47 Vertical Scrolling Shooters on Amiga RANKED | Retro Game Superleagues

[@SMABEM]

I would say SWIV needs to be in the essential category IMO. It's actually way more fun to play as the jeep/boat. You can angle your shots in 8 directions and jump around. Although it is more challenging than the heli. The heli is there to provide cover for the jeep really. The crops circles part is super cool in the jeep too.

[@Nebulous6]

Hybris will likely be forever my number 1 choice. It's even more amazing when you play it on a classic XBOX and assign Enter and Space to X and B. SWIV's another great one, especially when you enable the maximum firepower trainer (a great example of just how many objects OCS can have flying all over the screen).

[@boriscovidscamson2911]

Gold runner was the first shooter I bought and still own it, there was a joystick option if I remember though

[@AxelMann]

No deluxe Galaga! One of my favourites

[@pnvgordinho]

Im not going to watch the video now but I hope you have Battle Squadron at number one. Great graphics, great music and fx, great gameplay.

[@andy6576]

I love these Superleagues, Brian, I nearly always discover a few games I've never heard of before. 😊👍

[@xxnoxx-xp5bl]

SWIV is easily one of the best shooters on the Amiga - criminal to put it as recommnded. It's much more enjoyable than Banchee IMO.

[@desertfish74]

I played SWIV to death. Almost as much as battle squadron.

[@Midwinter2]

Great video, I pretty much agree with how you rank them. One thing that is not often mentioned is frame rate. Really, shooters need to be running at 50fps - and this is partly the reason my favourite vertical shooters are Hybris and Battle Squadron. But many games on this list only run at 25 fps - or less - and that makes them look a bit clunky and impacts gameplay. Two big offenders are Xenon 2 (a game I hate. - sorry!) and SWIV. Also, in the case of SWIV, although the graphics are beautifully designed, the colour scheme is the dullest, drabbest I have ever seen in a video game - all greys and browns, and there is far too much black. Very depressing to look at! Note: The recent remake of Flying Shark really shows how lazy the original port was. The new version has nicer graphics, a better colour scheme, includes horizontal scrolling as well as vertical - and, most importantly, runs at a smooth 50fps now. That is a night-and-day improvement over the version featured in this video.

[@JMDAmigaMusic]

Hybris is a reinterpretation of Terra Cresta, hence the ships can split (with space bar or second button) and once you get all five you can become a phoenix for a while' plus that round flashing thing that you see bounce around can give you several powers

[@JMDAmigaMusic]

A good one you are missing is Scorpio, is a vertical shooter but has lot of features from R-Type

[@UKGamingNetwork]

@@JMDAmigaMusic you are the second person to mention that one. I haven't played it, which is why it's not included, but I'm definitely going to seek it out

[@JMDAmigaMusic]

@@UKGamingNetwork some aspects of it might be dated and it use sampled music instead of tracker one since is from 1988 but the base is solid - i wish someone would do an updated remake of it

[@UKGamingNetwork]

@@JMDAmigaMusic games like that are ones I should be playing when I start up Live Streams again

[@AmigaVR]

Good video , GunBee f99 is maybe one you missed? Reshoot Aproxima 3 is one I want to get for my A500mini.

[@UKGamingNetwork]

@@AmigaVR I tried so hard to get Gunbee working but ultimately ran out of time. Really liked the look of it

[@psquaredish]

Fun video. I think the best one you missed is Death Angel, it is very SWIV and Raiden inspired but also super intense and has an amazing amount of action on screen. Graphics wise I thought Ultra Violent Worlds was incredible with lots of brilliant colors and vertical parallax. Recent game SkillGrid is unique and also a shoutout to Transplant which is more rotate-y than vertical and Plutos which although kind of basic was one of my first Amiga games and quite enjoyable. Personally I also would have had Mega Typhoon and Banshee in essential.

[@UKGamingNetwork]

@@psquaredish I'm going to try and seek out Death Angel and Ultra Violent World on your recommendation. Haven't played them before which is why I couldn't include them

[@psquaredish]

@@UKGamingNetwork awesome, I had a hard time finding a working copy of Death Angel but started a thread on the English Amiga Board called Getting Death Angel shmup to work that led to a good copy.

