Presented by Marurun, Racketboy, and BulletMagnet

While the TurboGrafx-16 struggled to find its place in the American video game market, its Japanese counterpart, the PC Engine, managed some solid success battling Nintendo and Sega. Despite a modest lineup of exclusive successes in other genres, the PC Engine / TG16 is one of the very best shooter systems of all time — especially for the era in which it was built. Before the Saturn and Playstation, you would be hard-pressed to get close to this superior lineup of shooters on any other platform. Even many of the hidden gems of the PC Engine’s lineup would be strong competition against the likes of the Sega Megadrive/Genesis and Super Famicom/SNES lineups.

The TG16 hardware managed to handle a vast array of shmups largely without slowdown while providing some fantastic visuals. The platform also had the financial backing of electronics giant NEC and massive software support from Hudson, the designers of the system’s core. NEC Avenue (NEC’s software division) was responsible for a large number of arcade ports and Hudson developed or published many of the best exclusives on this list, and both companies knew the hardware inside and out.

This guide will cover all the 2D shooters that can be found in all the variations of the PC Engine/TurboGrafx hardware family. We will make distinctions about which format each game utilizes. It’s also worth noting that if you see “PC Engine” in the format listing without a “Turbo” counterpart, the game was only released in Japan.

Because of the grand scale of the PC Engine shooter library and the detail of the discussion we shared, we decided to break this guide into two parts. This first part will cover console-exclusive shooters, most of which are exclusives to the PC Engine and TurboGrafx-16 platforms (and those modern platforms that sell TG16 game downloads). In the near future, we will share Part 2, which will focus on arcade ports. While most of the arcade titles also received ports on other consoles, the PC Engine/TG16 frequently had superior ports, and even in cases where it did not the ports are still worth a look. If you would like an early preview of the Arcade Port guide, check out the Racketboy Patreon page. All 8-bit Level and higher Patrons will get access to the early draft next week.

Shmups 101 | Beginner Shmups | Defining Shmups | Hidden Gem Shmups

Shmup Libraries: Genesis/Megadrive | PS1 | Saturn | Dreamcast | PS2 | Gamecube | GBA

Blazing Lazers / Gunhed

1989
Developer: Compile
Publisher: Hudson/NEC
PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16

If there is one shmup that stands as a solid introduction to shooters on the Turbografx–16, Blazing Lazers is arguably a front-runner. Much like Super Mario Bros was an influential innovator for both the NES and the platforming genre, Blazing Lazers had similar influence over the TG16 landscape and the expansive Shmup library that developed in its wake.

Hudson originally published this early title in Japan as Gunhed, serving as a tie-in with a movie of the same name. Gunhed was the first PC Engine title to be part of Hudson’s annual Caravan Shooting competition. It was also one of the launch titles for the TurboGrafx–16 in the US after being retitled Blazing Lazers for its Western release.

The legendary studio Compile developed this title for Hudson, and it shows. While the game is short on special effects like parallax scrolling and warping, the game is graphically attractive. Blazing Lazers also features some great sound effects and catchy tunes to round out the audio/visual experience. With a sweet balance of graphics performance, the game also manages to push a lot of enemies and weaponry around on the screen at once with no slowdown.

Blazing Lazers’s weapon system is a lot of fun to play with, featuring four main Weapons and four secondary weapons that can be combined with varied effects. Some secondary weapons behave differently when paired with different main weapons, leading to unique, but subtle results. Powering up your weapons involves collecting additional power-up icons of your current weapons or collecting orbs from defeated enemies. Powering up also gives your ship a small amount of shielding. When you get hit, your power-ups get downgraded instead of outright blowing you up, at least until your shielding is depleted.

Unlike R-type or Gradius, Blazing Lazers was developed with the home console in mind and not the arcades, allowing Compile to take certain liberties to make it a gateway drug into the genre. Blazing Lazers seems a bit slow at first but gets hectic deceptively fast. At the same time, it empowers new players by giving you a seemingly overpowered craft to make you feel on top of the world before turning up the difficulty. Once the challenge arrives, it is fair and never gets so hard as to inspire hurled controllers.

In addition, players can adjust ship speed with the select button and there are many continues at your disposal. When you die, normally you respawn at a checkpoint earlier in the level, but if you collect a glowing orb the next extra ship you have stocked will turn gold and you can respawn in-place.

With it being an early entry on the TurboGrafx, it does have some weaknesses. The flow of the game can be a bit inconsistent — bouncing between rushes of excitement and stretches of more boring areas. However, Blazing Lazers is still a great introduction to the TurboGrafx–16 and to the modern console shooter as well. It holds up quite well with the years.

