The NES has no R-Types!

You probably aren't counting Defender II, I suppose.

You're right, though, seems like there should be more.

EDIT: Well, what do you mean by "noteworthy"?

There are a few other side-scrollers...

Silkworm is one I've been playing recently; it isn't very good IMO but it does have an interesting kick to it; you can play 2-player simultaneous with one player as a helicopter and the other as a jeep.

Hm... Defender would fit the specs I listed, though it's a bit more simplistic than what I'm looking for. Actually I just forgot about it

It's just that Gradius happens to be one of my NES favourites and I kinda expected that in the years after it's release (almost a decade to go for the NES!) other games in the genre were released. Yet I can't find 'em anywhere

vdub_bobby, on Tue Mar 20, 2007 8:44 PM, said:

Rated 7/10 or better

vdub_bobby, on Tue Mar 20, 2007 8:44 PM, said:

I remember Silkworm from the Amiga. They really tried porting that to the NES?

vdub_bobby, on Tue Mar 20, 2007 10:46 PM, said:

Nothing that complicated, just a felt value. When a game sucks, it doesn't help much, even if it's the right genre

vdub_bobby, on Tue Mar 20, 2007 8:44 PM, said:

I just played the first level of the C64 and NES versions. It seems both machines are way too underpowered for the task. The NES grafix are indeed better, but in exchange does the C64 seem to have twice as many enemies on the screen at a time. Still nowhere close to what I remember from the Amiga version

Speaking of the C64, it actually has the games I'm looking for by the dozen.

Highlights would be Armalyte and the two German productions Katakis and X-Out. Where's such games for the NES?!?

A few more sidescrollers...

Seicross - I like this but it is an early NES game and seems dated.
Fantasy Zone - haven't played this much
MagMax - haven't played this much
Section-Z - haven't played this much
Dropzone (Defender clone) - haven't played this much (and surprised to see it ported from the A800!)
Air Fortress - haven't played this much
Abadox - haven't played this much, but IIRC it is considered a pretty good game. Very much a Gradius clone.
S.C.A.T. - haven't played this much, looks like a Lost Worlds clone.
Stinger - haven't played this much, similar look to Fantasy Zone (i.e., pastels)

Quote

I dunno. Seems like Nintendo poured their efforts into platformers and adventure games (Metroid, Kid Icarus, SMB1-3, Zelda1-2, etc.) and maybe 3rd parties followed suit? I kinda think there was more demand among NES owners for the newer style games, maybe since NES owners probably skewed younger than C64 owners. I know that when in 198x when I and all my 10-yr-old friends had NESes that what we lusted for were SMB2 and 3, Metroid, Contra, etc.

EDIT: I think part of the reason there aren't many of these for the NES is because they weren't as popular. I just spent 20 minutes looking through KLOV between 1985 and 1992 and (a) vertically scrolling shooters outnumber horizontal scrollers something like 10 to 1 and (b) I lived to go to the arcades in the late 80s but I didn't recognize almost any of the games I found on KLOV. The only one I found that I ever really played that much was U.N. Squadron. Maybe I'm wrong here...

vdub_bobby, on Tue Mar 20, 2007 11:23 PM, said:

Thanks for those! I'll check them out the next days!

vdub_bobby, on Tue Mar 20, 2007 11:23 PM, said:

Hm... the C64 had some of those as well. Only clones from the Nintendo titles (i.e. Turrican instead of Metroid, Giana Sisters instead of SMB), but most Konami Arcades of the 80s were ported to the C64 as well for example. It also had unique creations like Hawkeye or First Samurai and also lotsa Jump'n'Runs like Rick Dangerous. I think the NES only slightly beats it here. Maybe they're even on par. I certainly need both to live!

vdub_bobby, on Tue Mar 20, 2007 11:23 PM, said:

There were zillions of them on Genesis, SNES and PC-Engine though. The Darius series, The R-Type series, The Gradius series, The Thunderforce series, Gynoug, Hellfire, Biometal, Gaiares, Zero Wing, just to name a few that I remember.

vdub_bobby, on Tue Mar 20, 2007 11:23 PM, said:

Oh, that's bad. I just checked my missing-list and it seems that only Dropzone and S.C.A.T. were available in Europe. No Defender/Silkworm either.

Section-Z is also available, but I already have it and don't really like it.

S.C.A.T. is called "Action in New York" here. Well, I added that and Dropzone to my eBay searches but for the others Nestopia must do once again.

Edit: Of course I already have Fantasy Zone 1&2 for the SMS!

Have you played Over Horizon?

Ooooooh!

Must! Have! This! Immediately!

It even has satellites!

Cybergoth, on Wed Mar 21, 2007 7:38 AM, said:

I had a repro made, but you might be able to find an original where you live. It's an excellent game.

Cybergoth, on Tue Mar 20, 2007 3:51 PM, said:

I think the first four are coin-op conversions, the rest are originals. At least according to mobygames.

EDIT: I take that back. Stinger is also a coin-op conversion.

vdub_bobby, on Tue Mar 20, 2007 11:23 PM, said:

Well, you have to keep in mind the fact that the C64's library is something like 10-20 times as big as the NES's! The NES only () has about 750 titles, after all.

