First -- there was one shmup on the Xbox, if you're listing them -- Xyanide. The game was released on the Xbox in the US only. Planned GBA, N-Gage, and cellphone ports were all cancelled. A PC port, Xyanide Resurrection, was released later, but only in Europe. It was on the PS2 and PSP also, but in Japan and Europe only. So:
Xyanide - Xbox, US only
Xyanide Resurrection - PC, Europe only
Xyanide Resurrection - PS2, PSP - Europe and Japan only
Also, if you're listing PS1 games, or anything for older systems, just copy the lists from shmups.com... a few you're missing (US release) for instance are Shooter: Starfighter Sanvein and Shooter: Space Shot.
Also, you mess up your Strikers 1945 PSX listings. Strikers 1945 in the US is actually Strikers 1945 II. Agetec decided to drop the "II" for some reason, perhaps because the first one hadn't come out in the US? Anyway, both came out on PSX and Saturn in Japan, but only the second one in the US, so the one that should be in the Japanese releases section is Strikers 1945, not Strikers 1945 II, and "Strikers 1945" in the US listing should be noted to actually be Strikers 1945 II.
Kron - Bangaioh, Giga Wing 1 and 2, and Mars Matrix are already listed in the DC US Releases section. Your other additions are actually new though.
fatty said:
Taito Legends 2 (contains Darius Gaiden, Front Line, Gekirindan, Grid Seeker: Operation Storm Hammer, Gun Frontier, Insector X, Kiki Kai Kai, Majestic Twelve: The Space Invaders Part IV, Metal Black, Rayforce*, Space Invaders '95: The Attack of the Lunar Loopies, Space Invaders DX and Wild Western) *Xbox Exclusive
Whoops... forgot a very important note here. Taito Legends 2 for the Xbox was NOT released in the US. It was Europe only. However, the disc is region-free and will run fine in a US Xbox, so I wouldn't remove it from the list I think, just add a note or something.
Also the PC version is identical to the Xbox version, so RayForce isn't really Xbox exclusive, it's also in the PC version, which did get a US release.
Also, you don't list the US Xbox version of Taito Legends 1, which actually does exist. The titles included are the same as the PS2 version.
(The US did get all of those other collections on the platforms I listed, though.)
Another note is that Capcom Classics Collection 1 (PS2/Xbox) also includes Gun.Smoke, which should definitely be on this list I think.
Also, Japan got completely different Taito collections from the US and Europe. They were called Taito Memories, and there were four of them, Taito Memories Joukan, Taito Memories Gekan, Taito Memories II Joukan, and Taito Memories II Gekan. Each of the four games has 25 games in it, adding up to 100 total titles -- quite a few more than the 72 the US/EU got between its two collections (29 in Taito Legends 1, 35 in both versions of Taito Legends 2, 8 exclusive to one platform or the other).
In other cases the US actually was better off, though -- for instance Tecmo Classic Arcade (Xbox exclusive in the US and Europe) is actually an upgraded port of Tecmo's Japanese PS2 collection "Tecmo Hit Parade", which only had seven games in it. The Xbox version added four more titles, Strato Fighter, Bomb Jack, Tecmo Bowl, and Rygar. And the US version was still considered a pretty thin package compared to things like Taito's or Midway's collections... the collection did come out in Japan on the Xbox too as Tecmo Classic Arcade, probably with the same titles, but the US release was first on that platform.
The reason that some of the games are PS2 only is because emulation couldn't run those games fast enough on the PS2, so Taito actually reprogrammed them for the system for their collection. They didn't make an Xbox version in Japan, though, so when Empire Interactive bought the US/EU Taito collection rights and started putting together the Taito Legends collections, a few titles had to be PS2-only. I think that the Xbox exclusives were added to compensate for that... they added four titles to make up for the four that couldn't be included. The PS2 exclusives are bigger names with the exception of RayForce, though, with the second best known Xbox exclusive probably being Cadash... (the other three Xbox exclusives are not shmups, only RayForce is, while all four PS2 exclusives are shmups.)
Finally, I didn't try to list PSP collections... maybe I should, they often seem to differ slightly from the PS2/Xbox/GC versions -- Taito Legends Power-Up (Space Invaders, Space Invaders Part II, Balloon Bomber, Phoenix, Return of the Invaders, Kiki Kai Kai), Midway Arcade Treasures: Extended Play (Sinistar, Defender, Xybots if it counts)...
Anyway, I think the problem with counting run & gun games as "shmups" is that you just start to get too far into genre creep... that is, it becomes really hard to define what is and what isn't a shmup if you don't use strict rules. If you don't use strict rules, almost any game with a gun could end up being called a "shmup"...
Like, what next? Do we add Metal Slug games? Vectorman? Space Dungeon? Wizard of Wor? Raimais? Xenophobe? Rogue Squadron? FPSes? I could come up with justifications for all of those, and probably more... which is why shmups.com sticks to such a specific definition of the genre. There are just so many games involving shooting things that if you're not specific your list gets too broad and vague.
Also, should games that are mostly something else but have shmup parts in them count? Like the Metal Slug games, they're mostly run & gun, but many of them also have forced-scrolling parts...
I mean, I do support having, in addition to traditional forced-scrolling shmups, non-forced-scrolling "shmups" like In the Hunt, and, with notes to their genre listed, arena shooters like Smash TV and Geometry Wars and rail shooters like Star Fox and Sin & Punishment. Those I think should either be on the list or be in separate, similar lists. But run & guns seem a bit more different to me somehow, and all those other games that have some similarities (such as those games I just listed in the previous paragraph)... you have to draw a line somewhere. Metal Slug perhaps should go on, but the rest of those I'd probably leave out.