BUY TOAPLAN Hishouzame SAME! SAME! SAME! M2 Collection here: ► Nintendo Switch - tinyurl.com/2p9h8m22 ► Playstation 4 - tinyurl.com/y5696nb2 **** the above links are affiliate and a small part of the proceeds go to help pay for video creation along with half going into the shmup community fund***

I'm repeating what you have said but please M2, release all your shot triggers series to the west. These games will sell and should not be locked away to just one region. You owe it to your hard work and your fans. All of us around the world all bow to your fantastic work, not just on shmups but everything you do. The respect you give to these games second to none.

Wardner was my first reason to skip class back in the 90's when I discover it in a shop close to my school 😁

Thanks for covering Fire Shark, I grew up with it

My copy should be here this week. I always look forward to M2 Shottriggers releases!

Great video Junkie! I’d somehow missed that this was coming out, so it’s going straight on the list to get!

That intro kicks in and I'm already hitting the like button.

I just got my copy today and it reminded me when I would buy a great genesis shooter with those boxes and artwork. I played fireshark back in 1992 or so and I just love the long levels and great Toaplan gritty music. I am a die hard shmup fan since about 1989 and i had to get this M2 compilation. Thanks for all the great info.

I've picked the up physical BEEP version of this, I'm a huge supporter of M2 and love these collections they release.

Always loved Fire Shark on the MD. Those dodge-the-powerup sections are kind of genius because they know nobody wants the crummy weapon so they give you twenty of it. But since you get a bunch of points for re-equipping the same weapon, they also represent a decent chunk of points if you do dive in and grab them all. I also like how the default weapon is the best weapon at the lowest power.

Dude! I had no idea that this collection included Wardner! Now I'm even more excited for it to arrive. Wardner was one of the games in a small liquor store next to my grandma's house when I was a kid, and I fed it an insane number of quarters. Can't wait to play it again alongside Same! Same! Same!

Wardner was quite a surprise and I'm actually looking forward to see the rest of the non-shmups included in future releases.

I also thinking of M2 shumps PC releases as well; we wish to see them debuted in the future as long as they planned furthermore like what they did on Darius titles (Steam). What a great surprise we want this collection (and EN translation a well) full of fire-breathing flying sharks coming your way throughout the whole mission.

I love Flying Shark! 😃 such a cool and unique style to this great game and its also a very influential shooter with many things featuring in future classics. BTW that intro was amazing one of the best I've seen!

great review as always! This M2STG release now made me a Toaplan fan. I bounced off Ktiger, but I am now absolutely hooked with Hishozame :)

I own the Twin Cobra compilation that M2 made and I adore it so once I saw they were going to do the same thing for Flying Shark and Fire Shark I KNEW I had to get it. I haven't bought it just yet, but I am planning on doing it soon.

Man, Wardner. There was a convenience store near where I lived in the early '90s that had both it (renamed Pyros) and Twin Cobra, along with a couple other games like Saint Dragon and Xybots. I spent a lot of time there, which shouldn't surprise you one bit. Oh, and the garage/general store down the road had UFO Robo Dangar, Alcon, Silkworm and Ghosts 'N Goblins for the longest time. I lived in a good place for arcade games!

I was waiting for this video, as always! ♥️

M2 always does such a fantastic job! I really hope we get a ibara collection from them at some point with ibara and its BL. Honestly any cave game that hasn't gotten love in a while would be deeply appreciated if they did it. Esp rade psi for the switch was my first time playing something from M2 I think and just all of the gadgets and details were so cool. Definitely a big selling point for same!same!same! is the gadgets and low input lag so I'll probably be picking it up soon. Now just the hard choice of digital or physical because I'm generally the physical game type but I'm not sure if I need all those extra versions. Something to think about for sure. Thanks for the great video again!

Another great review Senor Junkie. I will be selling my "Fat out of shape, Viva Las Vegas" velvet Elvis to get this one. Worth it! Thanks for all the hard work you put in your videos.

Great video! I have this coming from Playasia with the tiger heli, miss kobiashi dragon, and Pocky and rocky reshrined. Can’t wait til they get here

I just love these Toaplan collections so much and have been enjoying this one these past couple of weeks. Great video as well covering all the bases! Wonder what collection we'll get next... a Tatsujin/Truxton 1 & 2 collection perhaps? Fingers crossed for an announcement soon!

