1941: Counter Attack1990

The game is set in the Pacific theater of World War II, off the coast of the Midway Atoll. The goal is to attack the Japanese Air Fleet that bombed the players' American Aircraft Carrier, pursue all Japanese Air and Sea forces, fly through the 16 levels of play, make their way to the Japanese battleship Yamato and destroy her. 11 Levels consist of an Air-to-Sea battle (with a huge battleship or an aircraft carrier as an End-Level Boss), while 5 levels consist of an all-aerial battle against a squadron of Japanese Bombers and a Mother Bomber that needs to be destroyed. As in 1942, players pilot a P-38. Two buttons are used: one for regular attacks (with several weapons) and one for special actions that executes either a loop like in 1942 or one of three special attacks that damage the plane. Unlike 1942, the player only has one life, with one refillable energy meter. Destroying a complete formation of red enemy planes will result in a power-up, such as a health boost or a temporary special weapons which replaces the default twin gun.

Batsugun is a vertically scrolling shoot 'em up video game created by the now-defunct Japanese game developer Toaplan. The title translates to "exceptional" or "extraordinary". It was the final game created before Toaplan's dissolution, and has been regarded as a key title in the development of the modern manic shooter, with elements of the game such as the size of the player's hitbox, the scale of their firepower, and the complexity of enemy bullet patterns all having an influence on future titles in the sub-genre. Members of the development team also went on to work on other successful manic shooters, most notably lead artist Junya Inoue.

Time Pilot is a multi-directional scrolling shooter and free-roaming aerial combat arcade game designed by Yoshiki Okamoto, released by Konami in 1982, and distributed in the United States by Centuri. Debuting in the golden age of video arcade games, it is a time travel themed game that allowed the player's plane to freely move across open air space that can scroll indefinitely in all directions. The Killer List of Videogames included Time Pilot in its list of top 100 arcade games of all time. The player assumes the role of a pilot of a futuristic fighter jet, trying to rescue fellow pilots trapped in different time eras. The player must fight off hordes of enemy craft and defeat the mother ship (or "boss") present in every level. The background moves in the opposite direction to the player's plane, rather than the other way around; the player's plane always remains in the center.

1942 is a vertically scrolling shoot 'em up made by Capcom that was released for the arcade in 1984. The goal is to reach Tokyo and destroy the entire Japanese air fleet. The player pilots a plane dubbed the "Super Ace" . The player has to shoot down enemy planes; to avoid enemy fire, the player can perform a roll or "loop-the-loop". During the game the player may collect a series of power-ups, one of them allowing the plane to be escorted by two other smaller fighters in a Tip Tow formation.

A second edition, titled Batsugun Special Version, was showcased to attendees at the 1994 AOU Show in Japan but it was never officially released in arcades, as Toaplan slid into bankruptcy and this special version appeared on the secondary video game collecting market after the company vanished. The special version featured a number of changes compared to the original version including a much smaller hitbox, a shield protecting the player from one hit, more powerful bombs, new scoring items, and the addition of multiple loops of increasing difficulty after completing the initial loop, among other changes.

In this vertical scrolling spaceship shooter, you control a ship that can change its polarity at will. As blue/white, the ship can easily destroy red/black enemies, and vice versa. Bullets of your polarity can be collected to fuel your energy gauge, but those opposite will kill you. Destroying an enemy ship causes them to fire revenge bullets which can be absorbed and fired back by the player. Different difficulties exist to change exactly how you interact with polarized points, or how they appear. It is the spiritual successor to Radiant Silvergun, featuring similar level and boss design, as well as it's buddhism inspired themes and aesthetics. Both are directed by Hiroshi Iuchi, who also composed Ikaruga's soundtrack.

DonPachi is a 1995 vertical manic shoot-'em-up originally in arcades and was the first game from the developer Cave. Settings are mainly woodland and enemies are military vehicles and robots, culminating in the final boss, a huge robotic bee. One of three weapon configurations is chosen at start and then leveled up through dropped power-ups. DonPachi was ported to the Sega Saturn and Sony Playstation in 1996.

Wolfenstein 3D is a first-person shooter presented with rudimentary 3D graphics and a follow-up to the top-down infiltration game Castle Wolfenstein. The game is broken up into levels, each of which is a flat plane divided into areas and rooms by a grid-based pattern of walls and doors, all of equal height. Each level is themed after Nazi bunkers and buildings. To finish a level, the player must traverse through the area to reach an elevator. Levels are grouped together into named episodes, with the final level focusing on a boss fight with a particularly difficult enemy. While traversing the levels, the player must fight Nazi guards and soldiers, dogs, and other enemies while managing supplies of ammunition and health. While the name was kept the same as the original release, this and future releases of the game came with the base campaign and the Nocturnal Missions expansion campaign together.