Proud to say I bought Apidya in its big box version at launch! Wish I still had it. I read a few good reviews and could see it was special. Definitely the best shoot ‘em up on the Amiga for me and is still in my top ten favourite games of all time. Other Amiga shooters had nice graphics or music, or played well. Apidya had it all in one game and was the closest to a Japanese title on the machine, being heavily inspired by Gradius in mechanics and gameplay but with a less traditional setting.
And that's the crux there. Closest to a Japanese title. Like Star Soldier, Gradius, Gun Nac, Zanac, Soldier Blade. Amiga did not really advance on these, but regressed a bit. The amiga exclusives are a joy but I hate the one button mechanic, it's so limiting.
@@UnboxRacing Well yeah, I don't think anyone who loves shoot 'em ups is claiming the Amiga has the best, but the best on the Amiga are worth a look. I agree about one button games, but I'm pretty sure Apidya and a few others support a two button controller.
An excellent exclusive Amiga shoot-em-up is Fly Harder, with the same principle as Zarathrusta but with better graphics, animation and musics. About Banshee: I wanted to like this game, but I hated it. It looked like a typical game of the Bitmap Brother, and had the same flaws: 25fps animation (which is a no-go for a shoot-em-up) and no in-game musics. It just had nice graphics. I regret that Rainbow Arts didn't make a shmup based on the level 3 of Turrican 2. It has everything : 5 levels parallax scrollings, 50fps, colorful, fast, in game musics... It could have been the base for a whole game.
Ah, not tried Fly Harder! I'll check it out. Yeah, a shooter based on the Turrican scrolling shooter section would've been interesting (and probably fairly easy to do).
Datastorm was one of my Amiga faves. The graphics might look simple, but they're fast and smooth, and the game is so very playable with the finely tuned gravity effect.
As an Atari ST owner growing up, I was always jealous of how many games didn’t get a ST conversion. So great to see this selection of SHMUPS, some of which I was not aware of. Thanks for covering them.
Hybris has forgettable music? Damn.. literally some of my favourite video game music ever. Paul van der Valk is easily up there with Hüelsbeck in my opinion, it's a shame he didn't do more soundtracks.
Yeah, it's an odd one. I don't dislike the music at all, it's just one I can never remember. Like, ask me to hum Agony's music, and I can do it instantly. But Hybris never sticks with me.
I also like the music in Hybris. This was one of my favorite shooter games on the Amiga at the time. @7:44 'onaretrotip' said his weapons 'randomly changed'. I had to laugh a bit. It's not a random change, but the weapons expansion mode. It's activated with the return key. These expansion modes are normally 30 sec., but this can be changed in the game menu before you start. When you have progressed to weapon type 4, and use this mode, the rotating shield makes you invincible, as enemy ships can't penetrate it. I always tried to play in such a way that I could use weapon 4 the most (by first upgrading to 5, and then letting one shield be hit so it collapses back to weapon 4). A very enjoyable game in my opinion.
@@MacXpert74 Yeah, as I said, I knew I was missing something with the weapons. I did say they "seemed to" randomly change, but of course knew something was going on I was missing. Hence I asked.
7:57 the weapon upgrade doesn't stay forever, it reverts back to the previous one after a while, like in aero fighters. and no, the music is not forgettable is the best part of the game :)
Ah, that explains it. Personally I stand by my statement that it's forgettable - it's good, but it's not something I would find myself humming while cleaning the house (as in it doesn't have music I can remember later).
@@onaretrotip the music in Hybris is of astounding quality and generally regarded as on of the finest title tracks for a game alongside the Turrican series. It's fair enough you don't rate it as such but the quality of the music itself is unquestionably great. It's almost always included in top 10 best Amiga music
@@onaretrotip With Hybris you get 3 of those weapon expands, press enter to activate iirc. Each different weapon has a different type of weapon expansion plus you have 3 smart bombs. The idea of the weapon expansion is so you can shoot enemies behind the barriers without having to pass the barrier. Hybris is basically an Amiga version of the Arcade game Terra Cresta, it's very similar.
Also, mega typhoon, ziriax, t-zero, t-racer, thesius xii, apache to name but a few of notable amiga xclusive shmups not present in this video. But, perhaps, a part II will follow covering those.
I'm not very familiar with Amiga games in general, let alone shooters, so this was very informative. I'm surprised at how many of the games have huge sprites for the ships. A big player sprite is always a bad idea in a shooter since it makes you an easy target and makes evading stage hazards very difficult. Anyway, another great video. I was glad to see a notification for new content on your channel.
@@onaretrotip No problem at all, man. You have no obligation to us, so no need to apologize. I have two works, so I know how hard it is to focus at the end of the day. When you upload, we will watch. Thanks to you for the effort.
Regarding Hybris - press space to detach your upgrades. That's what you did during the video but seemed a little puzzled. Also the follow up - Battle Squadron was an absolute epic shooter 🤩
@@onaretrotip you are absolutely right... It was pressing the Return key that did the magic!! Just booted it up and can't stop listening to the intro music 🤩
I cant recall exactly how its done other than with the keyboard because Ive not played it since it was a new game, but I seem to recall it was something like wiggling the joystick left and right or maybe rotating the joystick through 360 degrees while holding the joystick button. It's definitely something along those lines. I could be remembering incorrectly, but I think one of the 2 is for smart bombs and the other to detach your weapons. I do recall it was nigh on avoidable to accidently do it from time to time, although after a while you can get used to it without doing it often.
