slowslow325 wrote:Just curious, why do you feel the Shmup genre needs good graphics? Because, I feel just the opposite.
I honestly think that it is more effect than cause. If you look back to the 8 and 16-bit eras, SHMUPs always flocked to the most powerful console available. There were plently of shooters for the Master System, and there would have been more if the PC-Engine came later, because all the shooters then flocked to that console, and left it again for the Genesis, and eventually the SNES. The Saturn could be considered an extension of this trend as well, since it was the most powerful 2D console.
Anyway, since you mentioned that you have a 360, I recommend getting Death Smiles. It is a new SHMUP that was just recently [finally] released in the US, and it is fantastic. You even get a soundtrack and 360 faceplate if you get the game new! The gameplay also mixes things up a bit by letting you shoot both in front of you and behind you, as well as create a protective area around you that will automatically shoot anything that is in close enough range, which comes in handy for the times that you need to shoot vertically instead of horizontally.
Death Smiles is a horizontal shooter, which you said you don't like, but trust me; it has the soul of a heart-pounding, seizure-inducing, bullet-hell, fill-the-screen-with-so-many-bullets-that-you-can't-see-shit vertical shooter. It also has local and online 2-player co-op mode, which I can attest to being a blast [forgive the lame pun].
