10 Best SNES Shoot 'Em Ups

Taito's Darius series lived in the arcades, but the third game was a Super Nintendo exclusive. Because it was built from the ground up for the SNES, it has smooth control at a time when other established developers struggled to make smooth shmups. It does reuse sprites and background designs from Darius and Darius II, and most of the bosses are reworked old ones. The branching paths the series is known for only open up from the fourth zone.

Reviewers have called it one of the best 2D scrolling shooters on the SNES. Other critics are a little cooler on it and call it an average but technically competent entry. The nicest touch is that after you collect enough power-ups, they stay with you when your ship is destroyed. In a genre built on losing everything, that feels downright generous.

Super E.D.F. is an early SNES shooter from Jaleco and a fairly accurate port of the arcade Earth Defense Force. It has eight weapons, from homing bullets to straight lasers, but you pick one before each stage and you are committed to it for the whole level. Every enemy you kill earns experience, and when the bar fills your weapon levels up. The two little helper pods that follow your ship gain new formations as you level too.

Your ship can take 3 hits, with extra shields at key scores, and you will need every one. The soundtrack from the arcade is top notch and comes through well on the SNES. Retro reviewers still point people to it as an under-the-radar Jaleco shooter, and it shows up on their lists of cheap SNES games worth playing.

Super R-Type was Irem's first game on the then new Super Famicom. It is a partial port of R-Type II that borrows stages and enemies from the arcade game and adds several of its own. The R-9 is back with its Force Pod, and holding the shot button long enough overcharges the wave cannon for a huge spread shot. The very first level's music is a real highlight.

It is also brutal. There are no checkpoints, so when you die you go all the way back to the beginning of the level, and the later stages must be memorized. Retro reviewers call it a slowdown-fest next to Axelay, but they still recommend it. If you want it on a cartridge today, Retro-Bit put it on one SNES cart with R-Type III in July 2018.

Gradius III was a launch title for the SNES in North America and the console's first shooter. Critics say it looks practically arcade perfect, at least on the surface. The port added the option of reduced difficulty and extra weapons for the Vic Viper, and it lets you continue, so it is noticeably easier than the arcade game that Konami pulled from arcades fairly quickly.

It is also the poster child for SNES slowdown. When the screen fills up, everything crawls, which is honestly half the reason anyone survives it. Retro reviewers count it among the games that defined the SNES anyway, and they say every shmup fan should at least experience a bit of it. This is the classic one, warts and all.

R-Type III was built for the Super Nintendo hardware and never made it to arcades. Two years after Super R-Type, Irem had learned how to get the most out of the console, and this one looks just as good without the slowdown. It leans hard on scaling and rotation, which turn up in some very creative level designs. It was also the first game in the series to introduce new Forces.

You choose between the classic Round Force, a Shadow Force with turrets that aim on their own and a Cyclone Force that does its damage by ramming. You will need all the help you can get, because this is an incredibly challenging game. Players who know their shooters still name it when someone asks what to play on the SNES. It was later ported to the Game Boy Advance.

Space Megaforce is the American name for Super Aleste, Compile's big Aleste game for the Super Famicom, published by Toho. Compile learned the hardware fast, and this is one of the few fast-paced SNES shooters with almost no slowdown, even with the screen full of sprites. Retro reviewers say it rivaled many of the best arcade shmups of the era.

The Japanese version has more content, including a story with a pilot named Raz and a mysterious alien co-pilot that was cut from the Western releases. Some music that may have borrowed from New Order was removed too. Shooter fans recommend it whenever the SNES comes up, and one player said the normal difficulty is "very forgiving", so it is a great first game to clear in one go. It is the one casual retro fans tend to miss.

Parodius gets its name from "Parody Gradius", and that is exactly what it is. It plays like Gradius, but the graphics and music are intentionally absurd. You choose between four characters, including the Vic Viper from Gradius, an octopus and TwinBee, and each one plays differently. The music remixes classical pieces like the William Tell Overture.

The Super Famicom port is a bit more faithful to the arcade than the PC Engine one, and it adds an extra bathhouse level and a time attack mode. It never came out in North America, but Europe got it as Parodius: Non-Sense Fantasy, so it is easy to play in English. Players who know their shooters still recommend it, and it is well balanced with a good difficulty curve. Where else do you fight a giant cat battleship?

Axelay was made by most of the same team that would later go on to form Treasure, the studio behind Gunstar Heroes, and it was headed by the producer of Super Castlevania IV. Back then it was jaw dropping to see it move. The overhead stages roll toward a distant horizon using the console's graphics tricks, and they alternate with traditional side-scrolling stages full of large sprites.

The bosses are the part everyone remembers, especially a huge flaming ogre surrounded by moving lava. Publications regard it as a classic of the genre for its visuals and music. Players who love shooters keep coming back to it. A sequel, Axelay 2, was planned but never materialized, which still stings a little.

U.N. Squadron began as Area 88, a 1989 Capcom arcade game based on the manga of the same name, though the North American release omits all references to the manga. Capcom really gave the SNES port the special treatment. You fly real-world jets with a life bar, and you earn money to buy upgraded planes and special weapons from the depot before each mission.

The catch is that each hit sets your plane on fire for a moment, and a second hit while you are burning destroys you no matter how much life you have left. A Japanese magazine called it the best side scrolling shooter on the SNES. Players agree, and they still name it with the console's best games. Ask about SNES shooters and this is usually the second name you hear.

Star Fox is a forward-scrolling 3D rail shooter developed by Nintendo EAD and programmed by Argonaut Software. It uses the Super FX chip inside the cartridge to create the first hardware-accelerated 3D gaming experience on a home console. The concept was inspired by a shrine to the fox deity Inari Ōkami, which Shigeru Miyamoto visited regularly. In Europe it came out as Starwing.

You can speed up and slow down your Arwing, which helps a lot when dodging, and instead of difficulty settings you pick one of three routes. The polygons are simple and flat-shaded, and nobody cared. Players still put it on their lists of SNES essentials, and they recommend it far more often than any other shooter on the console. It was the first time a lot of people saw 3D at home.