Rescuing the humanoids in Amnios was an alternative way of summoning the bosses. Destroying different things in the landscape also had effects of their own, represented by those icons in the top-right. Mainly it affected how baddies could attack you, things like fire rate, accuracy, or even generation of the baddies themselves. I think you could even stop them shooting completely. They took a lot of inspiration from Sinistar and Defender and Asteroids, like you said. I think it would have been better if it were zoomed out a ways, though, especially with the sort of "half-step" scrolling and everything.
Had you presented us this list in 1995 or so, I would've wholeheartedly agreed about the greatness of some of these games. Unfortunately, years of playing Japanese shoot 'em ups on other platforms have soured me on the vast majority on Amiga and ST shmups. There are some gameplay fundamentals that western shmup designers just didn't seem to grasp, like having balanced gameplay, careful enemy placement and a reasonable difficulty curve.
I wish that the Amiga had have been more popular in Japan. We would have gotten some amazing games for it Mac then. Some titles from Japanese consoles, the X68000, NEC pc-98, and FM Towns probably would have gotten Amiga versions.
It would have been cool to see doujin games on the Amiga not to mention dignified versions of arcade shmups. I often wonder if games like Cho Ren Sha 68k or Flame Zapper Kotsujin could have been doable on any Amiga (better chances on the AGA machines maybe..). A lot of years ago I remember finding a vertical shmup on Aminet that was being developed by a Japanese guy..Quite basic and lacked music but interesting nonetheless. I don't think it was ever completed and I can't remeber its name for the life of me..
@@000jimbojones000 Kinda? It was very cheap compared to the X68k. In Us dollars an Amiga 500 was $700 (1987) X68k was approximately $3500 (1987) using currency conversion not including any tariffs.
Blood Money, Menace, X-Out and Z-Out were released on multiple platforms. Wasn't aware of Fly Harder, but yes I think that is an exclusive, as a few have mentioned that one. Will have to give Deluxe Galaga a try.
Great compilation of shoot’em ups, thank you for bring back many good memories! I think swiv is also developed on amiga, and pretty solid game. Turrican ii also has horizontal spaceship shooting level. Xenon 2 is a quite fun game too.
Thanks! Yes, SWIV was in the intro, but those three aren't exclusives obviously. Turrican II is one of my favourite games on the Amiga (that Chris Huelsbeck music 😍), and I still remember the Christmas I got Xenon II. The intro music blew me away in that game too. Good times.
in hybris you move your joystick in a circular motion or waggle it to change weapon configuration. Each ship power level has two configurations that you can switch between.
Great stuff. Love the Amiga and shooters. Loads of obscure ones out there like Scorpio, Outlands, Intact, Phantom Fighter, Venom Wing and Overkill. Think they wee Amiga only.
As a shooter fan was really interesting to see this though I don't personally own an Amiga. It's a great system, used to play on a friends loads and though we didn't have any of these games to play, the look of them took me right back. Uridium 2 looks fab, the C64 original was pretty much the first shooter I ever played and I've been a shooter addict since. Great video, can't wait to see future entries, I find it really interesting to learn about systems I've not had a chance to deep dive myself.
The follow up to hybris was battle squadron , which was later ported the the megadrive Still play today , fantastic music too Some cracking games from u on the list
@@Rob_III im amazed at how well some megadrive ports look similar to the amiga, but man did the megadrives music and sound suck on battle squadron, also it wasnt just the megadrive, battle squadron appeared on ios/android a while abck and for once it wasnt "upgraded" to be modern, they kinda stuck with the original stuff that made it good in the first place, unlike say the mobile versions of spy vs spy, which offered classic and upgraded but the controls ruined the whole thing.
May I recommend to add "Mega Typhoon" to the list. This one of the very few Amiga exclusives that combines thrilling aesthetics with great flow. Same might be true for the 2019-release "RESHOOT R". But as I am involved with development I do not want to brag too much about that :-)
Amazing games and even better Music themes in some of them like the amazing Apidya or Agony which had themes that stayed with me for decades.Another Favourite of mine even though it came out on the Atari ST as well is Wings of Death with some of the Best Scores i ever heart for a shooter.
I love the look of Banshee, and immediately thought of the Chaos Engine, known as Soldier of Fortune in the usa, and Zarathrusta reminds me of a game on the Mega Drive/Genesis called Sub Terrania.
Nice list, but you forgot to mention Fly Harder which plays exactly like Zarathrusta but looks and sounds vastly superior with a catchy OST and a cool sci-fi intro and ending sequence.
@@onaretrotip Very good looking late 1993 AMIGA game, but super hard. It even features a HAM 4096 color intro screen of the space-ship and animation of the company logo in the beginning. Do check it out.
