Shoot ’em Up

Introduction Fire Shark is a vertically scrolling shoot ’em up developed by Toaplan, originally released to Japanese and European arcades in 1989 under the title Same! Same! Same! (literally ‘Shark! Shark! Shark!’), with Romstar handling the North American arcade release. The Sega Genesis conversion was built in-house by Toaplan itself and released in Japan and…

Introduction Super Fantasy Zone is a side-scrolling shoot ’em up developed and published by Sunsoft for the Sega Mega Drive, released in Japan in January 1992 and in Europe the following year, though it never saw an official North American release. Sunsoft came to the project with experience from having developed the Famicom version of…

Introduction Sol-Deace is a horizontally scrolling shoot ’em up developed by Wolf Team and published by Telenet Japan, originally released for the X68000 computer in November 1990 under the name Sol-Feace before reaching the Sega CD in Japan the following year. The Sega Genesis cartridge version, ported and published in North America by Renovation Products…

Introduction Hellfire is a horizontally scrolling shoot ’em up originally conceived by Tatsuya Uemura at Toaplan, developed alongside Truxton as Japanese arcade publisher Taito’s experiment in translating the studio’s vertical-shooter style into a horizontal format, released in 1989 after a famously troubled development cycle. The home version was built separately by NCS Corporation for the…

Introduction Truxton is a vertically scrolling shoot ’em up developed by Toaplan and published by Taito for Japanese and European arcades in October 1988, with Midway handling the North American arcade release. Conceived by Masahiro Yuge around the idea of a memorization-focused scroller, the design team included Naoki Ogiwara, Sanae Nitō, and Yuko Tataka. Sega…

Introduction Gaiares is a horizontally scrolling shoot ’em up developed by Telenet Japan and published by Renovation for the Sega Genesis, released in Japan in December 1990 and in North America the following March. It was primarily the work of just two people, programmer Masayasu Yamamoto and lead designer Kouji Yokota, in what was Yokota’s…

Introduction Thunder Force II is a side-scrolling shoot ’em up developed by Technosoft, first released in Japan in October 1988 for the X68000 home computer before being ported to the Sega Mega Drive a year later. The Mega Drive version launched in Japan, Europe, and the United States, and was one of the six launch…

Introduction Zero Wing is a horizontally scrolling shoot ’em up originally developed by Toaplan and released in Japanese arcades in 1989, headed by development chief Toshiaki Ōta and a team drawn from several earlier Toaplan projects. It was ported to the Sega Mega Drive with a Japanese release in May 1991 and a European release…

Introduction Desert Strike: Return to the Gulf, commonly known as Desert Strike, is a shoot ’em up video game released by Electronic Arts (EA) in February 1992 for Sega’s Mega Drive.[1] The game was later released on several other formats such as the SNES, including a much upgraded version for the Amiga home computer. The…

:DESCRIPTION Battle Mania Daiginjō is the sequel to Trouble Shooter (known in Japan as Battle Mania), for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis gaming systems. It is a cult classic horizontal side-scrolling shoot-’em-up and published by Vic Tokai exclusively for the Sega Mega Drive, released in Japan on December 25, 1993. Unlike the first Battle Mania, which…