Dreamcast shooters - am I missing out on anything?

[charlesr]

2D stuff please bob.

Stuff I have:
Trizeal
Radirgy
Under defeat
Gigawing - not tried yet
Last Hope
Trigger Heart
Karous
Ikaruga
Mars Matrix
Border Down
Castle of Shikigami 2
Psyvariar II
Bangai O
Chaos Field
Zero Gunner 2

I like all that stuff apart from Last Hope aka No Hope.
My faves are:
Psy2
Radirgy
Border Down
Mars Matrix

Do I need:
Gunbird 2
Gigawing 2 - this review says it's really hard. True? How hard? Like Ibara hard?
Twinkle Star Sprites

Are they any cop?

[eastyy]

gigawing 2 is not hard.....infact its one of the only games i have 1cc far easier then any of the cave games

its quite short but i think its great

[nightstalker100]

I'd say you ve covered all the bases there.
Gunbird is decent but not upper echelon.

Try Twinkle by emulator first if your unsure.

Gigawing 2 is great though. Visually stunning throuhg vga and if you limit yourself to x number of continues can be very difficult. It feels very confused at times though and suffers from slowdown. Still try it.

I feel you only need a handful of shooters on the dc namely ikaruga, border down, zero gunner 2, mars matrix and under defeat.

[charlesr]

I suppose this line from the review should have been a giveaway - "Unlike popular opinion, the strategy is not to use bombs to clear the screen until you run out and die"..... popular for who? Thanks eastyy

[charlesr]

I feel you only need a handful of shooters on the dc namely ikaruga, border down, zero gunner 2, mars matrix and under defeat.

I think under defeat isn't all that. Great for gfx whores though. Replace that with Radirgy Each to their own though.

I guess I already have twinkle star on my xbox neogeo disc. I'll check it out. Thanks for reminding me!

[C']

Twinkle Star Sprites is ace but not really a traditional vertical shooter. It plays like a cross between a vertical shooter and a competitive puzzle game (ala Puzzle Bobble). The play area is split down the middle with each player having their own section. Enemies appear as in a traditional shooter but as you chain together kills you send attacks over to your opponent’s screen (higher chain = more projectiles).

However these attacks can be reversed and sent back over to your opponent’s side by shooting the projectiles repeatedly. Then comes the good bit. If the reversed projectile is hit multiple times again, the counterattack sent over becomes a series of indestructible enemies.

It’s actually a difficult game to describe but it works really well in practice. I totally didn’t expect what I got when I bought the Dreamcast on a whim years ago but after the initial confusion I found the game to be incredibly likeable. Only downside is that it’s best played as a versus game with a fellow player.

Giga Wing 2 was one of my favourite DC shooters back in the day but it really is just an upgrade of the first game. Doesn’t do anything massively different but if you like the first game’s system (reflecting bullets and causing big explosions) then there’s a lot to like here. Looks impressive too but it’s not up there with the very best of the genre. I don’t recall it being overly hard but I’d played the first game a fair bit prior to this. Has been a few years since that though. IIRC, I’d compare it to Espgaluda in terms of difficulty (which isn’t the hardest of Cave’s games).

[eastyy]

have to say i like games with a decent scoring hook

so under defeat didnt really appeal to me that much and the same with gunbird 2 in fact with gun bird 2 i found it easy until the last level where if you die you are sent back a bit instead of continuing and i have just never been able to do it

[Mad Gear]

Buy the Gunbird collection and Twinkle Star Sprites on the PS2.
And yes Gigawing 2 is worth getting.

[mezzanine]

Can't say I like Gigawing 2 (at all) but if you're keeping games like Chaos Field and Karous then you might as well buy the rest.