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Gate of Thunder

1992
Developer: Red Company
Publisher: Hudson/TTi
PC Engine SuperCD/TurboGrafx-16 SuperCD

With the Sega Genesis/Megadrive coming onto the scene, the TG16 was starting to feel pressure from Sega’s arcade-heavy lineup. Gate of Thunder arrived in time to give the Turbografx a temporary shot in the arm and rivaled (and resembled) Thunderforce IV on Sega’s 16-bit platform. Gate of Thunder was the title that demonstrated to the US gaming press what the little TG16 that could was capable of.

The CD soundtrack by Nick Wood is some of the best shooting rock/metal ever paired with a game (level 3 has an awesome disco/metal lead-in.) The only disappointment is a problem common to TurboCD games in that the soundtrack is rather muted compared to the sound effects.

The visuals are well-crafted and colorful and the game features lots of parallax scrolling, some scaling effects, beautiful scenery, a constant flood of ships and missiles, and some very large and imposing bosses. Level design is fairly standard for the most part, though some levels feature interactive stage hazards.

Gate of Thunder’s gameplay is strategic and resembles Thunder Force with a twist. You collect three weapons which you can power up and switch between at any time. You can collect missiles, a shield, and obligatory mini-ship options that fly a set distance above and below your ship and augment your firepower. You can also adjust your ship speed. Once a particular weapon or sub-weapon is fully powered, subsequent pick-ups will clear the screen with a wave of energy. Where the game diverges is by allowing you to turn your options around to face behind you. Most of the game’s action is in front of your ship, but the game isn’t shy about bringing enemies up behind you, and being quick to adjust not only your speed and active weapon but also your “options’” facing is very important. The comparisons to Thunderforce are apt. Former Technosoft staff were involved with both Gate of Thunder and Lords of Thunder.

The game isn’t particularly difficult and is thus pretty accessible for more casual shooter fans. That’s not to say it’s easy, though. It took me several plays to eventually get to the end of the game and put the final boss to rest.

Gate of Thunder also happened to be the first Super CD game released in North America. While the Japanese version was released as a standalone game, in the US, it was put on a multi-game CD with Bonk’s Adventure, Bonk’s Revenge, and Bomberman (via hidden code) and was bundled with the Turbo Duo and the Super System 3.0 Card. For shooter fans, this was a great incentive as the game is easily good enough to stand on its own feet.

Gate of Thunder is one of those games that’s hard to find fault with. It’s good all around and stands as not only one of the best shooters in the Turbo library, but also as one of the best-crafted shooters of all time.

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Lords of Thunder

1993
Developer: Red Company/Hudson Soft
Publisher: Hudson/TTi
PC Engine SuperCD/TurboGrafx-16 SuperCD

Lords of Thunder is the unofficial sequel to Gate of Thunder. I say unofficial because it really has nothing to do with the original except for Red, Hudson, and the Technosoft expats teaming up again, a similar name and a heaping dose of kick-ass goodness.

Unlike many shooters, in this game you are a single warrior in battle armor rather than a ship. When you get close to enemies, you swing your sword instead of shooting. Enemies have a fantastical theme rather than a technological one; enemy soldiers fire crossbows at you, and monsters breathe fire or hurl spines. You have 4 weapons in the form of elemental armors (Fire, Water, Wind, and Earth). The Wind Armor sends out lightning bolts that pierce through multiple enemies. The Earth Armor launches bombs toward the ground. The Fire Armor projects arcs of flame and the Water Armor washes enemies away with waves of flying surf. Each armor is suited to different styles of play, and players will likely find an armor that fits their personal preference.

You choose your armor at the beginning of each stage and visit a shop to buy power and health with crystals collected from defeated foes. The shop adds a fun and strategic element that really rounds out the experience. Getting hurt lowers your firepower, but there are a few life and shot power-ups available in levels for defeating key enemies.

The game is a graphical tour-de-force, displaying some of the best sprite and background graphics on the system. Lords of Thunder shows superior visual variety and better graphic design than its predecessor, Gate of Thunder.

The music is heavy metal and very raw, though it suffers from awkward dynamic compression, meaning louder sections of the music are toned down a bit (and quieter sections turned up) to keep volume normalized. The problem is that these transitions are rather pronounced and noticeable, and not at all subtle. However, the music does seem more balanced with the sound effects than the muted music in Gate of Thunder.

The game is also extremely difficult. Enemies, projectiles, and environmental hazards are used to put you in corners and force you to tap into intense focus and reflexes. One hit doesn’t knock you out, but instead drops your health and weapon meters and as a result can also power down your offensive abilities. Alternatively, if you fly a clean run and gather the floating power-ups left behind by fallen foes, you can make yourself more powerful and upgrade your Armor’s power.

Lords of Thunder was also ported to the Sega CD, but the graphics and challenge took a hit and the music was re-recorded. The re-recording smooths some of the awkward volume normalization, but it sounds a lot less raw and virtuoso than the original. The Sega CD port served only to give the few remaining TurboDuo owners opportunity to brag.

