30 Essential SNES SHMUPS (From Classics to Overlooked Games)
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Published 2022-11-08
Of all the classic game genres, very few remain as cutting-edge as the automatically scrolling shoot 'em up. While it is true that there are handful of big-name shmup franchises that landed on the Super Nintendo early on that had slowdown, these are actually a minority and the issue can be overblown. However, when you had the right developer, the Super Nintendo was still capable of delivering some fast-paced action.
In reality, the Super Nintendo (and its Japanese counterpart, the Super Famicom) has some top-notch exclusives and a deep bench of respectable shooters that give Sega’s 16-bit shooter lineup a run for its money. Sega’s Genesis might have had the faster CPU to give it that “blast processing” making it more natural for shooter developers to get solid performance, but Super Nintendo programers eventually learned how to optimize their code and creativity to make use of the SNES’s hardware.
In this video we go through the history of Super Nintendo in search of the most extraordinary shooters ever released for Nintendo's 16-bit console, demystifying its bad reputation in this genre and demonstrating that it could compete head to head with consoles specialized in shmups such as the Sega Genesis or the PC Engine.
Intro and Outro Music
Aries Beats "Synthwave Dreams 2020" is provided under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Source: free-songs.de/synthwave-2020/
Games Featured
0:00 Intro
0:26 1990 Gradius III
1:32 1991 Super R-Type
2:04 1991 Darius Twin
2:41 1991 Earth Defense Force
3:27 1991 Thunder Spirits
4:08 1991 U.N. Squadron
5:04 1992 Phalanx
6:00 1992 Flying Hero: Bugyuru no Daibouken
6:37 1992 Imperium
7:43 1992 Space Megaforce
8:24 1992 Strike Gunner STG
9:50 1992 BlaZeon: The Bio-Cyborg Challenge
10:24 1992 Cosmo Gang: The Video
10:55 1992 Firepower 2000
11:28 1992 Acrobat Mission
11:59 1992 Axelay
12:33 1993 R-Type III
13:05 1993 Pop ‘n’ Twinbee
13:42 1993 Tekkaman Blade
14:15 1993 Aero Fighters
14:50 1993 Super Nova
15:24 1993 BioMetal
15:57 1993 Chō Jikū Yōsai Macross: Scrambled Valkyrie
16:30 1993 Star Fox
17:05 1994 Gokujou Parodius
17:43 1994 Märchen Adventure Cotton 100%
18:32 1994 Kaite Tsukutte Asoberu: Dezaemon
19:08 1995 Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius
19:51 1996 Spriggan Powered
20:45 Outro
⚠️ All gameplay recording, game curation and opinions included in this video, as well as editing is completely done by me
Bits & Beats creates videos about the history of video games. In this channel you'll find comparisons, retrospectives, technical analysis, but, mostly, game curations with the idea of having an important task of preserving video games, and make them relevant to society at large.
Curation isn't just about digging up neat games, but it's also about preservation, interpretation, and using one's knowledge to make it relevant to people. With my videos I want older gamers to look back and remember the influence of video games on their lives, and new gamers to understand the larger context of the series they're playing for the first time today.
I put significant time and creative effort into each one of my videos, including research, digging into archives, playing video games and recording hours of footage, selecting specific clips, writing reviews for each title, and making a very careful video editing in the way to transmit both educational and entertaining values to my audience. Every video takes a lot of hours to produce, because I strive to give my audience a consistent, high-quality content.
Fidelity and preservation of the video games is essential in Bits & Beats, so the recordings are made with the highest bitrate quality. It is done this way to preserve original game look and sound through modern footage, with no superfluous additions. I recommend you watch the video at 4K and 60 frames per second to get the best possible viewing experience.
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#BITSANDBEATS #snes #shmups
All Comments (21)
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Though the Sega Genesis was particularly well-known for its shoot-em-ups, these 30 Super Nintendo classics (and overlooked games) were exemplary entries in the genre.
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Axelay was a great SHMUP because it was tailored with the SNES capabilities in mind. They favored level design and hazards over the amount of sprites on screen. That's something most developers didn't bother to do.
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BioMetal was also most known for its soundtrack since it features music by 2 Unlimited. I was huge into techno back then and reading that tidbit on a game article made me want to check the game out. 2 Unlimited also had their sound ripped off by fellow Belgium artists The Immortals for the Mortal Kombat movie theme.
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The presentation on these videos just get better and better.
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Macross may very well be one of the best games on the SNES, and one of those I am deeply sorry we never got overseas. It was a popular import title for years, from what I could tell, and was one of the first SNES games I emulated. Well worth playing.
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I LOVE U.N. Squadron so much! I wish Capcom remembered it exists and do SOMETHING with it.
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Axelay é uma Obra Prima dos 16 bits! Meu Shmup preferido do SNES!!!
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Excelent video! Definitely Axelay was the best example of the power of Super Nintendo in the genre
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I loved Rtype 3 from the minute I started playing it. Everything just seemed great. However, I didn't like the spinning boss room very much. I played it a lot through the years. I loved Super EDF too, it was playable and long with interesting backgrounds!
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Nothing beats Axelay in my opinion.
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I wouldn't consider 'essential' some of the titles of the list, especially Thunder Spirits. But I'm happy of many included games for people to know. I've only missed 'Parodius Da!' as an essential entry. As absolutely essential (but suffering from hellish slowdown) entries, Gradius III and Super R-Type count on recently released hacks that take advantage of SA-1 chip capabilities for fully getting rid of slowdown (transforming them in very different games ;D ). The author (Vitor Vitela) have also released FastRom hacks for Axelay and U.N. Squadron. Incredible and totally recommendable. Also as a curiosity, I'd try the japanese version of BioMetal, whose OST gives a totally different atmosphere to the game. Thanks for this spectacular video and for giving many of the obscure SNES shmups more visibility.
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The Genesis may have the faster shmups - but the SNES has the better looking ones. Both systems have a great selection of very good 16bit shmups to offer!
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There are some excellent shmups in the SNES' library, some can definitely compeed with the Genesis shmup elite. The SNES has amazing music as well, like in Space Megaforce/Super Aleste, Gradius 3, Super R-Type, Rendering Ranger R2 and on and on...
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I just want to mention there are actually no mode7 effects in Axelay! Konami used "just" some clever scanline/HDMA tricks to make the graphics so stunning! Axelay is the best looking 16bit shmup imo, along with the shmup sections of Rendering Ranger R2 and Jim Power.
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6:37 Imperium It has the same music composer from Alien VS Predator for SNES (not to confuse with the Arcade one) Tenpei Sato, specially love the theme "Imperium - Space Fleet"
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I feel that anyone who has been made aware of "cute 'em ups" should know what Cotton is.
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My College years were literally Graduis III, Super R-type, U.N Squadron, Axelay & Star Fox! Some of these other games presented I WISH had been part of my 20s ...
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Love the phalanx cover art 😅👍
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EDF was a 49 cent renal at my local Block Buster Video. I rented that game a lot. That game is a lot of fun. I didn't beat that game until earlier this year.
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Love the filter and scanlines ! Thanks,great games !
