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.
DoDonPachi is a vertically scrolling bullet hell video game developed by Cave and published by Atlus in 1997. It was the second game developed by Cave, and the sixth on Cave's first-generation arcade hardware. As with its predecessor DonPachi, the title is both a Japanese term for expressing the sound of gunfire, and a term that relates to bees.
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 and in the same year in Europe, as well as for the Game Boy Advance in 2001 in Japan on October 26, in Europe on November 23, and in North America on December 27.
Jets'n'Guns is a horizontally scrolling shooter for Microsoft Windows by Czech studio Rake in Grass, It was published in 2004, followed by a version for Mac OS X in April 2006. In December 2006 an expansion, Jets'n'Guns Gold, was released. A port to Linux was developed by Linux Game Publishing. On December 16, 2019, a version was released for Nintendo Switch.
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.
Alpha Mission, known as ASO: Armored Scrum Object in Japan, is a vertically scrolling shooter developed by SNK and released as an arcade video game in 1985 by Namco in Japan and Tradewest in North America. It was later ported to the Famicom in 1986 and released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1987.
Alpha Mission II is a vertically scrolling full screen shoot 'em up released by SNK in 1991 for the Neo Geo arcade and home systems. It is the sequel to the 1985 arcade game Alpha Mission. It was later released for the Neo Geo CD in 1994 and for the PlayStation Portable in 2010.
BlaZeon is a horizontally scrolling shoot 'em up arcade game released by Atlus in 1992 and was ported to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in the same year. The game's most distinguishable feature is that players come equipped with a device that allows them to freeze and control certain robots.
Karous is a vertical-scrolling shooter video game developed by MileStone Inc. for the Sega NAOMI platform and released in Japanese arcades on November 15, 2006. The game was later ported to the Sega Dreamcast, becoming the system's last officially licensed title when it was released in Japan on March 8, 2007.
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.
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.
Crimzon Clover is a vertically scrolling dōjin bullet hell game developed by Yotsubane and released at the 79th Comiket. Its name is a reference to the crimson clover, a species of clover native to Europe. Originally released for Windows on January 11, 2011 in Japan, a NESiCAxLive arcade version was released on April 25, 2013. An updated Windows version, entitled Crimzon Clover: World Ignition was released worldwide on June 6, 2014 via Steam, on December 3, 2014 via GOG.com. Another updated Nintendo Switch version, titled Crimzon Clover World EXplosion, released on October 29, 2020. World EXplosion was later released for Windows via Steam on December 6, 2021, replacing World Ignition on the Steam storefront after December 21, 2021.
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.
Strike Suit Zero is a space flight combat game developed by Born Ready. Strike Suit Zero seeks to revive the space combat genre by introducing "strike mode" as a new element to the dogfight-based gameplay of classic space combat games. Strike Suit Zero takes its inspiration from numerous different franchises, most notably Elite and related franchises: Homeworld, Freelancer, Colony Wars, Star Wars, Gundam, Macross and FreeSpace. The game is built on a proprietary engine. It was released for Microsoft Windows on January 23, 2013, and for OS X and Linux on August 9, 2013.
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 Linux, macOS, Windows, and Apple Arcade on 6 October 2019, Nintendo Switch on 3 November 2022, and the iOS App Store and Android devices on 17 April 2024. Pilgrims was one of the first games distributed through Apple Arcade.
Bomber Crew is a strategic, survival simulation video game developed by Runner Duck and published by Curve Digital. It was released on Microsoft Windows, OS X and Linux on 19 October 2017. It was released for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch on 10 July 2018. A sequel, Space Crew, was released in 2020.
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, and later for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in November. Merge Games distributed the physical copies of the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch versions in November 2019. Amazon Luna version arrived in December 2020. The game's soundtrack was composed by former Celtic Frost guitarist Curt Victor Bryant.