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Super Star Soldier

1990
Developer: Interstate/Kaneko
Publisher: Hudson
PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16

Hudson had a good thing going when they released Star Soldier on the NES way back in 1986. Part of Star Soldier was modified and taken on the road for Hudson’s “Caravan Festival”, an event where Hudson demoed upcoming games and arranged competitions where eager gamers played through small snippets of Hudson’s latest shmup in order to have the highest score. One of the more interesting aspects to Hudson’s TG16 shooters is the inclusion of a “Caravan Mode”, allowing gamers to bring the time attack to their home. The first title to do so? Super Star Soldier.

What set the Star Soldier series apart from other shmups of the era was the customizable weapon system. Powering Up in Super Star Soldier revolves around collecting and stacking individual medals on top of each other to increase a weapon’s ability. Medals differ by color, and each weapon has its own strengths and weaknesses. Regardless of the type of weapon, they all cause massive destruction when fully powered. Your success depends on your ability to stay calm and your strategy in managing your weapon upgrades. Four varieties of blaster are available, including a basic rapid-fire gun, a flamethrower, a lightning shooter and a rippling spreader. Collecting colored orbs activates one of the four, and grabbing more of the same color increases its power.

Your powered-up weapons act a bit as health bar: each upgrade acts as a virtual health increase and then essential decreases in power and ship health after each hit. One hit at default strength and you lose a life.

Secondary weapons are also available in the shape of homing missiles or rotating shields option, each with three upgrade levels each. The options placement can be adjusted on the first level and then begin to rotate once upgraded. The options don’t add firepower, but they the can inflict damage to opponent in addition to offering protection to your ship.

SSS was fairly impressive in 1990. Scalable sprites, solid music, and very fast gameplay made it worthy of its tournament roots. However, SSS is ridiculously difficult, and some levels don’t feel well-balanced. There are no checkpoints; dying will start you right at the beginning of the level. Dying isn’t so dire in the game’s other modes, included in the title specifically for Japan’s competitive festivals. They’re 2 Minute and 5 Minute time attacks called Caravan Mode, and they’re races against the clock to see how high a score you can rack up in a limited amount of time. You can die as many times as you want and the timer will still keep ticking, though you probably won’t be posting much of a lofty number if you’re wasting time with respawns.

If you can suck it up and power through the game’s challenges, you will find that Super Star Soldier ages fairly well for its 1990 vintage. But as we’ll see Hudson was just getting started with this series on the PC Engine.

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Final Soldier

1991
Developer: Hudson
Publisher: Hudson
PC Engine

Final Soldier was intended to be Hudson’s final addition to the Star Soldier franchise. Super Star Soldier’s weapon system is carried over, however, this time the player is given the option to choose how each weapon is fired before each level. For example, you configure your Laser to Short, which fires several lasers in a group, Spear, which fires one large laser blast, or Bubble which, predictably, causes your ship to toss out large blue bubbles that take down enemy ships. This approach is an interesting addition, and one that’s more similar to the weapon select screen seen at the beginning of Gradius III than it is to any of the other Star Soldier titles. Definitely a positive bonus to the game’s depth and replayability.

The weapons still can be upgraded up to three levels and those levels still act as a health bar, degrading as you take hits. Missiles and and shield options still are available as auxiliary weapons, but this time you have the ability to sacrifice one of your options into a devastating bomb that is great to clear out weapons or give a more destructive blow to bosses. These option bombs are one of the more significant artillery changes in this sequel.

Cosmetically, Final Soldier is almost on par with the earlier Super Star Soldier. Final Soldier just doesn’t attempt the same huge graphical feats, and even loses the cool sprite scaling seen in Super Star Soldier. There is still lot of detail in the backdrops and the PC Engine’s large color palette is put to good use. The bosses, while nicely detailed, aren’t as large as some other PC Engine shooters.

However, unlike the previous title, Final Soldier is nowhere near as difficult and allows gamers to respawn where they die instead of at the beginning of the level. The control in Final Soldier is extremely responsive and you can even adjust the movement speed of your ship to tailor it to your personal preference. But as with any game in the Star Soldier series, don’t expect to breeze through the game, because it’s still tough in places, especially in the later levels.

Sadly, Final Soldier was never released in the United States despite both its predecessor and later sequel being released on the Turbografx–16.

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Soldier Blade

1992
Developer: Hudson
Publisher: Hudson
PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16

The third Star Soldier game for the PC Engine/TurboGrafx showed a great deal of refinement and lessons learned from Hudson and makes for a grand flagship title for the platform. The graphics have been ramped up, and the difficulty, while not excessive, was a good mix between Super Star Soldier and Final Soldier. Star Soldier’s trademark weapon system is again expounded upon in Soldier Blade, this time allowing stacked powerups to be used as smart bombs. Also, when the first power-up is collected, a neighboring ship (similar to the “option” in Gradius) swoops in and adds to your firepower while also blocking incoming fire.