[@businesscat380]

You missed out maybe the best Amiga vertical shooter, Deluxe Galaga It's an old PD game by Edgar Vidal (RIP)...loosely Galaga-esque, I think its actually based on an old VIC-20 game. It really is a superb arcade blaster that more people definitely need to know about

[@bubbanstix2536]

It's not the best. But it was awesome.

[@UKGamingNetwork]

@@businesscat380 keep an eye out for the Arcade Shooter league, as it will be featured in that one

[@SkidMarcUK]

Did it scroll

[@businesscat380]

@@SkidMarcUK Sort of. Like Galaga really, the starfield in the background scrolls vertically between waves and in bonus rounds

[@sakis-c9x]

My favorite vertical shooter of all time is Starforce...it's a shame they never ported it to the Amiga...I wouldn't leave the house if I had it back in days...great video by the way.

[@bubbanstix2536]

In Xenon II, the "maze" sections doesn't ask you to backtrack when you make a mistake, you are actually forced to go in dead-ends in order to get a better angle to destroy enemies and then backtrack to take the right path.

[@UKGamingNetwork]

That may be true, but it still means the game doesn't flow in a satisfactory way and so I still prefer the original. I always found having to go backwards to be very annoying.

[@bubbanstix2536]

@@UKGamingNetwork I meant it as something problematic (like you). Not only can you find yourself in a dead-end, but even when you know the game, you can still feel forced to do it.

[@bubbanstix2536]

I love Banshee's long levels.

[@AmbersKnight]

Excellent video as always. I remember getting Foundation's Waste as a free game on a One for ST and Amiga cover disk and thought for a free game it was okay but nothing specil and I was very let down by the fact that it made you choose between sound effects and music (although I did like the tune). Compared to so many others it very much pales in comparison and years later when i found otu it had actually been a commercially released game I was shocked. Sky High Stuntman is a strange one as it is so different on the Amiga and ST than it is on the 8-bit systems. The 8-bit ones stay far truer to the theme of the game, being a stuntman doing high action scenes for a movie, than the 16-bit equivalents but in terms of raw shooter power the Amiga version is such a good game and a good example of what can be done on a budget label without compromising much on the quality.

[@boriscovidscamson2911]

Great video, the sort of video I can use as reference to find a good game and avoid a crap one, hope to see many other game styles, keep up the good work👍

[@pnvgordinho]

You should do a list of shooters that work in 360º like Amnios or Zeewolf.

[@UKGamingNetwork]

Those would be Multi-Scrolling and they are definitely on my to-do list for an upcoming league.

[@bubbanstix2536]

Very helpful video as there are many shoot 'em ups on amiga and it's sometimes hard to know which ones are worth playing.

[@horsservice4820]

Nice sample - thx! I always thought that "Wings of Death" was an ATARI ST exclusive... XENON2 Megablast - still have the soundtrack in my ears when seeing the fpptahe :) EDIT: I think you forgot "Hybris", the shooter blew me away and I was jealous it wasn't released on ST :)

[@UKGamingNetwork]

Hybris is at number 4. Definitely one of the best.

[@bubbanstix2536]

I didn't know the very specific genre that is "Purple Vertical Shooters."

[@azmodanpc]

Loved Intact

[@mr.y.mysterious.video1]

Compare these games to Japanese games of the same type that were available at the same time. Loved my Amiga but didn't use it much for games

[@AdiSneakerFreak]

Yes for Shooters the western devs were nowhere near as good as the Japanese. However the Amiga was very strong in some other game types.

[@bubbanstix2536]

Reshoot Proxima 3, cool.

[@alexshadowfax1119]

Nice shirt!

[@psprog]

Hybris for me - amazing smooth "in a frame" arcade quality (a lot of the vertical scrolling shooters like Xenon etc had jerky movement and scrolling. Not Hybris!)

[@lurkerrekrul]