Great video! I had many of these games back in the day! A few comments from an old-timer, for what it's worth: Uridium 2: I consider this a flawed masterpiece. Beautifully smooth & fast, great 32-colour graphics and gorgeous animations - particularly the weapons effects. But the mini-game once you landed on the ship was a bit rubbish. Still, a programming tour-de-force from Andrew Braybrook and great use of the Amiga's chipset. Apidya: a great shooter. Terrific graphics & music - and uses pretty much every technical trick on the Amiga. Level 3's animated parallax background has to be seen to be believed. Agony: lots of impressive graphical effects, but the game itself is not great - more like an interactive graphical demo than a game. Datastorm: Well, hold on there - this is the best Defender clone on the Amiga. Looks like an 8-bit game...? I don't think so! The graphics have been kept simple to facilitate the dazzling particle effects, with craft splintering into tons of tiny pieces - this is visually spectacular. Also, the giant end-of-level baddies are seriously impressive and definitely don't look 8-bit... Hybris: love the music in this game! The only problem is that it gets interrupted by the sound effects. That should have been better managed. I notice a lot of people say that Hybris is the game that convinced them to get an Amiga - because it looked and played just like a proper arcade game... Amnios: great "alien" graphic style - and it uses 64-colour half-brite mode. Unfortunately, this results in a low-ish frame rate, and that kind of kills the game... Disposable Hero: this is a technical marvel. For ages, I assumed it was an AGA game. Nope! The quality of the pixel art and enemy graphic design here is outstanding BUT, the background is way too cluttered with visual elements - and that raging red colour needed to be toned down. A game that I admire a lot but find it very hard to look at... Missing Amiga exclusives: Battle Squadron and Fly Harder: both technically & artistically outstanding...
I think my two favourites to this day are Battle Squadron and Uridium 2. The former not exclusive to the Amiga though the Amiga version is the better one.
*Great video! loveeeee the Amiga! Man I miss those good ol days! Was walker an Amiga only game? not sure. Used to like that! Cheers for the video mate!* 💪👍
Woaw I am amaze how the Amiga are so Beautiful, my personal favourite is Agony, it just so amazing it should be on a museun, I realise the Mascot of Psygnosis is the main character also their cover and some others are so amazing i kinda wish alot of these art carring on in today gaming it fell a lost art. Especial mentions to Banshee for a Steam punk style and Apidya for.. a very odd choice.. I would actually download a Amiga emu to play these games
Well, the Amiga version of _Katakis_ is basically an Amiga exclusive because it has very little to do with the C64 original. Also, I have to disagree about the music in _Hybris._ It is one of the few Amiga tunes to use SID sounding arpeggios (no idea how they did that on a sound chip that basically only played PCM), and I quite like it.
is uridium2 an actual exclusive given theres Hyper Sentinel, yeah its not an "official" uridium2, but its kinda the same thing. also not a commercial game but i always liked the PD game Cybernetix.
My favorite shooter on the old Amiga are: Stardust (and Super Stardust), Disposable Hero, Banshee, Zarathrusta, Uridium 2, Virocop, Battle Squadron, Silkworm, Apidya, Hybris, X-Out, Saint Dragon, Dragonbreed, Datastorm, Wings of Death, Mega Typhoon, R-Type, Transplant, Pod, Quantox, Z-Out, Quartz, Cosmic Pirate, Photon Storm… there are quite a few.
Z-Out is fantastic. Great rtype clone. Some of the later levels are great showcases of the Amiga as well, with multiple levels of parallax, reflections, multiple rtype style motherships on screen at once, and so on.
Personally I like a lot Wings of Death on the Amiga and also, for some reason, Frenetic (yet an other obscure Core shooter, not the best but, hey, euroshmups are an aquired taste after all..). Granted they are also on the ST, so not exclusives but still..
Disposable Hero could've been decent if they'd reduce enemy HP by, like 60%-75%, otherwise absolutely every enemy in the game is colossal bullet sponge. Some bosses take so many shots to take down, you'd swear the game bugged out!
@@onaretrotip Disposable Hero I thought was pretty easy back in the day but I played it not long ago and I was useless at it. I was thinking its one of those games thats better with a joystick rather than a gamepad....or maybe I've just got rusty!
I always think Of agony as shadow of the beast as a side scrolling shooter. A stunning hi res intro with incredible music gives way to a visually gorgeous game with multiple parallax levels and really creepy art design that really shows off the strengths of the amiga. Gameplay sucks though, just like sotb.
Nice video, but I will disagree with the Apidya being arguably the best horizontal shooter on the Amiga. It is brilliant don't get me wrong but I much preferred Silkworm, disposable hero or even both R-type games to it... I am also very glad to see someone taking Hybris as what it really is: a just ok shootet. Most Amiga fans have a weird idolizing opinion about this mediocre shooter
@@000jimbojones000 yes but the comment in the video was "Apidya is arguably the best horizontal shooter on the Amiga" not "the best exclusive shooter on the Amiga".
@@jimkrom For me Apidya is the best shoot ‘em up on the Amiga, horizontal or vertical. It’s basically the Amiga’s Gradius mechanically, but with a more interesting setting and more character, plus a fantastic soundtrack not far behind the likes of Turrican 2 thanks to Mr H. Most importantly of all it plays very well, as close to a Japanese style as anything else on the machine including some actual Japanese game ports such as the excellent R-Types you mentioned. Disposable Hero and Banshee aren’t bad but no shoot ‘em up should have an energy bar, it’s just lazy design.
I remember well Pioneer Plague because as the video says its gimmick was to use 4096 colors and it was one of the few games that did it in Amiga (personally I never played others).Gameplay sucks and scroll it's very jerky
It was actually on of the weakest points of the Amiga.i was seeing megadrive and Snes having arcade ports.also had bad platformers no graphics bad parallax scroll.it was a great system but not powerful enough as the sharp x68000
I hate saying 'shmup' it is such an awkward word. I use the term shooters but when I talk to people who are a bit younger than me they think I am referring to first person shooters.
Euro-Shmups...great tech-demos, terrible playability. Seems like only the Japanese get that genre right. Shield bars and shop systems are simply not good enough to offset terrible stage & pattern design.
Apidya is the Amiga’s best and closest to a Japanese title in style and playability. It takes a lot of inspiration from Gradius in gameplay and mechanics but with a more varied and unusual setting!