One especially cool addition to Soldier Blade’s weapon system is the way it handles your power-ups and using them for special attacks. The the bottom right corner of the screen, you can see the last three power-up colors/types you collected. You can sacrifice your current power-up to unleash a special attack that is specific to that power-up type. You also granted invincibility while the special attack is playing out and you resume with the next power-up in line once it is completed. This mechanic is quite interesting and adds a new area of strategy to build while playing.

If you’ve played any of the other Star Soldier games, then you will know what else to expect with this title. It retains the gameplay of the series and streamlines it in a few places. It’s a definite upgrade graphically from the previous two titles with some seriously impressive visuals for 1992 and the frame rate never slows down. All sound channels are used to their maximum effect and there’s even a killer voice sample after you encounter your first boss.

From a gameplay perspective, there a handful of other ways that Soldier Blade stands out from other shooter. There are no one hit kills, little memorization, gratuitous power-ups, bountiful extra lives, and infinite continues.

The mechanized enemies in Soldier Blade can also be dismantled piece by piece and their subsequent attacks and patterns are affected accordingly. Aside from the pleasure of literally ripping the boss apart and seeing its attack change, it gives boss fights a cool sense of progression and replayability.

Levels show great refinement and spectacular design. There are no walls to crash into or places where bullets are hard to distinguish from a busy background. Everything is straightforward with no attempt to frustrate or otherwise cheaply end the player’s experience. Being a late Turbografx–16 game, its technical presentation is superb for its time.

Unlike Final Soldier, Soldier Blade did see a North American release. This isn’t surprising, however when you consider that Hudson and had fine-tuned their formula and produced a shmup that is not only a technical masterpiece of gameplay, visuals, and audio, but it is also a fine mid-point of difficulty that makes it accessible but challenging for those looking to dive deeper into the genre.

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Air Zonk / PC Denjin

1992
Developer: Red Company/Naxat Soft
Publisher: Hudson
PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16

In 1992, Hudson and the TG16 were struggling from a business standpoint. Nintendo and Sega had locked horns over the top spot in the market, the Super NES and Sonic the Hedgehog having both been released just the year before. Hudson needed to update their own mascot, Bonk, and fully bring him to the 1990s. Thus was born Zonk, and a new shooter title in the TurboGrafx’s library was created.

With transitioning a mascot franchise to a shmup, Hudson needed to make it something that had mainstream appeal and a “cool” take on the “cute-em up” approach seemed to fit well. Air Zonk was built on the bones of another impressive cute-em-up: Coryoon (see below). Hudson took Naxat’s Coryoon engine (and some of the staffers responsible for it) and built Air Zonk with it. The humorous and cartoony angle from the Bonk series successfully makes the translation with the genre shift. Zonk (who is a futuristic descendant of Bonk) battles sentient piles of trash with a zany variety of weapons and collects floating smiley faces for extra points, and acquires one of ten different “Friends” to combine with for extra weaponry.

The creative variety of weapon pickups allows you to swap between machine guns, spread guns, and homing missiles that resemble the oversized lightning bolts, chomping mouths, and disembodied fists found in the Bonk platform games. You can charge weapons to unleash stronger attacks. These upgraded weapons also act like a shield of sorts. If you get hit while using one, you’ll lose the weapon but not a life.

The Friends system works similar to “options” from Gradius — they follow you around and fire their own weapons. They can only take so many hits, however, before going down in a trail of smoke, so you can’t use them as a shield and expect to keep them around. If you collect a large smiley face while already accompanied by a friend, Zonk and the friend will merge and form a hybrid with extra firepower and temporary indestructibility. Collecting a giant smiley with Bob the Baseball morphs Zonk into a Major League pitcher. Even more impressive is Moo Moo, a legless, giant-uddered cow which grants Zonk the ability to disperse enemies with explosive bottles of milk. The combination of the “Friends” system and the interesting weapons selection makes for an innovative shooting experience.

The graphics and sound are quite good with some nice use of parallax scrolling and special effects. The music is also quite catchy. The biggest drawback here is the challenge level. Like Red’s Gate of Thunder, the game is fairly easy as shooters go, making it more accessible for new players. It isn’t a total pushover, however, and you will need to learn how to use the various weapons and systems at your disposal. Thanks to accessible difficulty and a great audio-visual presentation, Air Zonk is one of the defining games for the TurboGrafx system, with Zonk himself becoming the mascot for the TurboDuo. It’s certainly not one to miss for TG16 fans or shmup players.

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Super Air Zonk: Rockabilly-Paradise

1993
Developer: Dual
Publisher: Hudson
PC Engine SuperCD/TurboGrafx SuperCD

A year after the “re-imagining” of Bonk into Zonk comes a sequel to Air Zonk, Super Air Zonk: Rockabilly-Paradise. Not much has changed gameplay wise save for slightly cosmetic changes. Super Air Zonk features new weapons and new friends, but takes a step back in the graphics department. Even though Super Air Zonk requires the Super-CD BIOS, in many ways, the game is graphically inferior to Air Zonk. Overall, Super Air Zonk is slower and features less parallax scrolling — on the bright side, its easier to keep track of movements on the screen with these adjustments.