It's great how you make these videos focusing in what's important for us to decide on what to buy. We want to know if the extras are worth it the extra price of the physical edition. Great job! I concur with you that the lack of English translation is a problem, specially when these collections end up getting released in English (like Dangun Feveron) and the English menus are not backported to the original Japanese releases. This fact made me stop buying M2 collections that I'm not going to play right now, since I prefer to wait in case an English version ends up coming up.

I ended up importing both this collection and Tiger Heli yesterday deadass ENTIRELY off your passion for Toaplan that came through in your "all Toaplan games reviewed" video. I've been playing games my whole life, but honestly once the arcades closed down, I didn't touch a shooter. Until last year, when I stumbled across Mark's channel and then yours, which got me interested in the genre, and a couple games later I've been HOOKED. But as a "shmup newbie," I still SUCK. So a tough-as-nails retro shooter with checkpoints doesn't inherently interest me. But your passion sold me on these games - "I should grab em now while they're still $60, otherwise in 10 years I'm gonna want it and pay 3x the current price on eBay." But exactly for that reason, I resonate HARD with your plea for English menus. The #1 way that I'd get the most out of these games is by tailoring the custom difficulty to fit my skill level. But because I don't read Japanese, I'm basically stuck with "way too hard arcade mode" and "way too easy novice mode" (if novice is anything like it is in Esp Re Da and Ketsui). The fact that there's no English menus kills this. Look, I'm a realist, I get why it's not financially viable for M2 to do a physical release over here. I can also ALMOST believe that it'll cost too much to even go through the certification process for digital storefronts. But at least throw us a bone and put an English text mode into your Japanese version for your Western fans! There may not be many of us compared to in Japan, but we do exist! lol

Another awesome video Junkie. Congrats and nice work. I’m eagerly awaiting my physical copy of this game, together with Raiden IV and Pocky & Rocky, from PlayAsia. Keep on shmupping in the free world. Cheers from Down Under.

Great review. I just picked up this bad boy along with a small magazine 😊😊😊

M2 ShotTriggers releases are so much fun. They are the gold standard for shmups.

Great stuff! I'm still not really sold on the dlc since it's so expensive and the base cost of $30 isn't exactly cheap. This is going to be an interesting trend moving forward as reviewers because if we keep getting these split dlc releases people seem to expect me to buy the dlc for the review, even if the value proposition seems slim. So now each shmup review is gonna cost $60+ , brutal ha

Your intro is such a blast! Like you said I ended up to play more Flying Shack than Fireshark, power up system is annoying and difficulty is really too high for me. And of course I wait Truxton/Tatsujin collection more than anything (also V-Five and Batsugun but I guess they will come later on)

Finally got a way to play these now so I can start collecting and playing them!

I remember playing flying shark on my amstrad cpc 6128 back in the day so had to pick this up.

Got my copy 4 days ago, and have had a blast playing it. Tatsujin/Truxton next please!

Excellent! Having spent 2 days with the game, my thoughts echo your own. I'm happy to have got the physical. The dlc for the nostalgic console ports and Wardner which I never played before. Another quality M2 release 👌

Great video 👍🏻

great video as always. thanks

Thanks for these in depth reviews. Agreed on English translations and very much appreciated the clip where you translated the menu options. Is there a place to go with some nice translated screen shots of the menus for all these M2 releases? I try google translate but referencing a photo would be a lot nicer, and allow me to go deeper into these releases :)

I like shooters, you're very skillful. You have earned a sub.

I lost it in the bowl full of ice cream covered with flying sharks spitting fire.

Great intro/outro

I couldn't ignore this one. Fire Shark on Genesis is one of my favorite shmups of all time. While it doesn't have as much content as the Tiger-Heli one it's more important to me.

Great video 😁😁😁😁

I'm not super familliar with Same! Same! Same!/Fire Shark, although I do own Sky Shark on NES! I *really* wanted the amazon exclusive version of the collection, when I was a kid the local convenience store had a Wardner machine and that was one of my favorites! And the alternate art cover made me want that version in particular, but I'd be happy with the standard edition if I have to go that route. (since AFAIK that alt art version is an Amazon JP exclusive?) the TRUXTON collection might be my next pickup whenever that drops, loved the Genesis version! Great overview definitely sold me on this collection for sure.