The greatest platform of all time?? Really? I really love the Amiga when I had one as a kid. I love the games and reading all the magazines now and following the current scene. But, it's not the best platform. The one button controller kills it for shmups. Nes, PC Engine and Mega Drive are just better.
still watching the video but Hybris looks awesome. it looked like your ship upgraded when you hit 260k. Maybe there is a score based leveling system? idk, cheers
When I played Hybris for the first time, it was a jaw dropping experience that showed that Amiga could push pure arcade quality.
Gotta love the Amiga!
Proud to say I bought Apidya in its big box version at launch! Wish I still had it. I read a few good reviews and could see it was special. Definitely the best shoot ‘em up on the Amiga for me and is still in my top ten favourite games of all time. Other Amiga shooters had nice graphics or music, or played well. Apidya had it all in one game and was the closest to a Japanese title on the machine, being heavily inspired by Gradius in mechanics and gameplay but with a less traditional setting.
Yeah, wish I still had all my original Amiga stuff 😢
And that's the crux there. Closest to a Japanese title. Like Star Soldier, Gradius, Gun Nac, Zanac, Soldier Blade. Amiga did not really advance on these, but regressed a bit. The amiga exclusives are a joy but I hate the one button mechanic, it's so limiting.
@@UnboxRacing Well yeah, I don't think anyone who loves shoot 'em ups is claiming the Amiga has the best, but the best on the Amiga are worth a look. I agree about one button games, but I'm pretty sure Apidya and a few others support a two button controller.
That water animation in Agony is still one of the best BG animation loops Ive ever seen. Just wished the hitbox was smaller.
It's stunning. But yes, shame the gameplay isn't stronger.
I'm still struggling to figure out exactly where the hit box is? Owl head or body?
An excellent exclusive Amiga shoot-em-up is Fly Harder, with the same principle as Zarathrusta but with better graphics, animation and musics.
About Banshee: I wanted to like this game, but I hated it. It looked like a typical game of the Bitmap Brother, and had the same flaws: 25fps animation (which is a no-go for a shoot-em-up) and no in-game musics. It just had nice graphics.
I regret that Rainbow Arts didn't make a shmup based on the level 3 of Turrican 2. It has everything : 5 levels parallax scrollings, 50fps, colorful, fast, in game musics... It could have been the base for a whole game.
Ah, not tried Fly Harder! I'll check it out.
Yeah, a shooter based on the Turrican scrolling shooter section would've been interesting (and probably fairly easy to do).
"I regret that Rainbow Arts didn't make a shmup based on the level 3 of Turrican 2."
I agree.
Datastorm was one of my Amiga faves. The graphics might look simple, but they're fast and smooth, and the game is so very playable with the finely tuned gravity effect.
Yeah it's quite basic visually, but it's very fluid.
As an Atari ST owner growing up, I was always jealous of how many games didn’t get a ST conversion. So great to see this selection of SHMUPS, some of which I was not aware of. Thanks for covering them.
Ah, thanks, Quang! Fair few more to come in this series, so hopefully it'll be interesting.
I didn't own an Amiga but my friends from school did. Whenever I think of Amiga, I think of Apidya. Gorgeous game!
Yes, very good-looking (and sounding) game.
Hybris has forgettable music? Damn.. literally some of my favourite video game music ever. Paul van der Valk is easily up there with Hüelsbeck in my opinion, it's a shame he didn't do more soundtracks.
Yeah, it's an odd one. I don't dislike the music at all, it's just one I can never remember. Like, ask me to hum Agony's music, and I can do it instantly. But Hybris never sticks with me.
I also like the music in Hybris. This was one of my favorite shooter games on the Amiga at the time. @7:44 'onaretrotip' said his weapons 'randomly changed'. I had to laugh a bit. It's not a random change, but the weapons expansion mode. It's activated with the return key. These expansion modes are normally 30 sec., but this can be changed in the game menu before you start. When you have progressed to weapon type 4, and use this mode, the rotating shield makes you invincible, as enemy ships can't penetrate it. I always tried to play in such a way that I could use weapon 4 the most (by first upgrading to 5, and then letting one shield be hit so it collapses back to weapon 4). A very enjoyable game in my opinion.
@@MacXpert74 Yeah, as I said, I knew I was missing something with the weapons. I did say they "seemed to" randomly change, but of course knew something was going on I was missing. Hence I asked.
@@onaretrotip Haha, no problem.
@@MacXpert74 LOL Need to give it another go now I know what I'm doing.
I think Deluxe Galaga was an Amiga exclusive. I played that so much ... even more than Battle Squadron.
Ah yeah, I think it was.
I really like the smoothness and fluent animations of Uridium 2!
The art style kind of reminds me of Tubular Worlds.
Yes, it's very fluid.
What? It was so disorientating i got dizzy watching it!!
@@NathanChisholm041 LOL
7:57 the weapon upgrade doesn't stay forever, it reverts back to the previous one after a while, like in aero fighters. and no, the music is not forgettable is the best part of the game :)
Ah, that explains it. Personally I stand by my statement that it's forgettable - it's good, but it's not something I would find myself humming while cleaning the house (as in it doesn't have music I can remember later).
@@onaretrotip the music in Hybris is of astounding quality and generally regarded as on of the finest title tracks for a game alongside the Turrican series. It's fair enough you don't rate it as such but the quality of the music itself is unquestionably great. It's almost always included in top 10 best Amiga music
@@adroharv9213 Fair enough, but not my cup of tea.