There were several games here that I'd never heard, which isn't surprising as most of them were in the Poor or below category. One obscure vertical shooter I was hoping you would have on the list is Scorpio. It's kind of like a vertical R-Type wannabe. Don't get me, it's nowhere near R-Type's quality, but it's like the programmer went through R-Type and ripped off a bunch of ideas from it. The music is only a short loop and quickly gets on your nerves, although there are sound effects as well. I also find it quite difficult. I don't think I ever made it to the end of the first level, even on easy. Battle Squadron - While I liked this one, all of your weapons, even when powered up to the max, feel kind of underpowered, as everything still seems to take at least two shots to kill. Hybris - I suck at this game, but I love the music. There was a program for the Amiga that would compress executable files so they saved on disk space, but could still run just like the original. I thought it was PowerPacker, but now I'm not so sure. The program I had, had vertical equalizer-type bars to show the progress, and it played the Hybris title music. BTW, Hybris seems like it was heavily inspired by the arcade game Dangar UFO Robo. The graphics for the terrain seem quite similar, as do some of the enemy movement patterns and the idea of expanding your ship into different configurations. Major Motion - I would have liked this one, but the thing that kills it for me is the unavoidable death from the big limo that pulls up and shoots you. if there was a way to avoid being killed by it, I never figured out what it was. Star Goose - Apparently, this was/is a beloved DOS game. Personally, i never saw the appeal of it. Xenon - Never liked this one. I really didn't like using either the tank or the plane. Xenon II - This one always felt sluggish and I found the colors kind of bland.

[@UKGamingNetwork]

@@lurkerrekrul Scorpio is one that I've heard of but not played and that's why it's not included. I will try to find it and check it out

[@lurkerrekrul]

@@UKGamingNetwork You can get an ADF copy from PlanetEMU, under Amiga > Games - ADF > S.

[@dusanpiscevic6213]

All home vertical shooters suffer from aspect ratio, so screen is to small for incoming enemies. Only game that succesfuly worked around this problem through graphics/game design is Battle squadron, and let's face it, it is only truly excellent shooter on Amiga. Graphics, enemies, power ups, gameplay, fx/soundtrack are all excellent, and the only thing I found little lacking, are the bosses. No wonder, most of Amiga shooters are in rubish category. Another thing, apart aspect ratio, favored horizontal shooters on Amiga. Amiga can duplicate "infinite" number of sprites in horizontal scanlines, so having many objects on screen becomes more easy. Well, this horizontal duplication can work also for verictal shooters, just with clever coding. Swiv shows how you can have "million" objects on screen and has excellent presentation and interesting design of enemies and bosses, homage to Silk Worm, but power ups are big turn off for me. It has basicaly one weapon that duplicates shots and spreads more, every time you get pick up. You can shoot at it, and change it to a better pick up, but at a same time shoot and avoid enemies and be careful not to over shoot it and miss your desired pick up, which is frustrating and I hate that play mechanic. If you shoot pick up for a looong time, it will change to "best" shot which spreads in all directions (same in front, back, left and right) with no significant firepower in front, which is bad for boss fights. Anyway, with that weapon, you dont have to aim anymore and core shooter gameplay mechanic is lost?! Weapons in shooters should be colorful, powerful and satisfying when mowing down enemies, instead of bland white bullets. Also, no soundtrack! And Xennons are bad. I tried to get into into it, but as always on Amiga, simplest of genres suffer from "eurodesign vanity", a trait that made european game developers always tried to create something more "intelectual" appart "ordinary and simple" action game. And in that process, "simple things" like adequate game design and gameplay, were totaly forgoten about! They were overthinking themeselves towards total miss of the mark!

[@UKGamingNetwork]

@@dusanpiscevic6213 I think Reshoot 3 is another fine example but that only came out last year, and the demo for the new version of Flying Shark is impressive too.

[@dusanpiscevic6213]

@@UKGamingNetwork Thanks, I'll give it a go, although I can't into modern Amiga games. Simply put, with new development kits, free asset library (a.k.a Internet) and ultra powerful workstations at every home (a.k.a. PC), it takes out of splendid coding trickery, developers though out back in the day, that we admire now more than ever. The way I see it, modern Amiga games (although undeniably developed with love and lots of fun), just try to right some wrongs for Amiga. Some from back in the day but mostly from KZbin "concensus", hence opsession with bringing Sonic, Out Run or Street Fighter II to Amiga and whatnot! Nobody ever tries to develop games in genre where Amiga was strongest-puzzle arcade adventure! Some new games are impressive, like Metro Siege and some just needed some love to be good, like new Final Fight for Amiga.

[@bubbanstix2536]

18:16 Damn, I've checked the arcade game, someone should remake it for amiga, like for Final Fight.

[@bubbanstix2536]

Very nice video.

[@SkidMarcUK]

Hybris is top for me.

[@NorthWay_no]

Oh dear. The Xenons are way overrated, and Hybris with its excellent power-ups is an essential. All IMNSHO ofc.

[@bubbanstix2536]

31:11 Wow.