R-Type is a horizontally scrolling shooter arcade video game developed and released by Irem in 1987 and the first game in the R-Type series. The player controls a star ship, the R-9 "Arrowhead", in its efforts to destroy the Bydo, a powerful alien race bent on wiping out all of mankind. The R-9 can acquire a glowing orbicular device called a "Force", protecting it from enemy fire and providing additional firepower. The arcade version was distributed by Nintendo in North America; it is the last arcade title Nintendo distributed.
Bio-ship Paladin, known in Japan as Space Battleship Gomora, is a 1990 horizontally scrolling shoot 'em up arcade game released by UPL and distributed by Sammy Corporation for North American manufacture. It was later ported to the Sega Mega Drive. While the game is essentially a standard horizontally scrolling shoot 'em up, it has an innovation that makes it unique in the genre. The player flies a spaceship which has the standard forward guns to be found in all horizontal scrollers, but it also possesses a weapon that can be manually targeted with a crosshair, in the same manner as in the game Missile Command. This allows the player to fire in any direction with pinpoint accuracy, and adds an extra level of strategy to the game. The game saw an almost arcade perfect port on the Mega Drive, albeit with a few changes that actually enhanced the look of the game such as added parallax scrolling backgrounds in the second level. It would eventually see a worldwide re-release as part of the Arcade Archives series for Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 on August 5, 2021.
Salamander, retitled Life Force in North America and in the Japanese arcade re-release, is a scrolling shooter arcade video game developed and published by Konami. Released in 1986 as a spin-off of Gradius, Salamander introduced a simplified power-up system, two-player cooperative gameplay and both horizontally and vertically scrolling stages. Some of these later became normal for future Gradius games. In Japanese, the title is written using ateji, which are kanji used for spelling foreign words that has been supplanted in everyday use by katakana. Contra, another game by Konami was also given this treatment, with its title written in Japanese as 魂斗羅.
Fantasy Zone is a 1986 arcade video game by Sega, and the first game in the Fantasy Zone series. It was later ported to a wide variety of consoles, including the Master System. The player controls a sentient spaceship named Opa-Opa who fights an enemy invasion in the titular group of planets. The game contains a number of features atypical of the traditional scrolling shooter. The main character, Opa-Opa, is sometimes referred to as Sega's first mascot character.
Phalanx is a 1991 horizontally scrolling shooter developed by ZOOM Inc. and Kemco for the Sharp X68000, Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Game Boy Advance. The game was released for the X68000 in Japan in 1991, for the SNES in Japan on August 7, 1992, in North America in October 1992 and in the same year in Europe, as well as for the Game Boy Advance in Japan on October 26, 2001, in Europe on November 23, 2001 and in North America on December 27, 2001.
Jets'n'Guns is a 2004 2D horizontally scrolling shooter for Microsoft Windows by Czech studio Rake in Grass. In April 2006, a version for Mac OS X was released. In December 2006 an expansion, Jets'n'Guns Gold, was released. A version for Linux has been developed by Linux Game Publishing. A sequel, Jets'n'Guns 2, was available in early access, and released on 25 July 2020.
R-Type II is a horizontally scrolling shooter developed and published by Irem. It was released in arcades in 1989. It is the sequel to R-Type, and the second game in the R-Type series.
Raiden II is a 1993 vertical scrolling shooter arcade game that was developed by Seibu Kaihatsu. It was the second game in the Raiden series of vertical scrolling shooter arcade games that started with Raiden.
Nicktoons Unite! is a 2005 video game featuring characters and levels from The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, The Fairly OddParents, Danny Phantom, and SpongeBob SquarePants. In the game, the player can control four Nicktoons characters as they work together to stop an evil plan concocted by villains from each character's series.
TwinBee is a vertically scrolling shooter released by Konami as an arcade video game in 1985 in Japan. Along with Sega's Fantasy Zone, released a year later, TwinBee is credited as an early archetype of the "cute 'em up" type in its genre. It was the first game to run on Konami's Bubble System hardware. TwinBee was ported to the Family Computer and MSX in 1986 and has been included in numerous compilations released in later years. The original arcade game was released outside Japan for the first time in the Nintendo DS compilation Konami Classics Series: Arcade Hits. A mobile phone version was released for i-mode Japan phones in 2003 with edited graphics.
Section Z is a horizontally scrolling shooter by Capcom, released as an arcade video game in 1985. A home version was published for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1987.
Burai Fighter is a shoot 'em up video game developed by KID for the Nintendo Entertainment System. The game was released in North America by Taxan in March 1990, Europe by Nintendo and Australia by Mattel in 1990, and Japan by Taito on July 20, 1990. The game was also ported to the Game Boy and retitled as Burai Fighter Deluxe, and was released in Japan on June 27, 1990, in North America in January 1991 and in Europe in 1991; this port eventually wound up on the Game Boy Color as Space Marauder, originally released in Japan as Burai Fighter Color, as the original Game Boy version is not compatible with the later models.
Destination Earthstar is a futuristic, first-person and side-scrolling, space shooter game developed by Imagineering and published by Acclaim for the Nintendo Entertainment System.
Zed Blade is a horizontally scrolling shooter arcade video game developed by NMK and originally published by SNK on September 13, 1994. It is the only game created by NMK for the Neo Geo arcade platform. In a science fiction setting, players choose one of three characters to attempt to overthrow an army of enemies led by the on-board supercomputer at the automated Yggdrasil space station and seize full control of it once again.
Dariusburst is a horizontal scrolling shooter developed by Pyramid and published by Taito. Forming part of the Darius series, it was released for the PlayStation Portable on December 24, 2009. Like previous Darius games, Dariusburst is an offbeat sci-fi shooter set in outer space with aquatic-themed robotic enemies. In keeping with tradition, the game also features branching paths instead of the linear progression found in most games of the genre. There are a total of 11 zones in the game, with 5 stages per run.
Contra III: The Alien Wars is a 1992 run and gun video game developed and published by Konami for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). It is the third home console entry in the Contra series after Contra (1988) and Super C (1990) for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). In PAL regions, it was retitled Super Probotector: Alien Rebels and the player characters were replaced with robots. The player is tasked with fighting off an alien invasion of Earth across six stages. Four stages feature side-scrolling action traditional to the series while two are presented from an overhead perspective. It is the first Contra title to have been directed by Nobuya Nakazato who later directed other games in the series. He designed Contra III to feature more comical elements, a more cinematic soundtrack, and tighter stage design than its predecessors.
Contra: Rogue Corps is a run and gun twin-stick shooter in the Contra series developed by Toylogic and published by Konami. It was released on September 24, 2019 for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One.
Pilgrims is a graphic adventure game developed and published by Amanita Design. The game was released for Windows, Linux, and iOS on 6 October 2019, and Nintendo Switch on 3 November 2022. Pilgrims was one of the first games distributed through Apple Arcade.
Valfaris is a 2D action platforming game developed by Steel Mantis and published by Big Sugar. The game was released for Windows and Nintendo Switch on October 10, 2019. It was later released on November 5 for PlayStation 4 and November 8 for Xbox One. Merge Games distributed the physical copies of the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch versions. They were announced in August 2021 and were released in November. The game's soundtrack was composed by former Celtic Frost guitarist Curt Victor Bryant.
Dark Devotion is a 2019 action role-playing game developed by Hibernian Workshop and published by The Arcade Crew. It was released for Windows, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch. Development started in 2015, with a successful Kickstarter campaign being launched two years later.
