Crimzon Clover
Wow. Just wow. I have never been this impressed by any doujin shmup I have ever played, and it seems that the long development of the game really paid off. I absolutely love the fact that you earn points for how well you do in a run, and with those points you can buy everything from level select options to sound test files to - most importantly - credits. It makes you really think about whether you want to continue when you die and use credits up, store them up for a later run, or spend them on additional modes/ships/etc. I wish this technique for unlocking things and advancing in a shmup was implemented across the genre more often, as it really is even more compelling than something like Ikaruga's model of unlocking credits through playtime.
None of this would matter if the gameplay wasn't a ton of fun, which it is. There is depth to the scoring and comboing system, the graphics are top notch, and the soundtrack is competent (if not entirely memorable). It feels like a well honed effort by Cave or G.Rev, and for only $30 it comes VERY HIGHLY recommended. I picked it up from a member of shmups.org who also has a nice little thread advertising his import sales site (
http://www.sk8tokyo.com/shmup/) here on this forum (
http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=25244).
...shmup hard on