Chuka Taisen1988

Enter the wild, fun-filled world of Mike Chen. He's out to learn the secrets of the five lands so he can become a powerful wizard of the skies! Already he has tamed a cloud to carry him around. He has learned the art of the shooting Ki force from his fingertips! but standing against him are more wacky, zany creatures than you can shake your chopsticks at! Bird men. Flying cat heads. Pigs with guns. And flying bowls of soup! Sounds funny...but remember that each can zap you with a touch! You do have a couple of tricks up your sleeve. Collect power-up pots to fly faster and make your Ki force even more powerful! Defeat the mid-round bosses and you will earn the use of true magic...fireballs, guardian flames and bouncing bombs. Defeat the five world guardians and you'll become a Cloud Master! Fail, and you'll be locked in combat forever. Are you really going to let a flying dumpling get the best of you?

Released in 1989 on Sega Master System/Mark III.

Mushihimesama is a manic shooter developed by Cave and released by Taito in 2004. It was ported to the PlayStation 2 in 2005 and iOS in 2011. An Xbox 360 port was released in May 2012 (with ver1.5 as first print DLC). A significantly changed "version 1.5" was released to arcades in 2011. The game has an insect theme as all of the enemies resemble various insects such as beetles and butterflies. The game is set in various forest environments. It received a sequel in 2006, known as Mushihimesama Futari, and a spin-off iOS game entitled Mushihimesama Bug Panic.

“METAL SLUG 2”, the 2nd entry in SNK’s emblematic 2D run & gun action shooting game returns to the battlefield on the Steam gaming platform!

The pace is intense. Enemies come at Alisia from everywhere. And nowhere. Battle hordes of crazed barbarians, mow down mobs of poisonous centipedes, and slay squadrons of winged gargoyels. Blast enemies in waves or one by one with multi-directional, auto-targeting laser fire. Recruit killer companions like the DragonFrye, Ball O'Fire, Thunder Raven and Boomerang Lizard. Use them to hurl blistering boomerangs, fireballs, and electrical attacks. With Alisia's super-tough fighting skills, fry enemies to a crisp. And prove once and for all that you can go hand-to-hand with evil and come out the champion!

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.

Ghosts 'n Goblins is a platform game where the player controls a knight, named Sir Arthur, who must defeat zombies, ogres, demons, cyclops, dragons and other monsters in order to rescue Princess Prin Prin, who has been kidnapped by Satan, king of Demon World. Along the way the player can pick up new weapons, bonuses and extra suits of armor that can help in this task. The game is often considered very difficult by arcade standards and is commonly regarded as one of the most difficult games ever released. The game is considered by Gametrailers.com to be the world's second most difficult game ever made. The player can only be hit twice before losing a life (the first hit takes away Arthur's armor, and the player must continue on in his underwear until completing the level, or finding replacement armor). If the player loses a life, he is returned to the start of the level, or the halfway point if he has managed to get that far. Furthermore, each life can only last a certain length of time (generally around three minutes), the clock being reset at the start of a level. If the clock does run out, the player instantly loses that life. After defeating the final boss, but only with the cross weapon (if the player does not have the cross weapon, they will be prompted that it is needed to defeat the boss and restart at the beginning of level 5 and must repeat round 5 and 6 again regardless if the weapon is obtained immediately or not) for the first time the player is informed that the battle was "a trap devised by Satan". The player must then replay the entire game on a higher difficulty level to reach the genuine final battle.

Shoot'em ups don't come any weirder than Parodius - dodge through waves of killer penguins, neon rabbits and 50ft tall dancing girls. An intense experience of one or two players. This compilation collects the first two arcade incarnations of Konami's shoot'em'up parody series on one disc: Fantastic Journey (Gokujou Parodius) and Parodius (Parodius Da!). Unlike the ports seen on the SNES these are much more accurate to the original arcade version.