I'm a fan of 1941 & 1942, and I've been looking for a good port. I'm still looking It seems like vertical shooters (shmup type) on the iPhone are either: 1) Automatically shooting (e.g,. SpaceX, SkyThunder (lite), Sky Force) (Personally, I find these games to be basically "dodge" games - not shooters since I'm not shooting - the AI is!!) 2) You shoot (e.g., SkyFighter lite, Blue Skies (lite)) (I prefer these, because as the player, I'm doing more! I like tapping frantically ) I know there are many other shmups in the App Store, but I think I've named a few of the better ones. So the question remains: What is the best vertical shooter?
First of all, tosui, I commend you on impeccable taste. I've suggested in at least two different reviews I've done of vertical shooters that people should study the likes of 1942 before making their own. I would say the closest I've seen so far on the iPhone is Sentry Alpha, though from my experience on the PocketPC you'd probably like Skyforce as well if you haven't already played it. Personally, I'm hoping we see either Claygun or DragonBird one of these days. Despite the popular opinion towards Skyforce Reloaded, I thought Claygun was the best shooter to hit the PocketPC.
Actually I have not found my perfect vertical shooter game yet. I used to play this arcade vertical shooter game where you collect powerup orbs and they get attached to the back of your plane (like a snake game). There are different kinds of powerup orbs and each gives you different powers (higher attack, different kind of attack, missiles, etc). Basically, I like my plane to be really powerful when playing these games. And I dont see this in any of the current games. SpaceX is interesting because you have many things to buy, but it becomes more of a resource management / strategy thing. Whereas all I want to do is collect gazillion powerups and shoot everything thats on the screen :-D
The biggest problem I had with SpaceX was that the game play was pretty standard, so the fun came in getting power ups to your weapons. Once you were maxed out in that area, the game really wasn't fun any more.
rRootage was the first shooter I d/l on my device, and I still play with it. It's only missing sounds and an save/resume function to make it great.
why not have a poll? or even better, a poll dancer can never hurt seriously tho - we should have 2 polls: 1 - vertical shmups as discussed now. Sentry Alpha gets my vote. 2 - 3D flying forward shooters like ExZeus, Zero Chance, Iron Man, Rebel Onslaught, etc... after checking, it seems as though there are few quality horizontal shooters on our idevices, which were extremely popular over the years - silpheed, gaiares, r-type and soldner-x (awesome! now in the ps3 store) to name a few...
I keep meaning to submit a new version of rrootage to the appstore. Had a version that runs full speed sitting on the mac for ages ! Right I'm gonna do that this weekend . I should also submit noiz2sa too I guess as that is complete too !
FYI, Blue Skies is not a vert shmup. It's a multidirectional shooter. Either Sentry Alpha or rRootage. I'd rank Radio Flare below those two. Yeah, I know Radio Flare is supposed to be a hori shmup...but, honestly, with the way the ship is oriented it looks more like a vert shmup, so that's the way I play it. Also, that one level of Dragon Force lite is, IMHO, the best example of a vert shmup done right on this platform.
Hey, welcome back to the forum! An updated rRootage would be great...I know I've been looking forward to one. It's still among the best in terms of touch controls.
noiz2sa, noiz2sa, I've heard and played that before. Aaah, ha, it was on my Tapwave Zodiac if I'm not mistaken
Hell yeah you should submit noiz2sa. I've been wondering when the hell someone was going to do that. Other things that should be submitted if permitted by the original dev: Cho Ren Sha 68K Every Extend Tomiki Fighters Parsec Cave Story (I'd kill for an upgraded version of Cave Story, though I guess WiiWare is getting this one)