MUSHA is a well-liked Megadrive shooter, made by famed Japanese developer Compile. It is part of the Aleste series, but features a ‘mecha’-suited protagonist fighting against a super computer that has taken over the Earth, rather than a spaceship.
Tag Archives: Bullet Hell
Fighting Hawk, Arcade
A relatively obscure Taito arcade game from 1989*, Fighting Hawk is a vertically-scrolling bullet hell shooter where you fly an A-10 ‘Tankbuster’ up the screen, fighting its way through waves of enemies and bosses.
Fantasy Zone, Arcade
Fantasy Zone is a colourful scrolling shooter from 1986. It was created by Sega and it looks simple and cartoony, but is in fact very challenging.
The main character, Opa-Opa, is sometimes referred to as “Sega‘s first mascot” and is very similar to the one seen in the earlier TwinBee. Both TwinBee and this game have been credited with the creation of the “cute ’em up” genre, and that is probably not too far from the truth.
Cosmic Avenger, Arcade
Cosmic Avenger is a groundbreaking arcade shooter first released in 1981 by Universal. It was one of the first ever side-scrolling shoot ’em ups, and was released the same year as Konami‘s Scramble.
Copta Snatch, Dragon 32
Copta Snatch is a side-scrolling shoot ’em up for the Dragon 32. It was written by D.K. Pridmore and published by Blaby Computer Games of Leicester in 1984.
Delta, Commodore 64
Designed and programmed by Stavros Fasoulas in 1987, Delta is a classic side-scrolling shooter with spaceships, sprites, and fast, furious action.
And: like Fasoulas‘s previous game, Sanxion, it’s also immensely challenging.
Sanxion, Commodore 64
Designed and programmed by Stavros Fasoulas in 1986, Sanxion is a classic side-scrolling C64 shoot ’em that is remembered for being challenging, and for also being a slick piece of coding.
It was also the very first game released by Thalamus, who went on to publish some of the best games in C64 history.
Thunder Blade, Arcade
Thunder Blade is a single-player helicopter combat game that debuted in arcades in 1987, courtesy of Sega. It combines overhead shooting sections with third-person, ‘over-the-shoulder’ shooting sections and it features lots of impressive graphical scaling effects on the buildings and enemies.
Stargate, Arcade
Also known as Defender II, Stargate is the 1981 sequel to Williams Electronics‘ Defender, which was released earlier the same year.
Stargate was designed and programmed by Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar of Vid Kidz, for Williams, and it features the same superfast blasting action as Defender, but with subtle differences.
Mercs, Arcade
Mercs is a classic arcade shooter from 1990. It was jointly developed by Sega and Capcom and features simultaneous three-player cooperative gameplay.