What Super Air Zonk lacked in overall polish and presentation it almost makes up for in it’s soundtrack. The soundtrack is still MIDI created music, but it’s all crystal clear Red Book Audio with some kicking Rockabilly tunes. Super Air Zonk definitely has one of the best soundtracks for a game released in the early 90’s.

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Seirei Senshi Spriggan

1991
Developer: Compile
Publisher: Naxat Soft
PC-Engine CD

For those that are fans of Compile’s Aleste series, including MUSHA (Sega Genesis/Megadrive), Robo Aleste (Sega CD), and Super Aleste/Space Megaforce (SNES), Seirei Senshi Spriggan should bring welcome familiarity. Seirei Senshi Spriggan is staged in a fantasy world that mingles traditional sci-fi elements with a feudal Japan setting. It shares the same giant robot theme as MUSHA and Robo Aleste and features spectacular art direction.

“Seirei Senshi” translates to “elemental warrior” and this theme comes into play with the weapons at the player’s disposal. Four types of colored orbs corresponding to fire, water, earth, and wind are dropped by some defeated enemies and grant a corresponding elemental attack when collected. You can hold up to three orbs at once, and your weapon is determined by the resulting elemental combination. Instead of the four or five weapons most 16-bit shooters provide, Spriggan offers an arsenal of over twenty, acquired through an inventive mix-and-match system that not only surpassed Gunstar Heroes’ similar concept, but predated it by two years.

You can sacrifice orbs to use as bombs, but you suffer a corresponding loss in firepower as a result. In addition to the elemental orbs there are also flashing orbs, which not only destroy everything on the screen when captured, but also grant you a shield. As you can imagine, this orb mechanic can add quite a bit of strategy that lets you optimize your performance and score.

The difficulty level in Seirei Senshi Spriggan isn’t quite as severe as most other Compile shooters. The game’s hit detection is extremely generous allowing you to brush up against the largest enemies without taking a hit. All of the game’s weapons are overpowered and while some enemies can soak up damage most will go down in a few hits. Weapon drops are so frequent you can even spam bombs continuously since another item will appear in less than 10 seconds to replace it. This setup makes it friendly for the less-experienced shmup fan.

Even though the game is welcoming to beginners, it was also part of Japan’s Summer Carnival competition and includes a two-minute score attack mode that tests your weapon selection and management skills against wave after wave of intense opposition. Due to its difficulty and depth of play, this may be one of the greatest scoring trials ever created.

Overall, Spriggan stands out as a gem in the PC Engine library due to its setting, pacing, and awesome weapons system. Even though experienced players will complete the game in short order it still remains fun and replayable since the challenge isn’t unsurmountable.

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Alzadick/Summer Carnival ’92: Alzadick

1992
Developer: Naxat Soft
Publisher: Naxat Soft
PC-Engine CD

Alzadick was a game developed and published by Naxat Soft for NEC’s Summer Carnival competition series. Alzadick is less a full, standalone game than it is a short score-based shmup á la Caravan mode in Hudson’s “Soldier” shmup series. Alzadick features the fairly standard system of having different weapon types using differently numbered powerups, and you powerup a certain weapon by collecting more of that type of powerup.

The biggest flaw Alzadick has is that there just isn’t a whole lot of content. There’s technically a story mode, but it’s essentially just the score attack with some barebones Japanese text to slap a skeletal story on top of it; it doesn’t really add anything.

To Alzadick’s credit, though, it is a fabulous looking and sounding game. Graphics are fantastic for the system with some great parallax effects and smooth play absent of any big slowdowns – something that not all shmups of the time could boast. While the sound certainly doesn’t stand up to some of the truly outstanding soundtracks that other PC-Engine CD releases featured, the music is clear and competent with satisfying pew-pew laser effects.

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Nexzr/Summer Carnival ’93: Nexzr Special

1992/1993
Developer: Interstate/Kaneko
Publisher: Naxat Soft
PC Engine SuperCD

Nexzr is another of Kaneko’s contributions to the annual shooting competitions, now called Summer Carnival instead of Caravan Shooting. Whether this game is a port of the mysterious, yet-unemulated arcade game of the same name is unknown. What is known is this PC Engine game is good stuff. Continuing the trend of Shooting Caravan games, this title is colorful and graphically impressive, makes use of some nice visual effects, and has a great soundtrack to boot. The sound effects are also fantastic. Those that enjoy Blazing Lazers and Super Star Solider should feel at home with this gem.

