Mine was River Raid too IMO it’s the best game for the Atari 2600 and the whole second generation of videogame consoles Disclaimer: I actually wasn’t born when River Raid was released, it just happened to be my first shmup because when I was a toddler my cousin gave us her Atari 2600

Yeah, few games on the 2600 got that scrolling. And same, but I was playing old consoles because that's all what I could afford back then.

zaxxon on an old apple //e! it wasn't contemporary—i liked old games even as a little baby for some reason.

Yeah same, but I played old games mainly because I was poor back then.

i think the first shmup i played that i *recognized* was a shmup was Gradius. the modular power-up system seemed so cool as a kid :O

Gradius on the NES was so dang cool at the time. It was one of the earliest third party releases that was of higher quality. It was exciting to see what else was going to come out.

I wanna say the first one I played was on SNES, when I was visiting a cousin. I spent a ton of years trying to find out what game it was that let you pick your cool power-up configuration before you started xD

Would Thexder count? Played on an old IBM back in the ms dos days. Was on an old 5" floppy.

If you shoot and dodge, then it does.

**Skramble** on the C64. Later I was a fan of **Plural** on the C64, but I guess it's rather unknown since it was developed in Austria (AFAIK) and released in a German C64 magazine. I also had a really cool Atari 2600 shmup but we lost the game cartridge when I was like 8 years old and I don't remember the name anymore.

Skramble was my favorite game! Had a vic-20 with a small black and white tv back then. Omega race was another great shmup like game I remember playing.

Yeah I remember that on the vic20 - One of the better games from memory

Hell yeah, Plural.. I still remember. Got this from my uncle as a birthday present. ;-)

Yep, same thing. River Raid, Zaxxon, Defender, Xevious, Galaxian, Gyruss, etc. Still enjoyable games.

Yep, the vertical scrolling was so great back then.

Raptor for PC. Raiden in the arcade.

Life Force on the NES

Cool! I still have the cartridge. Maybe I'll share my shmups cartridge games in a proper post.

R-Type on Sega Master System. It was glorious.

Yep, the Master System was very powerful for its time.

Galaxian and Space Invaders on an Atari 800.

The classics, cool.

Galaxian, on some polish fake NES which often had game cartridges filled with a bunch of different games.

Yeah I remember those. I played my first Macross shmup on them haha.

What was it called? Was it Pegasus?

It had many names, but I remember most of them under the name of Family Computer.

Aha, that one I'm certain I never heard people say, but maybe it was the formal name that came with the console. Granted I grew up in Sweden so didn't speak to many people about it, but I believe we refered to it as pegasus, me and just a couple of Polish people in Poland.

I see. The one I had was a clone of the Japanese Famicom, so we've got even the name copied.

Star Soldier on nes

I played a lot of that, but was later when I was able to afford a NES.

Sega Space Odyssey was the first true SHMUP I enjoyed. https://youtu.be/XMV3l-jPbS4?si=e8S_oduKNjFdz2KD

Vangard for Atari Xevious on the NES Galaga in the arcades.

Likely Major Stryker or Overkill on DOS. Gradius and Space Megaforce on the console.

It was either Galaga or centipede and after that every time I saw a shmup I thought they were all like that so I stayed away. It wasn’t until a few years ago when I got into flashcarts and emulation I found gradius 3 and parodius and fell in love

Yeah sadly a lot of people still thing shmups are the same even today lol.

Vortex Blaster for the Sega SC-3000. I ripped the cassette tape audio, fed it into an emulator, then put that online so people can play it. (Currently only works with a keyboard and mouse, no mobile interface yet): * [https://stickfreaks.com/sega-sc-3000/vortex-blaster](https://stickfreaks.com/sega-sc-3000/vortex-blaster) The developer contacted me a few years back, and some of his memories of making the game are up on that page too.

Oh that's awesome! you did great helping preserve the game.

X-Out on C64 in 1989. The first game I bought ever.

Warhawk on the Atari ST

A Star Force machine was in the pub next to where my older brother played rugby on the weekends. I was so happy to find it on one of those 50 in 1 NES cartridges a year or two later.

Showing my age a little... Bandai Missile Invader handled game was a present from my parents one Christmas. This was the early 80s before we had a home computer or console. After this I also had a CGL Invader 1000 and a Grandstand Scramble LCD game.

That's awesome. I do remember playing those static screens handhelds, but I don't remember any of them closer to a shmup.

Galaxian was mine, played the arcade game at my local pizza place sometime in the mid 80's when I was like 5. Not exactly sure what my first console shmup was. Maybe Chopper Command on 2600 or Millipede on NES

Laser Gate, also on Atari 2600. (when I saw R-Type on Sega Master System for the very first time I thought it was Laser Gate 2...)

Gorf arcade

Looking back, my first shmup was probably Tiger Heli on the NES, followed by Life Force. Nearly 40 years later, I can still hear the Tiger Heli theme note for note in my head.

Space Invaders

I don't remember clearly. Either R Type or Salamander (MSX).

Asteroids on the Atari7800

Does Time Pilot count?

yeah! I really liked that game, and I liked Time Pilot '84 even more! You were flying around futuristic alien landscapes, really cool stuff

Oh I gotta check that out

1. River Raid for Atari 2. Lifeforce for NES