@@onaretrotip
With Hybris you get 3 of those weapon expands, press enter to activate iirc. Each different weapon has a different type of weapon expansion plus you have 3 smart bombs.
The idea of the weapon expansion is so you can shoot enemies behind the barriers without having to pass the barrier.
Hybris is basically an Amiga version of the Arcade game Terra Cresta, it's very similar.
@@off1k Ah, thanks for the info!
BLASTAR from Core Design is an game that I think is only on the Amiga. Beautiful graphics on that game!
Also, mega typhoon, ziriax, t-zero, t-racer, thesius xii, apache to name but a few of notable amiga xclusive shmups not present in this video. But, perhaps, a part II will follow covering those.
Not played Blastar, I'll check that out.
I'm not very familiar with Amiga games in general, let alone shooters, so this was very informative. I'm surprised at how many of the games have huge sprites for the ships. A big player sprite is always a bad idea in a shooter since it makes you an easy target and makes evading stage hazards very difficult. Anyway, another great video. I was glad to see a notification for new content on your channel.
Thanks dude. Sorry for the lack of videos lately, but I've just been very busy and not really been feeling like editing in my downtime.
@@onaretrotip No problem at all, man. You have no obligation to us, so no need to apologize. I have two works, so I know how hard it is to focus at the end of the day. When you upload, we will watch. Thanks to you for the effort.
Regarding Hybris - press space to detach your upgrades. That's what you did during the video but seemed a little puzzled.
Also the follow up - Battle Squadron was an absolute epic shooter 🤩
You say that, but I don't think I was pressing spacebar 🤔
@@onaretrotip you are absolutely right... It was pressing the Return key that did the magic!!
Just booted it up and can't stop listening to the intro music 🤩
I cant recall exactly how its done other than with the keyboard because Ive not played it since it was a new game, but I seem to recall it was something like wiggling the joystick left and right or maybe rotating the joystick through 360 degrees while holding the joystick button. It's definitely something along those lines.
I could be remembering incorrectly, but I think one of the 2 is for smart bombs and the other to detach your weapons. I do recall it was nigh on avoidable to accidently do it from time to time, although after a while you can get used to it without doing it often.
Rescuing the humanoids in Amnios was an alternative way of summoning the bosses. Destroying different things in the landscape also had effects of their own, represented by those icons in the top-right. Mainly it affected how baddies could attack you, things like fire rate, accuracy, or even generation of the baddies themselves. I think you could even stop them shooting completely.
They took a lot of inspiration from Sinistar and Defender and Asteroids, like you said. I think it would have been better if it were zoomed out a ways, though, especially with the sort of "half-step" scrolling and everything.
Ah, right. Thanks!
Had you presented us this list in 1995 or so, I would've wholeheartedly agreed about the greatness of some of these games. Unfortunately, years of playing Japanese shoot 'em ups on other platforms have soured me on the vast majority on Amiga and ST shmups. There are some gameplay fundamentals that western shmup designers just didn't seem to grasp, like having balanced gameplay, careful enemy placement and a reasonable difficulty curve.
Absolutely. It wasn't one of the Amiga's strong points.
Some more shooters for you:
Blastar
Powder
Carcharodon White Shark
Sidewinder
Scorpio
XR-35
Katakis
Thanks!
@@onaretrotip Mega Typhoon
I wish that the Amiga had have been more popular in Japan. We would have gotten some amazing games for it Mac then. Some titles from Japanese consoles, the X68000, NEC pc-98, and FM Towns probably would have gotten Amiga versions.
It would have been cool to see doujin games on the Amiga not to mention dignified versions of arcade shmups. I often wonder if games like Cho Ren Sha 68k or Flame Zapper Kotsujin could have been doable on any Amiga (better chances on the AGA machines maybe..). A lot of years ago I remember finding a vertical shmup on Aminet that was being developed by a Japanese guy..Quite basic and lacked music but interesting nonetheless. I don't think it was ever completed and I can't remeber its name for the life of me..
amen to that. Instead it’s mainly Euro-Shooters. 🙄
Oh, 100%! If only.
yep, Japan had the X68000. But it was quite expensive in the days. Amiga was kind of cheap compared to it.
@@000jimbojones000
Kinda? It was very cheap compared to the X68k.
In Us dollars an Amiga 500 was $700 (1987) X68k was approximately $3500 (1987) using currency conversion not including any tariffs.
Uridium 2, Apidya and Project x were the best for me even though it was impossible.
Haha, yeah, a lot of them are so hard.
Oh yeah! Disposable Hero. My absolute fave from back then. Gorgeous visuals and nice Gameplay imho.
Yeah that's a good one. Only just discovered that one myself.
hard as nails though.
The best shoot'em up on the A500 in my opinion. Really a gem.
Nice and cool Video 👍 That was really a golden timescape back in these days. 🤩
Thanks! It certainly was :)
Some games you're probably missing (not aware thry got ports):
- Deluxe Galaga (the best!)
- Blood Money and Menace from DMA
- X-out and Z-out
- Fly Harder (another Thrust-alike)
Blood Money, Menace, X-Out and Z-Out were released on multiple platforms. Wasn't aware of Fly Harder, but yes I think that is an exclusive, as a few have mentioned that one. Will have to give Deluxe Galaga a try.
Great compilation of shoot’em ups, thank you for bring back many good memories!
I think swiv is also developed on amiga, and pretty solid game. Turrican ii also has horizontal spaceship shooting level. Xenon 2 is a quite fun game too.