Sadly, it's not available for PC, but overall this game or games are realy realy awesome! Video is really well made. Keep up the good work!!!

Another thorough review! I'd actually be interested in your top platformers. Or underrated ones. My favorite underated platformer is Quackshot on the Mega Drive.

I saw Wardner in the arcades as a kid and was intimidated by the attract mode. I didn't even try playing it! The stiff, committed jumping like Ghosts and Goblins turned me off a lot. I really got into Super Mario Brothers mid-air jump changes. As for M2 shmups, I have to probably import. M2 has only released a handful of games in the U.S. Switch eShop, but as you said, they have been top-notch. I'm still impressed by their version of Phantasy Star. Adding a map function and making the PSG sound version available was incredible.

By looking at some old school shmups like these collection, I think I should open up to trying Eschatos. Fast bullets are still something I need to get used to.

Got my copy in the mail a few days ago. Work has prevented me from binging on it but I love it so far. I already knew I would though. Random...Man the 2 minute time limit on Pyros vs Wardner's 3 minute is so unfair.

[Coury] Any idea if the Switch or PS4 versions includes all games on the cart/disc? With Tiger Heli, I guess only the Switch version had all the games on the cart, while the PS4 version only had the main games on it and needed to download all of the bonus games as DLC.

I do have a soft spot for Wardner. It's a beautiful game and it was by far the easiest game in the local arcade (once you learn the secrets). eg 16:45 - fall into the fire on the far left side of the fire pit. You won't die. I think it was the first game I 1CCed, but everybody was 1CCing it, once you'd seen somebody else do it. Still a fun game to play through from time to time; it's not very long.

Already took the physical version, and sad for the Megadrive version of Wadona no mori (even I never really knew differences between "AC" version and "Special" MD version). The english translation for the menu isn't a must have, there's already lot of clues and translations on the web. Nice video friend.

I will say once again, that M2 could have all my money if they did PC releases. Thanks for the review!

Pondering getting this finally after waiting quite a while (want something worthwhile to hit the free shipping limit to Europe on playasia when prepordering DoDonPachi :D). Toaplan releases start growing on me after mostly playing more modern bullethell shmups. It's really the amazing rocking OSTs and the intense action that gets me invested.

A small note on the Genesis/Mega Drive: it had 16 colors per palette but supports up to 4 palettes (which ends up with 61 on-screen colors after subtracting transparency). So under normal circumstances you could display 61 colors at once as opposed to 12 colors for sprites (13 minus transparency) and 13 for background tiles on the NES/Famicom. The Genesis/Mega Drive also had a special shadow and highlight mode that could triple both the number of colors to choose from and the number of on-screen colors, under special circumstances, so it definitely was capable of displaying a lot more than 16 colors at once.

Great video as usual! If Daisenpuu is not included on this release then I wonder if M2 will ever port that one too? It just dawned on me that one of the only vert. arcade shmups that matched up to the general quality (if not style of gameplay) of Toaplan & Flying Shark in 1987 was Dragon Spirit. I only just started playing it properly recently, on PS1 Namco Museum Vol. 5 and it's very advanced in GFX and music for a 1987 game, still holds-up now.

Sky Shark NES was the very first video game I played, back in 1990. I'd come back to it later in the decade with my dad to play it more. Not only does this compo give me a chance to return to this game, and on the go thanks to my Switch, but players in Japan have access to it now, because the original Sky Shark NES wasn't released there. Both Hishouzame AC and Same!^3 AC are fairly solid titles and I split time between them, as opposed to Kyukyoku Tiger Heli where I don't really care much for Tiger Heli due to being too primitive for my tastes. Hishou for the carefully calculated designs and Fire Shark for its ferocity. But of the Toaplan games that have so far gotten the M2 touch, I still like Kyukyoku Tiger AC the most. Good deliberate design without being a hellscape of supersonic bullets (on loop 1 anyways), no Item Evasion Simulator, and the soundtrack is a lot more of my preference.

I always appreciate your positivity and optimism! Any word on what Toaplan arcade garage title is coming next?

