![]() Speaking of PlayStation Minis, I’d be remiss not to mention other games that made the jump across to Vita-native releases. The shining example of this is Velocity Ultra, a fast-paced space offering with a fantastic teleportation mechanic that ranks among Vita most critically acclaimed releases and was followed up by a sequel named Velocity 2X that included even more action alongside on-foot sections that somehow managed to feel completely organic and faithful to the original. ![]() There’s no doubting that these don’t live up to kings of the genre such as Ikaruga, but they can still offer an enjoyable enough time. You could also check out Fast Striker, a short but sweet homebrew Neo-Geo/Dreamcast release that came across, or other indie efforts such as FullBlast, Project Root or Task Force Kampas. Of course, that’s only listing those games where you scroll horizontally – and vertical scrolling has been just as much a thing in the SHMUP genre for decades. A good example of this is Sky Force Anniversary, a game that started life as a PlayStation Mini (as did many other titles in this article), before receiving a much larger expanded re-release on Vita. Numerous indies have tried to ape the style of these two trailblazing series while offering their own twist on the basics – for example, Shutshimi is a scrolling shooter in the Darius vein except set in the sea rather than space, while Mercenary Kings offers a fun riff on the Metal Slug formula except with more of a focus on loot and replayability than its inspiration. There’s plenty more in the former category of scrolling left to right – Big Sky Infinity, Ice Cream Surfer, Sine Mora, Soldner X-2 and Super Hydorah are just some of the offerings that might satisfy your needs depending on whether you’re looking for something cute and light-hearted or more dark and serious. It again received solid reviews and an LRG physical, although it was slightly disappointing just to see a single game get the remaster treatment rather than a collection like the PSP received. Another long-running Japanese franchises revived for Vita was Metal Slug, which saw its third entry receive a native port handled by the skilled team at Code Mystics. It also featured a large DLC schedule that paid tribute to the history of the genre which was a really nice touch, earning it positive reviews alongside a physical release through Limited Run Games. Originally released for PSP before receiving numerous arcade updates and finally an ‘ultimate’ edition for PS4 and Vita, the game kept series traditions of branching paths through the campaign and fish-themed enemies being battled in outer space. ![]() I think the best place to start this article is with one of the more well-known Japanese SHMUP franchises out there – the Darius series has existed since the late 80’s and received its first Vita-native entry in 2016 with Dariusburst Chronicles Saviours. For the purposes of this article, I will be talking about traditional shooters modeled on Space Invaders, vertical or horizontal scrolling bullet hells in the vein of DonPachi as well as twin-stick shooters like Geometry Wars collectively rather than separating them out into different pieces. This has only really become possible with the advent of controllers like the dualshock and meant that Vita, as the first dual-analogue enabled handheld console, benefited from developers trying out this concept on the go (which lends itself very well to short bursts of gameplay). Within the genre, we’ve also seen changes as hardware has developed and many modern twin-stick shooters have popped up that give you movement of a character with one analogue stick and aim of your weapons with another. It’s unsurprising then that despite its modest sales, Vita is home to a number of fantastic SHMUPs that run the breadth from tiny indie efforts to releases in long-running series from storied Japanese developers. from the EU or NA stores), as well as some commentary on how well those games run on Vita and whether they fill any missing gaps in the library.įor some reason, shoot ‘em ups (or SHMUPs as I’ll likely refer to them for ease in this article) are a genre that have flourished on certain less commercially successful consoles – the Saturn was a haven for them at a time when it was a distant third in the market to the PS1 and N64, which then continued on to the Dreamcast and eventually the Xbox 360 despite the former being quickly discontinued and the latter largely ignored in Japan. The articles will highlight all Vita-native games, as well as any backwards-compatible PSP and PS1 titles which can be downloaded in English (i.e. The seventeenth in a series of articles I’m writing, looking at all the games available in a particular genre on Vita.
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