/vr/ - Retro Games

What does the R stand for?

would you agree that the PC engine version is better than the arcade original?

what's your favorite type of game to collect? for me it's shumps.

How many people played it?
Did you find it hard to finish?

Did shoot-'em-ups ever achieve mainstream popularity back in the day? It seems like I always remember them being a rather niche genre, namely due to the steep difficulty curve associated with these games.

I remember getting hooked on Gradius after playing the NES version, but I had a lot of difficulty ever tracking down any of the sequels in any of their incarnations. R-Type was a similar ordeal. Although the first game got the shovelware treatment, the sequels seem much harder to come by.

I eventually had to resort to emulation and piracy to get my shoot-'em-up fix. Resellers on eBay want a king's ransom for some of these games.