Fire Shark has been an absolute fucking blast. I used to play it on a cocktail table machine at a local pizzeria I worked at when I was in high school.

Great review 👏 Looking forward to playing the arcade version as I've only ever played the Fire Shark MD version in the 90s and the original on the Spectrum in the 80s! I assume the DLC is on the disc as per Ketsui then (hopefully)?

I didn't know you could watch other players runs. That will come in handy. I agree with you about the menu. I get it is a JP release but still, people around the world buy these amazing ports. It is time they realise this and provide an English menu.

Fire Shark on Genesis is so addictive.

To the developer, i'm glad you had to make the games hard. Don't regret it. It makes for a longer experience that's more gratifying to complete.

Раньше совсем не интересовала эта игра, но поигравши на сложности hard, я больше немогу от нее оторваться. Сложность очень хорошо сбалансированна. Некоторые шмапы, бывает, отталкивают изза своей сложности. Но только не Fire Shark. На первом месте у меня Zero Wings и Hellfire ( на мой взгляд это самые удачные порты для smd), а на третьем месте Fire Shark. И еще очень качественныц шмап это Twin Cobra она же Kyuuoki Tiger . Ее я тоже раньше не замечал. Но а сейчас она для меня одна из лучших.

Right on 😅

Every Sunday that there is a new video from you my friend, is a Sunday worth waking up for!! ;) That being said, do you mean to tell me that the physical version doesn’t even have all the extra features that the DIGITAL version does?? Please explain in detail before I have a coronary as I have yet to receive my shipment from play Asia. Lol (thanks man).

Got the physical one (because it will raise the price in the future). Yesterday the tracker told me that it has arrived to my country (Spain) and it comes with 2 other games: Battle Garega 2016 and Kyukyoku Tiger. But the custom expenses await me...

Wardner (arcade) also has an awesome soundtrack.

A great look at the fantastic extras included in this collection and some well deserved love given to Wardener as it’s a very under appreciated platformer, and well worth the extra cost of this collection….Hopefully people will pick this up and give it some time. Overall for me, the full asking price of the physical is 100% worth it but being a huge Toaplan fan, you know that already! Anyone else wanting a definitive version of 2 stunning shmups need look no further but for the cost of the collection and not having the nostalgia of the ports, that £60 price tag might be a stretch. And yes, please M2, include an English language menu option in future titles or with a patch and let the whole world enjoy these games without google translate 🙏☺️

Wardner was great in the arcade. A very nice and rare bonus. Fire Shark - I scored 25,000,000 in the arcade. Not sure I'd want to do another 5hr+ credit on it again😶. My mate UBN did 24 loops on Flying Shark.

That's a coincidence, I actually just ordered this the other day xD

Let's hope M2 releases a English version, anyways those bullets are flying like Kinzhal Dagger hypersonic missiles so I get why people complain but on the other hand the 3 frames input lag is an amazing feat for a switch game.

physical should arrive next week, finally... but timing is good, since i have just beaten maleknith in elden ring today, so i am about to finish the 3 dimensional punishment and can finally get back to 2D :) my eyes will thank me

I need this game collection... in every console 🧐🤔

Same same same!!

FIRST LETS GO!! TOAPLAN FOREVER

Mine is still in the mail but you've made me more excited for it. What do you think is next? Slap Fight?

NES was 16 colors onscreen. Megadrive was 64 colors onscreen (out of 512).

Just for context - Wardner came at a time when arcade games began to take on some light RPG mechanics. Capcom put out Black Dragon that year. Sega had Wonder Boy In Monster Land. Also AFAIK Get Star was never emulated successfully in MAME - both it and Wardner are solid games in their own right. I hope the next one is Slap Fight, VV and Demon's World. I don't care about the console ports and even if I didn't play the non-shmup games often, I'd still like to have the complete package.

I played galaga. I played galaxian. I played scramble. I dabbled in some Tiger Heli. Space Invaders on atari. Megamania. They were all fine and had some fun and all that. But then it happened, the day that changed my life forever. I go into my local arcade back in the 90s, and they have a brand new shooter set up that changed my gaming lifer forever and cemented me as a shmup-o-file. That epic and awesome game that rocked the world and influenced so many others, was the awesome TWIN COBRA. 1 major flaw in this masterpiece. 2 player mode is terrible. The screen scrolls left and right and the two players at both edges will make you not able to move at times and eat a bullet because you cannot both scroll opposite directions. player 2 can literally drag your heli around against your will. The other super frustrating part is the yellow weapon. Are we being trolled here? Is the yellow just a punishment to try to avoid, an extra challenge?

