past that, it's solid. I like the options system a lot but would prefer it in a more mechanically-involved game.

B RANK
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Looks horrible and feels impossible to learn if you don't already have the arcade game as a frame of reference. Once you do, it can be tons of fun in spite of that.

B TIER
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It's developed by a Japanese studio but has lots of elements you'd expect in a Euroshmup - slower pace, healthbars, very rigid autofire without any real benefit to point-blanking, all reinforced by the steampunk setting. If you're ready for a REAL sluggish runtime, I'd say it's worth the time investment.

B RANK
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Unlike most super-scaler rail shooters, this one preserves all the original game's content and setpieces at the sacrifice of visual resolution. The end result is still very playable and exciting once you loop it enough to parse what everything's supposed to be, but first impressions are justifiably bad.

B RANK
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Reminds me of Slap Fight flavored a little more like Fire Shark. Simple, consistent rules for enemy behavior make this a well-rounded, bite-sized game.

B RANK
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Astounding waves of bullets at dazzling speeds, the overtuned soundtrack only further exacerbates the feeling of 'breaking through' the console's limitations. Of all the Toaplan ports, this suffers most from screen crunch, it's nearly impossible compared to the already-challenging arcade version.

B RANK

Oddball; the viewpoint and sprite-size shifts from a smaller Xevious style to an up-close traditional style a bit before the halfway point, it has a feeling of excitement like playing two games segwayed into each other ala Sonic 3K or Ys Books 1 & 2. The individual halves could be better, enemies are frustratingly narrow targets in the first half and a little too hard to evade in the second half. Lots of re-used boss fights, too.

B RANK
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Auto-scrolling run and gun of sorts with dedicated shmup sections for the bosses. Could be a lot better, but there aren't a lot of games that blend genres like this and have Westone's art pedigree. A favorite when I was a kid dumping roms onto my atgames.

B RANK
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Succeeds on most fronts but doesn't do any one thing more than exceptionally. Knows how to pace itself well between the fun eye-catching moments and challenging enemy waves. Has a boss near the end with the most vile Taito lasers on God's green earth.

B RANK
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My hot take is Lords doesn't play that great in the first place - ergo this port's neutered difficulty doesn't change the experience that much. You still get the great soundtrack and nonstop dozens of minibosses to mulch in seconds.

B RANK
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I don't wanna be hyperbolic and say this game is ruined by 'one enemy' but dang are these tank enemies pests to deal with. Great game otherwise with a neat alternate campaign.

B RANK
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One of a few earlier euroshmups really worth playing, who doesn't wanna ride around as a bumping little jeep?

B RANK
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The most 'junk food' of the list, it's good but I couldn't give you a lick of why it stands apart.

B RANK
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I'm ill-equipped to judge this since i don't play many or care for Caravan modes in shmups, but it's commendable just as a tech demo. So many sprites on-screen with so little slow-down, but still has the fidelity and polish you'd expect from a fully-released shmup.

B RANK
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The best shmup on this list with bad gameplay. The seamless blend of FMV and pre-rendered sprites needs to be seen to be believed.

B RANK
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I like the shop system and the challenge of routing out the best caches of cash. This isn't the best port though, it's missing levels and feels cheaply assembled. Of the 7 stages here, 2 are set in faux-Egypt and play identically barring their bosses, it's rather jarring.

B RANK
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Does something different every stage but never eschews its solid fundamentals. Has co-op and a great soundtrack. Cheap and poorly balanced in a lot of places but the continues and total lack of checkpointing is a great charity.

A RANK
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I think this is the most well rounded of toaplans slow burn games, little quirks I usually dislike in Toaplan;s works are ironed out or less noticeable here. I tend to think their enemy behavior sobers up when they're not preoccupied with making quirky aliens like in Hellfire or Truxton, but there's still a lot of fun visual flourishes, unlike the more flaccid Twin Cobra or Twin Hawk. And overpowered weapons make the trip back to later levels on replay more digestible.

A RANK
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Puts a spin on the formula by changing up the scenery, enemy behavior and music each level. You know exactly what you're getting, but still manages to surprise. And who doesn't want a Space Invaders where they can get a powerup and erase half the screen? Highly recommended.

A RANK
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Apes Space Harrier's rail-based gameplay, but the introduction of boosting and brakes makes this play more like a ground-bound Star Fox. It's fun to route out the invincibility powerup locations to cheese through the rougher bosses. Unfortunately, despite running smoother than Space Harrier II MD, its hit detection is much more vague and shoddily-implemented. Haphazard design, some cheap mini-bosses and unfun flight sections don't necessarily hold this back to me, but all add up to be annoyances. At some level it feels less shmup and more racer, maybe that's why I'm as forgiving as I am to it.

A RANK
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A little bit of everything done in a big way. Has R-Type-esque pacing with Thunder Force-esque weapons while playing to some Gradius-esque level concepts (even a vertically-looping section in stage 5). Yet even with this mis-mash of elements, they come together well - derivative, but cohesive. A huge breadth of moments and polish that feel very out of place with the console's homelier, lower-budget games. Gruelingly difficult and rather hard to recover after death, never beaten this outside of savestates but would love to someday.

A RANK
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Has Nintendo-esque sensibilities in its introduction and elaboration of stage-specific mechanics - rock-throwing monsters that need to be pushed off cliffs, winged knights that chase you from behind, wrecking balls that ricochet across complex ramp mazes, etc. Everything is too damage-spongey but that just makes it more satisfying to get the charge shot rhythm down.

