Shooters with a good story?

[Soldier Blue]

Ah, I was wondering if there are any Shoot-em-ups with a least a halfway decent story. I'm looking for more than just 2 screens of text. Sin and Punishment might be the closest I've played to something like that.

[mjmjr25]

If your including Sin and Pun, then you can find decent stories (not epic mind you, but decent) in rail shooters and run n' gun shooters, much moreso than standard shmups.

Top of my head, the Castle Shikigami series of games has "ok" storylines.

Gunbird 2 actually has a pretty damn funny storyline.

And if your including FPS, then you can def. find good storylines. I really enjoyed Killer 7.

[Nemoide]

I only have it for Saturn and am not fluent in Japanese, but Radiant Silvergun has more story than most shmups in that it has a several-minute anime cutscene at the start, another shorter one at the end if I remember, and bits of dialog at the start/end of some levels. The quality might depend on your definition of "good" but at least it's a story?

And if rail shooters count, I always thought the Panzer Dragoon series had a really interesting story. Orta is probably the most story-heavy shooter of that series.

[Ivo]

Many of them actually sort of have interesting back story, but it doesn't really come across other than having a cool background during gameplay (I would say this is the case for example with Panzer Dragoon - haven't played Orta though).

If you play PC games of this type such as Tyrian or Raptor you often get a bit more story than typical in the arcade-based ones, that said the Gunbirds (mentioned above) do have some and they are arcade-based

I also really liked Radiant Silvergun's story.

Ivo.

[dunpeal2064]

Deathsmiles IIx seems to have a lot of story, but I have no clue whats going on.

Sengoku Blaede (Saturn, ps2, psp?) Also has some nice story going on.

Radiant Silvergun is probably the best for it though, now that its translated. Ikaruga also plays off the story of RS, but in a more minimalist way.

[J T]

RPG Shooter: Starwish is what you are looking for.

http://jayisgames.com/games/rpg-shooter-starwish/

[Bradtemple87]

Deathsmiles has two different endings for each girl and they are in English

[AppliCotton]

Probably not what you had in mind, but Cotton Fantastic Night Dreams.

Not only do the cuuuute animated cut scenes really draw you into the game.... the story's actually very deep. It's a wonderful variant on the myth about the girl mad about honey, which Claude Levi-Strauss analyzed in detail in volume 2 of his Mythologiques series. And the PC Engine Super CD version has a language option, so you can watch it all in a solid English translation.

[noiseredux]

Sigma Star Saga (GBA) is an RPG and a horizontal shmup.

[TEKTORO]

Sigma Star Saga (GBA) is an RPG and a horizontal shmup.

Weird I just picked up SSS and was suprised to see that when I played.In the begining of the game starts off Shmup and mid point thru or more (of begining of game)theres an awesome feel when the background scrolls Diagonally down what seems like 3-4 screens and your ship is just blastin through some beautiful clouds (real time).little hard but definitely good game.