Preordered it from Play-Asia, but unfortunately as-per usual, shipping is going to take a loooong time. But it is what it is lol.

Wish Twin Hawk would get a release

Fewer options compared to the prior collection? That kind of is a disappointing, but I guess it is understandable. Was wondering how Wardner was as well, looks like I'll in enjoy this Platformer as I love the genre too. There was a Genesis/Megadrive version of Wardner? Why was it skipped? Great video Junkie! Gives me a good idea on what to expect for the collection. I've had it pre-ordered months ago and currently still in transit along with another game from play-asia. I'm totally gonna play these shmups when they do arrive.

In Swedish, "Toaplan" means "toiletplane".

I’ll buy this eventually. But damn I’ve had tiger heli collection for a while and aside from custom mode using speed boost modifier and super easy mode I can’t go past stage 2 lol.

The current ultimate question is what will be the next M2 STG release: Slap Fight or Truxton?

It's tempting to buy the Japanese versions, but I wouldn't be surprised if Strictly Limited games ended up grabbing these games and bringing them West. I'm thinking of still holding out and not clocking down 60 to $70 for the Japanese versions. And I don't know if anyone else said it, but I do find it weird that at least one of the Shark games didn't make it onto the PC engine. With how popular it wasn't Japan, you would think that would have been more of a priority unless they were maybe catering to the West? In that case it would make sense.

It was this game and fire shark that inspired RAIDEN.

I’m thinking of getting hyper echelon that came out on switch recently. Would like to know your thoughts on it.

Hello sir, do you know when the next Toaplan compilation by M2 is coming out? I can't wait to see the next one. One game I'm waiting for is Zero wing. A lovely very playable shmup that started the Engrish meme.

Fireshark is maybe my fave shooter on the Genesis, better than the arcade version.

Hi! I like your channel very much. I like it's variation in shmp and how you do your videos( voice, picture etc). I collect shmp games for the mega drive(33 so far), the Dreamcast and i just started for the Saturn. Mostly because I like sega and I can afford it. I have four children and a full time job. So I can't spend all the money or the time playing. But I also like the Nintendo switch and it's accessibility I have many physical and digital shmps for it. So my question is, in some videos you talk about the ports to the switch and other consoles about frame drop or something. How much does that affect the gaming for an amateur like me? Do I notice that? One of my goals is to be a better shmp-player. If I play games with bad frame rate or drop. Is that gonna affect my development 🤗? Best regards Emil from Sweden

They need these games on steam. Not everyone owns a switch and I’d rather get a steam deck than a Nintendo switch. And the extras don’t mean much unless you understand Japanese.Yeah 3 frame lag per frame isn’t bad, but I’d rather have no lag on a pc and have it’s based slow down if it was part of the arcade version.

Hi love this vid..did they ever translate ps4 version after?

personally I think they should put Truxton/Zero Wing together.. So many variants they could do..I see them doing Truxton/Outzone. Which is fine lol. Idk about you guy's I can't get enough of their games.

I want the physical copy but don't care for the console ports. If it's ever on sale, then maybe I will pick it up. Otherwise, it's a no go for me.

i d like to buy the physical ed. but it's a bit too expensive, imho

I think Same3/Flying Shark puts most danmakus to shame in terms of difficulty and bullet speed. I could be wrong about that.

15:15 The Megadrive had four 16 color pallets, not 16 colors. The RAMDAC was 9 bits or 3 bits per channel of RGB, or 512 possible combinations (excluding shadow/highlite mode which had limitations). Technically you only have 61 colors available due to to having 1 "transparent" color in each pallet + a "background" color replacing the transparent pallet entries on tiles displayed on the lowest priority background layer.

Aww no was going to buy this and pocko and rocko and their not in the ps store..any idea if they will ever be available?

If only M2 would port all the Toaplan STG on Steam :(

Will a truxton collection be the next one for Shot Triggers do you think?