Dragon Spirit: The New Legend1989

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.

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.

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.

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.

King's Knight is a fantasy-themed top-down shooter where four heroes have to unite to defeat a dragon and rescue a princess in despair. It was one of the first games published by Square Soft (now one-half of Square Enix). King's Knight is a variation on Konami's Knightmare which sold extremely well. The first four stages involve you powering up your characters as far as they can go, picking up shields (to increase defense), boots (to increase speed), swords (to increase attack power), and spell icons (which will be required to be held by everyone for the final storm on the castle), defeating monsters along the way. The power-ups are hidden underneath mountains, rocks, and houses. Nearly everything can be shot at and destroyed. The heroes are, in order: Ray Jack, the Knight, who possesses strong attacking power; Kaliva, the Wizard, who is good with magic and jumping; Barusa, the Monster, who has a strong defense; and Toby, the Thief, who can move swiftly. It is necessary to keep all four heroes alive for the fifth and final stage, because there are certain points that the group cannot get past if one of the party members has died.

In a remote corner of the galaxy, there lives a race of super-brains known as the Burai. For thousands of years, their vast mental capabilities have been focused upon one goal: the conquest of the universe! To accomplish this, they are creating huge armies of robo-mutants - bizarre creatures, half robot and half living flesh. With their seven manufacturing bases producing thousands of robo-mutants each day, the Burai armies will soon overrun the galaxy - unless you can stop them! Strap on your proton pack, charge up your laser cannon, and prepare to do battle with the deadliest army of mutant rogues in the universe. You must somehow penetrate the seven bases of the Burai, where you will confront a super-mutant guarding each base - monstrous creatures like the Giganticrab, Jawsipede, and Fangskull - until finally, you face the terrifying Slimedragon! But with the awesome arsenal of weapons at your command, victory may still be within your reach. It's up to you to rid the universe of the evil Burai once and for all!

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.