When I first entered the world of shoot 'em up I was told that Playstation, Saturn, Dreamcast and PC Engine was the consoles to go for. While their shooter libraries indeed are impressive I feel one obvious console was left out. Playstation 2.
The Playstation 2 has not only many shoot 'em ups of its own (Mushihime-sama, Espgaluda, Dodonpachi Dai-Ou-Jou, Ibara, Gradius V, Homura, Thinkle Star Sprites series, Double Shienryu, R-Type Final, XII Stag, Giga Wing Generations, Silpheed: The Lost Planet, Thunder Force VI etc) it has games that also got released on the Dreamcast (Triggerheart Exelica Enhanced, REZ, Chaos Field: New Order, Radirgy Precious, Shikigami No Shiro series, Psyvariar, Psyvariar 2: The Will to Fabricate) - and many arcade collections with older gems (Darius series, Space Invader series, 1942 etc).
Most notably for my self is the collection of Cave games on the system. (I know I wrote them as "Playstation 2 games" but of course they are arcade ports.) I thought I was going to share some thoughts on three of them, namely Dodonpachi Dai-Ou-Jou, Espgaluda and Mushihime-sama.
Dodonpachi Dai-Ou-Jou
The Donpachi series plays one of the most important roles in the history of bullet hell games. Not only was it one of the first to really drown the player in bullets, it is also one of the most notorious series in the genre with many beloved arcade hits under its belt. While Donpachi and Dodonpachi are covered on Saturn and Playstation, Dodonpachi Dai-Ou-Jou was far too demandning to be ported to those consoles. The Playstation 2, however, handles the game beautifully. The series' trademark chaining together with cranked up difficulty makes this game extremely intense and very hard to beat, let alone reach respectable highscores. With one of the most beautiful covers in video game history it makes for a must have in any shoot 'em up collection.
Espgaluda
This is my favorite shoot 'em up of all time. Hell, it is one of my favorite games period. Right from the get go the soundtrack is amazing, the gameplay is interesting and the difficulty is just right. If you play to survive you can get quite far pretty fast and if you play to get a highscore it becomes tricky and tactical right from the very start. The mechanics are based upon the abillity to enter a special mode where all the bullets on screen turns into points if the enemy who shot them is destroyed. While in regular mode the bullets turns into objects that fills up the meter to go back into the special mode and so on. I am equally in love with ESP.Ra.De, the games (spiritual?) prequel, but sadly that never made it to the consoles.
Mushihime-sama
This one is interesting. It does not take place in the god awful space, it does not take place in some futuristic robot-filled industrial hell, it takes place on the ground. In the trees. In the water. The title translates to Bug Princess and this accurately speaks of the surroundings. You ride some sort of beetle, fighting your way through insects and pissed off plants that literally fills the screen with colorful bullets. It is the very definition of bullet hell and at the same time it looks marvelous with clever details and more color than the rainbow. The speed of the bullets makes this one much more demanding than the others when it comes to reaction time and the soundtrack is really good here as well. Intensive gameplay with good music, pretty stuff to look at and an ultra mode so hard you will not believe it all speaks for its own. This is truly a must have.