Quote

True. I dunno.

OTOH, the NES isn't completely lacking. It has Gradius, Life Force, plus the 10 or so I listed above, plus there has to be more.

...

Just found a few more: Sky Kid (coin-op conversion), The Hunt for Red October (!), BreakThru (coin-op conversion).

Well, BreakThru is kind of stretching the definition a bit, but ...

EDIT: Found another: Cobra Command, another coin-op conversion (and sort-of Choplifter clone). And speaking of Choplifter, apparently it was released for the NES in Japan and Brazil, but not in the US (or Europe).

vdub_bobby, on Wed Mar 21, 2007 4:01 PM, said:

I think it's just Twinbee.

vdub_bobby, on Tue Mar 20, 2007 11:23 PM, said:

Red October is available in PAL form, so I added it to my eBay searches, just in case

It was fun digging up all these NES shooters; plus it was a good use of time: I added them (and a bunch of vertically-scrolling shooters) to the NES HSC games list.

Thanks!

(You forgot Over Horizon, or?)

Cybergoth, on Tue Mar 20, 2007 3:51 PM, said:

I think maybe you are combining platforms in your memory. For example, the Genesis had only a single game from the Darius series (Sagaia), no games from the R-Type series, and no games from the Gradius series. It did have the Thunderforce series, Gaiares, Hellfire, and of course many others.

If I do a Digital Press search of "Horizontal Scrolling/Shooter" I get the following counts (US releases):
NES: 13*
Genesis: 18
SNES: 13
Turbografx-16: 12

*This includes a few that shouldn't be here, like Gun.Smoke, but it misses some, like Dropzone and Seicross. Based on the digging I've done they pretty much cancel each other out. I'm assuming the same for the other platforms. Bad assumption?

Perhaps the reason that so few side-scrolling shooters for the NES are memorable is just an accident of timing: the coin-op shooters that were convertable during the NES' time just weren't as memorable, and the original titles just haven't held up well, probably because the NES hardware can't handle this type of game well.

Looking at just the coin-op conversions, by year of original coin-op release:
Arcade releases in 1985 include Gradius, Alpha Mission, Fantasy Zone, MagMax, and Sky Kid, which all made it to the NES.
Darius was released in 1986 to the arcades, the NES got Life Force, BreakThru, Argus (vertical), Legendary Wings (vertical) instead.
R-Type was released in 1987, the NES got Dragon Spirit (vertical) and Thundercade (vertical) instead.
1988 coin-ops include Silk Worm, Twin Eagle, and Insector X, which were all released on the NES (Insector X only in Japan).
Sagaia, Zero Wing, and Hellfire were released in 1989, the NES got...well nothing. I think past 1988 the NES couldn't handle the coin-ops so they turned instead to original games: S.C.A.T., Gun-Nac, Burai Fighter, Abadox, were all released on the NES after 1989.

Cybergoth, on Wed Mar 21, 2007 11:07 AM, said:

Well, it never saw a US release, so...

There are plenty of non-US shooters: Japan saw Insector X, Parodius, and Choplifter, but I thought I'd not include those since they are likely rare for the majority of HSC participants. Of course, if someone requests a game I'll gladly add it.

vdub_bobby, on Wed Mar 21, 2007 7:29 PM, said:

Uihjah... just to contrast that some, a search for genre containing 'Shoot'em Up, H-Scrolling' on Lemon64 currently finds 245 games. Note that this doesn't even include Uridium or Defender, since Lemon tracks separate Uridium/Defender categories just for clones!

And the same search (Shoot'em Up, H-Scrolling) on LemonAmiga will find another 98 games.

Cybergoth, on Wed Mar 21, 2007 11:46 AM, said:

A caveat - that search appears to return platformers also, not just Gradius-type shooters. If you include H-scrolling, shooter platformers (i.e., Contra), then the console totals go way up. Not up to 245, though!

EDIT: Make the digital press search include Platform/Shooter/Action, Horizontal Scrolling/Shooter, and Platform/Scrolling Screen/Action and you get 105 NES games.

vdub_bobby, on Wed Mar 21, 2007 11:48 PM, said:

Hm... are you sure? Because Lemon has an extra category for "Shoot'em Up, Platformer", which brings up stuff like Contra and Midnight Resistance. I have admittedly no clue though what their exact criteria is for which game goes where. Might depend on wether it has platforms and jumping sequences

There's possibly some games borderline and others simply sorted into the wrong category, but it seems to be less than 10. On a first quick scan through the list I think E-Swat and Rygar don't belong there, but most others that look suspicious I'd need to play first.

If you really go and search Lemon for "platformer", that will return over 500 titles.

Shoot! is a pretty nice page breaking down several hundred C64 Shoot'em ups into diverse sub-categories (64 titles in "Space H-Scroll"). Unfortunately it hasn't been updated in years. The maintainer is only working on Stadium64 these days.

Cybergoth, on Wed Mar 21, 2007 4:24 PM, said:

I'm pretty sure, though I'm just basing it off of screenshots and the brief descriptions; I'm not too familiar with most C64 games.

The first page of that search brings up After The War, Alien Storm, Alien3, Amazon Warrior, and Cobra, which all sure look like platformers to me, though I haven't played any of them.