Thanks! Yes, SWIV was in the intro, but those three aren't exclusives obviously. Turrican II is one of my favourite games on the Amiga (that Chris Huelsbeck music 😍), and I still remember the Christmas I got Xenon II. The intro music blew me away in that game too. Good times.
@@onaretrotip we grew up with an amiga computer, always have many profound memories with it 😄
@@zenodyssey Same. It was the first computer we had in the family home. Such fond memories.
in hybris you move your joystick in a circular motion or waggle it to change weapon configuration. Each ship power level has two configurations that you can switch between.
Yes, I now realise I was completely missing the mechanics of the weaponry.
Great stuff. Love the Amiga and shooters. Loads of obscure ones out there like Scorpio, Outlands, Intact, Phantom Fighter, Venom Wing and Overkill. Think they wee Amiga only.
Nice! A few there I haven't tried. Thanks.
As a shooter fan was really interesting to see this though I don't personally own an Amiga. It's a great system, used to play on a friends loads and though we didn't have any of these games to play, the look of them took me right back. Uridium 2 looks fab, the C64 original was pretty much the first shooter I ever played and I've been a shooter addict since. Great video, can't wait to see future entries, I find it really interesting to learn about systems I've not had a chance to deep dive myself.
Thanks! Glad it was interesting. Fair few more to come in this series :)
The follow up to hybris was battle squadron , which was later ported the the megadrive
Still play today , fantastic music too
Some cracking games from u on the list
Ah, yeah I know Battle Squadron. Didn't know they were related!
A couple there I’ve never heard of there Pete.
Bring back In Da Houseeee!
I will def bring it back soon. Need to do one at yours mate!
@@onaretrotip always welcome pal👍
I expected to see Project X in this list, very good looking game I think but its so difficult :O
Cool game that one, but yeah not an exclusive as it came out on DOS.
@@onaretrotip Oh I did not know that :)
Ah that explains why I was missing Battle Squadron on the list too. It appears to have been ported to the Mega Drive.
@@onaretrotip I didn't know that at all.
@@Rob_III im amazed at how well some megadrive ports look similar to the amiga, but man did the megadrives music and sound suck on battle squadron, also it wasnt just the megadrive, battle squadron appeared on ios/android a while abck and for once it wasnt "upgraded" to be modern, they kinda stuck with the original stuff that made it good in the first place, unlike say the mobile versions of spy vs spy, which offered classic and upgraded but the controls ruined the whole thing.
My first computer!! Loved it!
Mine too!
Great video mate, fair few I've never heard of.
I totally agree banshee is stunning to look at, one I still need to hoover up for the cd32.
Thanks, David. Yeah Banshee looks great with that Bitmap Brothers-esque style.
One of my favorite Amiga shmups is Battle Squadron.
Good one!
Worth a mention but Hybris, which didn't get enough love in this video was made by the same team who made Banshee which got all the love.
Hybris is just okay for me, I don't love it. But decent game.
@@onaretrotip guess you had to be there I played it a lot when I got it as it played better than most other games like it on the Amiga at the time.
@@krankymann Yeah, it's always different coming to these games later in life, and I never played that one as a kid.
May I recommend to add "Mega Typhoon" to the list. This one of the very few Amiga exclusives that combines thrilling aesthetics with great flow.
Same might be true for the 2019-release "RESHOOT R". But as I am involved with development I do not want to brag too much about that :-)
Yeah, a few have recommended Mega Typhoon. I'll def be giving it a go.
I loved Agony's theme music. Also rip Psygnosis, many of my favorite games were from them
Yeah, belting music. Loved Psygnosis' marketing style too. Always interesting art, etc.
Yes pls shoot more amiga videos.
Will do! :)
Amazing games and even better Music themes in some of them like the amazing Apidya or Agony which had themes that stayed with me for decades.Another Favourite of mine even though it came out on the Atari ST as well is Wings of Death with some of the Best Scores i ever heart for a shooter.
Yes, some of the Amiga music just stays with you even 30 years on!
I love the look of Banshee, and immediately thought of the Chaos Engine, known as Soldier of Fortune in the usa, and Zarathrusta reminds me of a game on the Mega Drive/Genesis called Sub Terrania.
Yes, definite parallels in visual style with The Chaos Engine/Soldier of fortune!
There's another very similar game on Amiga called Fly Harder, think it might be exclusive too.
@@off1k I need to check thst one out.
Nice list, but you forgot to mention Fly Harder which plays exactly like Zarathrusta but looks and sounds vastly superior with a catchy OST and a cool sci-fi intro and ending sequence.
Yeah, I wasn't aware of that one. Will definitely give it a try now though! 😀
@@onaretrotip Very good looking late 1993 AMIGA game, but super hard. It even features a HAM 4096 color intro screen of the space-ship and animation of the company logo in the beginning. Do check it out.
Great vid Pete, looking forward to other Amiga categories being covered too :)
Thanks, Steve. And thanks for the heads-up on Disposable Hero!
Great video! I had many of these games back in the day! A few comments from an old-timer, for what it's worth:
Uridium 2: I consider this a flawed masterpiece. Beautifully smooth & fast, great 32-colour graphics and gorgeous animations - particularly the weapons effects. But the mini-game once you landed on the ship was a bit rubbish. Still, a programming tour-de-force from Andrew Braybrook and great use of the Amiga's chipset.
Apidya: a great shooter. Terrific graphics & music - and uses pretty much every technical trick on the Amiga. Level 3's animated parallax background has to be seen to be believed.