Nexzr‘s weapon system is a bit more traditional but the weapons themselves are excellent tools of mass destruction. In fact, in Nexzr, you only use one button to shoot two weapons at once. There are no bombs, selectable weapons, or adjustable speeds to be found here. For your primary weapon you can choose a solid shot or a weaker 3-way spread shot. Secondary weapons include a homing laser, two spread lasers, and automated satellites that will patrol and attack incoming enemies. That single button shot will mostly handle your primary weapon and the secondaries fire occasionally. To a casual observer, the weapons system may seem a bit weak, but it forces you to think carefully about your actions and work the game like a simple, but powerful tool.

The pixel art throughout Nexzr is crisp and filled with subtle details and fluid animations. Enemy ships often arrive in waves and robots show off impressive morphing and zooming effects. Even relatively simple items like explosions and the homing missiles are meticulously animated.

Battle action within Nexzr is fast and diverse and the stage layout is exquisite. Even though the game relies on checkpoints instead of instant respawn, the game is not super-hard and is thus more accessible to casual shmuppers. With the fine design on your side, you’ll find yourself pushing to keep improving. If you want a real challenge, however, hard mode is pretty brutal and “Hidee ze” (translated from Japanese as “So Cruel”) mode is the next step for those wanting pain.

Nexzr’s overall gameplay and presentation is so finely polished, you can tell it was crafted with care by true enthusiasts of the genre and the game has a signature personality that stands out from its peers. It is one of the best and often overlooked love letters to the genre to be found in the PC Engine library.

The game was released again later as Summer Carnival ’93: Nexzr Special with the extra Carnival modes included so you can play against the clock for high scores.

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Magical Chase

1993
Developer: Quest
Publisher: PalSoft/NEC
PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16

Magical Chase was developed by Quest, the team of Ogre Battle/Tactics Ogre and Final Fantasy Tactics fame. The game took two years to make it to the US but saw some graphical changes in the process. It was a limited release in the US, being one of the later games to come out for the Turbo, and thus it is a very expensive title to acquire. Even the Japanese version has shot up in value in response to demand. While the graphical changes are generally considered an improvement over the PC Engine original, it isn’t typically worth the cost difference to get a US copy just for the changes.

In Magical Chase, you play as Ripple, a witch on a broomstick (not to be confused with the multi-platform “Cotton” series) and fight various enemies for crystals which can be spent at stores throughout the levels in a style not unlike Fantasy Zone, except that the upgrades you buy don’t expire.

Ripple has two stars, named Topsy and Turvy, that act as options and as shields. They move around you in response to your own movement, changing both position and firing direction, but you can also lock them in place and freeze their firing angle. Topsy and Turvy add a good amount of strategy as you get familiar with their functions.

Magical Chase has a great deal of variety in style and enemies within its six colorful levels. There is also a wide set of weapons that expand throughout the game. Each level usually has one or two new weapons that could possibly be useful for the dangers ahead. However, you don’t have to worry too much if you have a favorite weapon you like to stick with. In addition to standard power-ups, you can also buy spells, which perform special attacks or heal Ripple. You can store up to five spells for later use.

The incredibly vivid graphics are superb, the sound effects solid, and the music nothing to sneeze at (Hitoshi Sakimoto’s only PC Engine chiptunes). Furthermore, Quest used lots of great graphical tricks in the game to make it even more impressive in motion. The game isn’t particularly hard, due to an expanding life bar and heal spells, or long, so the experience is a bit on the short side, but the trip is a blast. Later levels can make you sweat but avoid being cheap.

The high price this title demands is troublesome, because this game is definitely a fun, technically impressive, and accessible bit of gaming design work. It deserves to be appreciated, but the price tag ensures an original Magical Chase cart is for collectors only.

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Coryoon: Child of Dragon

1991
Developer: Nexat
Publisher: Nexat
PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16

If you have a soft spot for cute-em-ups, this little gem should be high on your list to hunt down. Coryoon puts you in the role of a baby dragon out to free a princess from the clutches of evil. As you will quickly learn, this dragon has some serious speed and skill and will take you on a vibrant journey filled with chaos and excitement.

Gameplay is traditional with a horizontal scrolling setup, power-up weapons that include multi-way shot and ‘miniature’ mode and a sort of reverse R-Type charge beam where you don’t shoot and it automatically charges up. The variety of power-ups is quite interesting and gives you lots of stuff to learn and strategize. Coryoon contains 2 minute and 5 minute time attack modes, similar to those in Soldier Blade. There’s lots of visual variety and compelling bosses throughout the eight different stages and you can also replay a certain level by selecting in the menu once you’ve unlocked/completed it.

Since Coryoon came out near the end of HuCard production, it really shows off what the original PC Engine setup was capable of. Coryoon has some of the biggest, most colorful sprite work on the system and fits a lot of those sprites on the screen at once. It also features multiple planes of scrolling and it maintains a fast pace with no slowdown and minimal flicker. It’s a beauty and a joy to play thanks to its top-notch controls. It is also a favorite Shmup Hidden Gem — essentials in the genre to check out once you’ve played all the Defining Games of the genre.

