

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.

Shooter / Arcade / Action / Fantasy
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.

Shooter / Arcade / Action / Fantasy
The year: 1941. The place: 20,000 feet in the air over the North Atlantic. Lightning flashes across the skies of war-torn Europe. Your mission: beat back the imperial forces before they can use their new weapon! In 1941: Counter Attack, the goal is to shoot down enemy airplanes and collect weapon power-ups. It is the prequel to 1942, and the third game in the 19XX series.

Shooter / Arcade / Action / Science fiction
The capitalist nation of Randa has long had a history of excellence in the creation of aircraft, attracting the best of engineers in aerodynamics, artillery, and structuring from the world over. Once, even this interest had waned, until the creation of the air show Bakraid, in which the capabilities of the fighters could be demonstrated outside of simulations for all to see. Around the time of the seventh Bakraid, a nearby nation, Deneb, had attained an expansionist attitude, forcibly subjugating and annexing several of its neighbors with the assistance of the Shtarterra Security Council. Recently, Deneb has asked to participate in Bakraid. Randa's defense council, perfectly aware that this is just a pretext for Deneb to get its and the SSC's engines of war into Randan borders and more easily prosecute their war from there, give their blessing. However, the council secretly contacts the other Bakraid participants, offering even more prize money than normal if they will perform in a special version of Bakraid--genuine war conditions. In other words, use their own top-of-the-line planes to shatter Deneb's schemes. In all, nine pilots accept this plan, and begin Bakraid two weeks early to catch Deneb unaware...

Shooter / Arcade / Action / Fantasy
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.

Shooter / Arcade / Action / Warfare
Air Gallet, released in Japan as Akuu Gallet is a vertically scrolling shoot 'em up arcade game developed by Gazelle (one of the offshoots of Toaplan) and released by Banpresto in 1996. It runs on the Cave MK 1 hardware. It features the voice of narrator of Lenne Hardt and Jeff Manning.

Shooter / Arcade / Action / Science fiction
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.

Shooter / Arcade / Action / Science fiction
DoDonPachi SaiDaiOuJou is a vertical scrolling shoot 'em up arcade game released by Cave in 2012. It's the sixth chapter in CAVE's DonPachi series. A Japanese region-free release was released on May 30, 2013.

Shooter / Arcade / Action / Science fiction
Data East used footage from the film Harmagedon to create a laserdisc video game titled Bega's Battle. It was released in June 1983. In the game, the player to take on the role of the robot Bega (Vega) whose goal was to stop the invasion forces of the alien Varga (Genma), while also rescuing his three friends who had been kidnapped by them. Even among laserdisc games Bega's Battle has become somewhat rare because many of the machines were converted into Cobra Command machines as part of a discount deal offered by Data East in exchange for the internals of the Bega's Battle arcade cabinet. Similar to Astron Belt, the game used the footage mainly for backgrounds, while the actual gameplay was a shooting game with sprites laid over the video. Bega's Battle also used brief full-motion video cut scenes to develop a story between the game's shooting stages. Years later, this would become the standard approach to video game storytelling. Bega's Battle also featured a branching storyline. The Twin Galaxies world record for Bega's Battle was set by Steve Harris (later the founder of Electronic Gaming Monthly) on July 18, 1983.