Agony: lots of impressive graphical effects, but the game itself is not great - more like an interactive graphical demo than a game.
Datastorm: Well, hold on there - this is the best Defender clone on the Amiga. Looks like an 8-bit game...? I don't think so! The graphics have been kept simple to facilitate the dazzling particle effects, with craft splintering into tons of tiny pieces - this is visually spectacular. Also, the giant end-of-level baddies are seriously impressive and definitely don't look 8-bit...
Hybris: love the music in this game! The only problem is that it gets interrupted by the sound effects. That should have been better managed. I notice a lot of people say that Hybris is the game that convinced them to get an Amiga - because it looked and played just like a proper arcade
game...
Amnios: great "alien" graphic style - and it uses 64-colour half-brite mode. Unfortunately, this results in a low-ish frame rate, and that kind of kills the game...
Disposable Hero: this is a technical marvel. For ages, I assumed it was an AGA game. Nope! The quality of the pixel art and enemy graphic design here is outstanding BUT, the background is way too cluttered with visual elements - and that raging red colour needed to be toned down. A game that I admire a lot but find it very hard to look at...
Missing Amiga exclusives: Battle Squadron and Fly Harder: both technically & artistically outstanding...
Thanks! Don't think Battle Squadron was an exclusive, was it? Need to try Fly Harder.
Amazing as always
Thank you!
I think my two favourites to this day are Battle Squadron and Uridium 2. The former not exclusive to the Amiga though the Amiga version is the better one.
Yeah Battle Squadron is a good one!
Video molto bello.hai fatto vedere giochi di buon livello e altri ottimi,un bel lavoro.AMIGA,the best !
Amiga is the GOAT!
Datastorm looks like the people understood how to do Defender far better than Jeff Minter with ST/Amiga Defender II
Yeah, it's a superb Defender style game.
*Great video! loveeeee the Amiga! Man I miss those good ol days! Was walker an Amiga only game? not sure. Used to like that! Cheers for the video mate!* 💪👍
Thanks. The Amiga is the greatest!!! Yes, Walker was an exclusive.
Woaw I am amaze how the Amiga are so Beautiful, my personal favourite is Agony, it just so amazing it should be on a museun, I realise the Mascot of Psygnosis is the main character also their cover and some others are so amazing i kinda wish alot of these art carring on in today gaming it fell a lost art.
Especial mentions to Banshee for a Steam punk style and Apidya for.. a very odd choice.. I would actually download a Amiga emu to play these games
Yeah Agony just looks wonderful, I love the art style. Shame the game isn't quite as good.
Well, the Amiga version of _Katakis_ is basically an Amiga exclusive because it has very little to do with the C64 original.
Also, I have to disagree about the music in _Hybris._ It is one of the few Amiga tunes to use SID sounding arpeggios (no idea how they did that on a sound chip that basically only played PCM), and I quite like it.
To each his own!
@5:00-5:13= in the background holding a sword catching lightning bolts... is that Aarbron from Shadow Of The Beast? sure looks like him!
Possibly!
Apidya was great, though sadly not as well-known as Project X et al. From same makers as Gem'X it was another unusual but great game.
Yeah, Apidya is a real gem, but nobody ever talked about it back in the day as far as I experienced.
You missed sidewinder. A full pal overscan vertical and horizontal scrolling shooter
Loved that game, but it's not an Amiga exclusive.
Wowsers I always thought it was must have been the full overscan that made me think it was exclusive.
Silk Worm is not an amiga exclusive. It's an arcade port. Still a great one.
Absolutely, hence it's not in the list! Great game.
Just really should try T-Zer0 exclusive late Amiga release.
That looks awesome! 😀
is uridium2 an actual exclusive given theres Hyper Sentinel, yeah its not an "official" uridium2, but its kinda the same thing. also not a commercial game but i always liked the PD game Cybernetix.
Yeah, I'd say it's an exclusive. Not played Cybernetix, I'll have to check that one out.
My favorite shooter on the old Amiga are: Stardust (and Super Stardust), Disposable Hero, Banshee, Zarathrusta, Uridium 2, Virocop, Battle Squadron, Silkworm, Apidya, Hybris, X-Out, Saint Dragon, Dragonbreed, Datastorm, Wings of Death, Mega Typhoon, R-Type, Transplant, Pod, Quantox, Z-Out, Quartz, Cosmic Pirate, Photon Storm… there are quite a few.
I loved Dragon Breed as a kid. That music!
Z-Out is fantastic.
Great rtype clone. Some of the later levels are great showcases of the Amiga as well, with multiple levels of parallax, reflections, multiple rtype style motherships on screen at once, and so on.
Why Mega Typhoon is not in the list???
😯
I think I've seen a game like Uridium 2 on steam but can't think of the name or figure out how to find what game it is.
🤔
These games look great, even though my favourite Amiga shmups are not exclusive ones. SWIV is the best 🙂
Loved SWIV!
i loved my amiga 500
The greatest.
@@onaretrotip yes for sure
What about T-Zero? Wasn't it an Amiga ex as well?
Yes, I think so. Not played that one!
I was expecting the gamble train at the start there lol (if you're familiar with Aaron and Boat)
I have no idea what that means!
@@onaretrotip haha the opening jingle you used in this video... th-cam.com/video/MASe-1RdtwI/w-d-xo.html
Personally I like a lot Wings of Death on the Amiga and also, for some reason, Frenetic (yet an other obscure Core shooter, not the best but, hey, euroshmups are an aquired taste after all..). Granted they are also on the ST, so not exclusives but still..