Overall, Coryoon makes for a good shmup for beginners in the genre while still ramping up the challenge for experts. Some will find it easy after learning some strategy, but others could have a hard time filtering through its chaos. However, the game is forgiving and keeps throwing extra lives out to keep you plugging along.

TG16 fans may notice some familiar elements with the original Air Zonk game as the two titles shared some significant staff members. Both games featured Yashiharu Takaoka as the primary designer and programmer and have Hishashi Matsushita and Daisuke Morishima collaborating on the music.

Check for Coryoon: Child of Dragon on eBay

Download

1990
Developer: Alfa System
Publisher: NEC Avenue
PC Engine

Download is a polished shooter with a cool cyberpunk style and detailed pixel artwork that features a stunning juxtaposition of vibrant and muted tones. The gameplay is fast and exciting, featuring a great balance of intense shooting, skilled maneuvering, and grabbing changing power-ups in order to top up your health and secondary weapons. The entire package is quite impressive for a HuCard release and is one of the best Japan-only PC Engine shmups there is.

Download has some of the very best art direction amongst PC Engine shmups and a solid soundtrack to complement it. The cutscenes have some phenomenal pixel-based illustrations that are reminiscent of Akira. The cutscenes also are better than many of the ones found on the system’s CD-based titles (again, how did they pull this all off on a HuCard?) While most of the dialogue is in Japanese (with some amusing English sprinkled in), Download also has one of the more interesting narratives of the shmup world. The premise also leads to some interesting situations and some innovative and unusual backdrops for the later levels. There is also some impressive parallax scrolling to add to the sense of speed.

Before you start each level, you have the opportunity to select two primary weapons and three sub-weapons, each of which have limited ammo. Your primaries are a Vulcan Beam (which can fire in five directions when fully upgraded) and a Laser Cannon. Secondary weapons each have limited ammo and include Chaser homing missiles, Crusher mega bomb, and a Barrier shield that can be moved around to protect different parts of your ship. Power-ups orbs that you collect will power up all of your weapons up to five levels.

Each of the six levels show fine craftsmanship represented by great layouts, visual variety, and strong art direction. As with some better-designed shmups, there are parts of the level design that you must take time and care to navigate successfully, but in in Download, you can also touch the walls and use them for blocking during battle. You have four different ship speeds to alternate between. The controls are top-notch, so with practice, you can really start mastering these levels.

The levels all showcase great variety of enemies that fit the cyberpunk aesthetic so well. Some enemies even morph and spin, creating a strong feeling of depth to the otherwise routine opponents. Many of the impressive bosses have some smaller sections to destroy before you take on the core.

Download only grants a player a single life, but they have a health bar to nurse along the way. There’s plenty of aspects to the game that will keep you on your toes, but refining your skill will create a rewarding experience. If the challenge gets you discouraged, Download does feature a password system to help you plug away on the adventure.

Check for Download on eBay

Download 2

1991
Developer: Alfa System
Publisher: NEC Avenue
PC Engine Super CD

If you enjoyed the first game in the Download series, you should feel at home with the sequel as well. While there are some significant changes here and there, it is still an intense shooter that builds off one of the best premises in the shmup genre.

The colors in Download 2 the sprite work lean more toward the vivid spectrum vs the more moody original. One could argue that Download’s often muted tones better suit the cyberpunk vibe, but Download 2’s more vibrant palette is still quite enjoyable. However, the level theme and designs are less abstract this time around, but still trippy at times. The efforts to make the levels a bit more visually palatable or less busy may have resulted in a bit less visual flash in the sequel.

You can no longer change your speed dynamically like you can in the original, but must rely on picking up speed icons instead. As a trade off, you now have all your weapons at the beginning and you can change them on the fly instead of before each level. There’s now four different weapons that you can go between: Vulcan-gun multi-directional shot, wide laser-beams, spread homing-lasers and a short-range lightning gun. These can each be powered up three times and a single power-up orb still powers up your full range of weapons. A red square power-up icon will also add two accompanying options that hover above below your ship to block bullets and add homing firepower. Grabbing extra red icons while you already have options will grant you a smart bomb. Picking up a blue square icon grants you a shield that can absorb a few hits and changes color depending on the shield’s current strength level.

There are infinite continues to use and you can pick up lots of extra lives along the way, so the challenge of completing the game is eased a bit.

Overall, Download 2 is a really solid title, but perhaps not as impressive as one might expect when jumping from a HuCard to a Super CD format. The gameplay changes give you some variety over the original game, but superiority between the two games comes down to personal preference.

