Sidewinder – by Arcadia – is a well-respected, and quite exciting, vertically-scrolling shooter on the Amiga, first released in 1988 by Mastertronic.
What makes it exciting are the excellent graphics – in particular the explosions, which are beautifully animated – and the rapid fire Bullet Hell action, which is extremely challenging.
This 1992 sequel to the arcade classic Terra Cresta is a PC Engine exclusive – it did not appear in arcades first.
It’s more of a remake than a sequel, but is incredibly varied and a more than worthy successor to Terra Cresta. As far as mainstream ‘Bullet Hell’ shooters go there are few better.
Terra Cresta is the sequel to the classic Moon Cresta and is a beautifully-made, vertically-scrolling shooter with progressive weapons build-up, and challenging ‘Bullet Hell’ action.
It was developed by Nichibutsu and released into arcades in 1985.
Golden Hornet, by Hijong Park, is an excellent ‘modern retro’-style, ‘twin stick’, helicopter-based shoot ’em up, set in a variety of different scrolling levels.
Released into arcades in 1985, TwinBee is a cute, vertically-scrolling shooter that is much more challenging than it looks.
The second game in the infamous Cotton series, developed by Success and released into arcades first, then converted to the Sega Saturn in 1997.
Continue reading Cotton 2: Magical Night Dreams, Sega Saturn
Sega‘s 1991 arcade release, Cotton: Fantastic Night Dreams, is a strange-but-cute side-scrolling shoot ’em up featuring a young witch on a broomstick, called Cotton.
Another conversion, but a very good one. Andrew Braybrook‘s classic horizontally-scrolling shooter, Uridium.
Released by Electric Dreams Software in 1987, Firetrack is a fast vertical shooter, designed and programmed by Nick Pelling (aka Orlando), the guy who made Frak! (among others).
Caliber .50 is an obscure arcade shooter from SETA Corporation, first released in 1989.
It can be played single or simultaneous two-player and is arguably better than the legendary Ikari Warriors. Caliber .50 is like Commando on steroids…
The King of Grabs 