I haven't played Frenetic so I'll boot that up and try it 😀
Cool 👍🏻
😎👍
Project x or stardust , fly harder or venom wing?
Sorry, what exactly are you asking?
Missing games: Project X (I’m surprised), SWIV and Super SWIV, RTYPE III, Uridium 2, Frenetic.
Uridium 2 is in the video, but the rest of those aren't Amiga exclusives.
@@onaretrotip ok, i didn’t get the video is on Amiga exclusive
@@francescoi3741 👍
Datastorm looks like a copy of Dropzone on the C64
Definitely inspired by Defender and Dropzone.
Disposable Hero could've been decent if they'd reduce enemy HP by, like 60%-75%, otherwise absolutely every enemy in the game is colossal bullet sponge. Some bosses take so many shots to take down, you'd swear the game bugged out!
Yeah, that can absolutely ruin a game.
I think You missed Battle Squadron, Project x and Swiv, they might not be exclusive but the Amiga versions were the top dogs.
Apidya though, what a game, you should have included Blood Money too.
It's exclusives. Those four aren't exclusives.
@@onaretrotip Disposable Hero I thought was pretty easy back in the day but I played it not long ago and I was useless at it. I was thinking its one of those games thats better with a joystick rather than a gamepad....or maybe I've just got rusty!
@@krissymarklewis1793 I find that with a lot of Amiga games that I was once good at LOL
I miss Blastar!
😢
I always think
Of agony as shadow of the beast as a side scrolling shooter. A stunning hi res intro with incredible music gives way to a visually gorgeous game with multiple parallax levels and really creepy art design that really shows off the strengths of the amiga. Gameplay sucks though, just like sotb.
Yes! Great comparison.
I love URIDIUM very good :)
Yeah, it was a classic!
Blood money, SWIV, etc.
Cool games, but not exclusives obviously.
Battle squardon 👍
Great game, although obv not an exclusive.
Miss Battle Squadron 😅
Battle Squadron got a Mega Drive port, so it wasn't an Amiga exclusive.
Yup, not an exclusive.
Nice video, but I will disagree with the Apidya being arguably the best horizontal shooter on the Amiga. It is brilliant don't get me wrong but I much preferred Silkworm, disposable hero or even both R-type games to it...
I am also very glad to see someone taking Hybris as what it really is: a just ok shootet. Most Amiga fans have a weird idolizing opinion about this mediocre shooter
Love Silkworm! It's in the intro. Yeah, Hybris seems to get a lot of love, but for me it's just okay.
But Silkworm and R-Type arent Amiga exclusives.
@@000jimbojones000 yes but the comment in the video was "Apidya is arguably the best horizontal shooter on the Amiga" not "the best exclusive shooter on the Amiga".
@@jimkrom For me Apidya is the best shoot ‘em up on the Amiga, horizontal or vertical. It’s basically the Amiga’s Gradius mechanically, but with a more interesting setting and more character, plus a fantastic soundtrack not far behind the likes of Turrican 2 thanks to Mr H. Most importantly of all it plays very well, as close to a Japanese style as anything else on the machine including some actual Japanese game ports such as the excellent R-Types you mentioned. Disposable Hero and Banshee aren’t bad but no shoot ‘em up should have an energy bar, it’s just lazy design.
I remember well Pioneer Plague because as the video says its gimmick was to use 4096 colors and it was one of the few games that did it in Amiga (personally I never played others).Gameplay sucks and scroll it's very jerky
Yeah, not much fun to play.
It was actually on of the weakest points of the Amiga.i was seeing megadrive and Snes having arcade ports.also had bad platformers no graphics bad parallax scroll.it was a great system but not powerful enough as the sharp x68000
Definitely. They weren't the Amiga's strong points.
#shmupsareshooters
Oh, absolutely. you'll notice I only say shooters in the video.
@@onaretrotip its a hashtag used by the shmup community
@@JuanRoosterbeard I'm sure it is LOL
I hate saying 'shmup' it is such an awkward word. I use the term shooters but when I talk to people who are a bit younger than me they think I am referring to first person shooters.
@@goatbone in Japan they use STG
Euro-Shmups...great tech-demos, terrible playability. Seems like only the Japanese get that genre right.
Shield bars and shop systems are simply not good enough to offset terrible stage & pattern design.
Yup. Shame the Amiga didn't really get any decent Japanese shooters.
Apidya is the Amiga’s best and closest to a Japanese title in style and playability. It takes a lot of inspiration from Gradius in gameplay and mechanics but with a more varied and unusual setting!
Poorly done job
From top of my head amiga exlusive T-Zero and XP8 are missing in the list
And Inviyya... :D
😂
@@Steril707 true, but Inviyya and for example Reshoot series are new games which may not be known, but both games I mentioned are pre-2000
@@higochrana6424 True. Actually I was just joking, It's obvious there are only classic games in this selection shown here and that's great.
Get over yourself bloke.
Where exactly does it say "complete list of exclusive Amiga shooters" ?
The greatest platform of all time?? Really? I really love the Amiga when I had one as a kid. I love the games and reading all the magazines now and following the current scene. But, it's not the best platform. The one button controller kills it for shmups. Nes, PC Engine and Mega Drive are just better.
Matter of opinion isn't it.
still watching the video but Hybris looks awesome. it looked like your ship upgraded when you hit 260k. Maybe there is a score based leveling system? idk, cheers
I'm still a bit confused about the power-ups in Hybris LOL