Check for Download 2 on eBay

Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire

1995
Developer: CAProduction
Publisher: Hudson
PC Engine Arcade CD

Given the PC Engine’s long history of great shooters, it was inevitable that Hudson would want one that made use of the impressive new Arcade Card, which expanded the PC Engine’s CD cache/general RAM to 18 megabits. Hudson partnered with CAProductions, a new studio founded by some of the team at Red that had worked on Gate of Thunder and Lords of Thunder.

The gameplay setup is pretty typical for shooters of the 16-bit era. However, being in released in 1995, Sapphire was up against Danmaku-style (bullet hell) shooters like Psikyo’s Strikers 1945. Sapphire’s landscapes rarely becomes so cluttered with projectiles save for boss battles. From a core gameplay standpoint, Sapphire wasn’t particularly innovative, but it was a well-rounded game. Like many other Hudson-published shooters, the game is accessible but challenging, rewarding those who put in the effort without closing the door on more casual players. For those chasing high scores, learning when to use charged shots is key.

There are four characters/crafts to choose from with different weapon strength/style and movement speed. Sapphire also includes a two-player co-op mode that lets you team up with another player. There are five different levels representing different time periods to go along with the time-travel plot line. The first level is Blade Runner-inspired, but later levels evoke medieval Europe, ancient Japan, ancient Egypt, and then a more traditional space stage with some R-Type-like creatures.

Even though the graphics of many of Hudson’s shooters on the PC Engine were very impressive for the time, Sapphire goes above and beyond with a number of amazing rotation, scaling, and morphing effects. The extra RAM on the Arcade Card was put to use for insanely smooth sprite animation for enemies and bosses made with pre-rendered 3D. Background and enemy sprites morph incredibly smoothly and the impressive pre-rendered bosses blend in very well with the traditional pixel art. Simply put, it had an avalanche of effects without slowdown. Sapphire is a milestone in terms of graphics and visual effects on the PC Engine, and was an attempt to rival the graphical muscle of the new 32-bit consoles just emerging at the time.

Due to being a late card release with a small print run and its reputation for beauty, Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire is one of the most valuable and in-demand games on the PC Engine. With the reputation of value and style, some gamers feel a bit let down by the lack of innovation in the gameplay, but Sapphire is still a very well rounded shmup. If not for the high price, it should be a must-own for any PC Engine fan.

Check for Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire on eBay

Star Parodier / Star Parodia

1992
Developer: Hudson Interstate/Kaneko
Publisher: Hudson
PC Engine SuperCD

Maybe Hudson themselves had realized that the Star Soldier formula was getting a little long in the tooth when they released Star Parodier. If the game sounds familiar, it’s probably because you’ve heard of Parodius, a series of games released by Konami that featured a humorous and cartoony take on the Gradius series. Hudson decided to do the same, and thus Star Parodier was developed. Combining sugary sweet visuals, a stunning musical score, and some of the most responsive play control ever found in a shooter, Star Parodier proves that game spoofs can be every bit as good as their target.

One of the cooler things about Star Parodier is your ship selection. You can choose between a chibi-styled version of the Neo Caesar, Bomberman, or a rocket propelled white PC-Engine. Star Parodier doesn’t do much to distinguish itself over the other three PC-Engine Star Soldier titles, save for the cutesy graphics (not that its a bad thing). One huge highlight though is doing battle against a gigantic Bomberman in a Bomberman themed arena. That alone is totally worth the price of admission.

Each of these ship options features three main weapon systems that can be switched by collecting different power-ups. Accumulating the power-ups increases their strength and range of destruction. Also, in the Star Soldier tradition, secondary weapons are also available, such as multiples, shields and missiles. Star Parodier features eight long and humorous stages, midpoint mini-bosses, and two score-attack modes.

In addition to the intensely vivid art direction, Star Parodier’s bosses are insanely colorful and further push the sticky sweet image the game employs. There are also some really gorgeous cut scenes in between stages to add a little more eye candy to what is an already visually impressive title.

Star Parodier’s soundtrack also happens to shine as much as the visuals. The upbeat musical tracks are extremely catchy and match the vibe of the game well. Sprinkling in interesting sound effects and Japanese speech rounds out a solid experience.

Sadly, this is one of the last titles released for the PC-Engine, and it never saw an international release.

Check for Star Parodier on eBay

Rayxanber II

1991
Developer: Data West
Publisher: Data West
PC Engine SuperCD

The Rayxanber series of shmups from DataWest (no relation to Date East) began on the FM Towns  and Japanese PC as a bit of an R-Type clone before having two sequels on the Turbo CD. Rayxanber II functions very much like the original game, but has significantly faster movement and, as a result, is more challenging. The ship is smaller than in the original, but backgrounds are gorgeous and there’s plenty of parallax scrolling to round out the visuals. There’s also a pretty solid soundtrack.

Rayxanber II is considered one of the harder original shmups on the PC Engine, but it could have benefited from better balancing. Your ship is very slow and pathetically weak, and the screen gets flooded by enemies very fast. However, you do have a dash button tha