A RANK
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A janky favorite. One of the most memorization-heavy shmups ever made - the first run through is a constant barrage of the same birds and robots blindsiding you from off-screen. But taking the time to learn this slow-burn game is relaxing and cathartic, thanks to its unique sense of weight, amazing soundtrack and parallax background art, punchy weapons, and extremely forgiving continues.

A RANK
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This 32X port is impressive and the first ''''arcade perfect'''' port (we'll pretend it runs at 60 for sake of argument). I don't personally like this as much as II though, the repetition of bosses kills the feeling of direction. The stage design might be better but isn't as distinct or learnable, very petty differences but they mean a world of difference between a polished shooter where you feeling you're going nowhere and a crusty shooter that feels like a real mission against a great evil.

A RANK
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Not a shmup, but I included it because it has a shmup-like feel. Typical fun friction between Wolfteam's solid fundamentals and jank.

A RANK
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My guilty pleasure. Obviously degraded in performance and smoothness from the arcade original, but feels easier to mathematically track the screen because of that. Approachable difficulty, generous extends, memorable bosses and the melancholic vibe of launch-window Genesis make this is a solid rainy day experience.

A RANK

Like Pocky and Rocky, but I actually like this one more. The lack of a strafe or lock is lamentable but the enemy patterns are all built well around your limitations. You often have to choose between taking time to line up shots against impeding enemies or take a gamble and run right through. Very solid in most respects, barring the mediocre music and one really bad shmup level.

A RANK
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The definitive way to play Darius 1. Truncating from 3 screens to 1 means enemies can easily overwhelm - in turn, your shots replenish faster and aggressive fire is rewarded. Has a ruthless but infinitely replayable edge. Functions in a style that disappeared from the series as it invested further in setpieces, larger enemy variety. You can just chew on pieces of it at a time like an endless Namco game, without feeling bad if you can't make a clear. Still has miserable level design near the endgame of each route though, they weren't thinking at all.

A RANK
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Harsher but more traditionally 'shmuppy' than Super. Weaving through tons of little enemy pellets is a brisk challenge, a very different feeling than the 'larger hitboxes, fewer bullets' approach of Super.

A RANK
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Testimonial MD trendsetter with its constantly moving setpieces, varied and exciting weapons and high replayability. Has that signature Technosoft difficulty weirdness where the whole things super easy except two levels, both of which require heavy memorization. Good besides that though. Im also a fan of the harder modes resetting all your weapons in death instead of just the equipped one: means you might as well always use the one best for the job instead of holding more valuable ones in reserve.

S RANK
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Easy to glance over given how basic it is on the surface, but all the Toaplan fundamentals are there in a great 15-minute runtime, then expanded further in Arrange mode. A great test of hitbox manipulation and evasion made better by simple and consistent rules for enemy behavior.

S RANK
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Technosoft's best 'pure' shmup while furthest away from their usual conventions. Very well-paced levels with tons of moving parts and interesting enemies. The healthbar system unfortunately means there's no carry-over bonus for performing well on the earlier stages, which makes 1CCs less a test of endurance and more a 'will I kill the final boss before he kills me' affair.

S RANK
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Polishes and refocuses the Fantasy Zone loop around the thrill of speedrunning while managing your limited wallet. Gets even better on Hard mode when you have to shotgun your way through impossible fire with Shield and Laser against the clock. Demands and rewards your routing skills.

S RANK
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A perfect rebalancing of II. Your gun has 2 bullets max on-screen but bursts like a firecracker at point-blank range. It's so satisfying finding enemy's open points and rinsing them in 5 seconds. Typical Darius strengths in its painting of the cosmos as deeply mysterious, beautiful, but chillingly terrifying. Love the last stage turning off sound effects during the opening verse of its song, that's some goosebump-inducing work right that.

S RANK
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Similar to TF, the feeling of strategy-like enemy encounters is omnipresent. Has the solid popcorn-y gameplay of usual Compile games, but it feels all the more impactful when you're taking down these ultra-detailed mech soldiers and semi-intelligent bosses. I especially love options management; each formation having varying effectiveness but being more susceptible to crashing and exploding. Using Reverse to pivot them safely in front and behind you gives the opportunity to safely stockpile upwards of 50 before reaching the real challenging stages, where you can unload homing attack justice against giant battleships. More shmups need to reward stockpiling numbered items like this.

S RANK
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If there were any shmup to give non-shmup people, it's this OVA-shaped nugget. The difficulty is super approachable but still tickles with quirky enemy types and behaviors, an 8-way aiming system, letter grades, etc. Every level is super delightful and memorable, made with a kind of wit and lighthearted visual humor that WAY more shmup devs need to study. Needs an Expert mode, I want a real tough-as-nails shooter in this setting with this awesome firepower setup.

S RANK
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Fantastic ambiance, extremely polished, has some very smart decision-making between the ultra-powerful conical charge shot and your aimed support fire. There's no mechanical hook, but the fundamentals of how a hori slow-burn shmup should be experienced are near-perfection. Special props to any game this generous with extends, too. Its only real flaw is the second stage hits you right out of the gate with some seemingly impossible to dodge sniper enemies that eat through your lives, I remember that being a huge demotivator when I first tried this and I can imagine many people having that hurdle too.

S RANK
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Even with its technical hiccups, the power of its game design wins out. The enemy and boss behavior is dependent on your positioning and damage output, creating a fighting game-like relationship between you and bosses that I've only elsewise seen from beatemups or rare gems like Alien Soldier from this time, all compounded with its other feats - amazing weapons, unbelieveable music, a mid-game lap that almost seems to say 'this is the REAL start of the game', - amazing game all-around.