The Case for Tyrian - The Best Shoot 'Em Up Ever Made.

Shoot 'Em Ups. Once a primary staple of arcades, computer and console gaming, have fallen out of style and popularity in recent years, with just a few coming out each year, with some of those being remakes and reboots of classics. Gradius, Radien, R-Type, Life Force, there are so many Shmup franchises I played and love, and only a few modern games that really match the quality of the oldies, as they were the equivalent of state-of-the art AAA games of their genre at the time.

There is one game that you've probably not heard of that was the pinnacle of Shmup design in my book, it excels in customization and depth, and while possibly not as elegant and challenging as later games such as Ikaruga, brought everything to the table that I wanted in this type of game.

This is Indigo Gaming, and I will now make my case that Tyrian is the best scrolling Shoot 'Em Up ever made. Tyrian is 1995 scrolling shooter made by Eclipse Software for Epic MegaGames. At first glance, it looks just like any other top-down shooter of the era, featuring a wide selection of guns and enemy types across many different levels, maps and worlds.

As you get deeper into the game however, you will begin to see what makes Tyrian so special. You can play the game like any standard arcade-style "shmup", where enemies will drop score bonuses, weapons and power-ups; all the while aiming to get as far as you can on the amount of lives you muster while getting the venerable high score.

Dodging projectiles and oncoming ships, while seeking out your favorite weapons and upgrades in each stage, Arcade Mode is proven, oldschool shoot-em-up goodness. Where the game really shines however is the Story Mode, where each game session becomes a long-term investment where you can save and load progress on your campaign, featuring branching paths, part stores at each location, as well as collectable data cubes which provide story and background.

Here instead of score, you get credits for buying new ship parts and modifying it to your heart's content. This sort of system has been done in a couple other games such as Raptor: Call of the Shadows, but none did it so well and so full of depth. Ship customization is pretty crazy.

You can buy new ships, front-facing guns, rear-facing guns which often have two different modes you can switch between on the fly, shield modules, power generators, and two separate "sidekick" modules which can often be fired separately from your main guns.

Some sidekicks use slowly regenerating ammo. You can also purchase eleven levels of upgrades to your primary weapons, which dramatically alter their behavior with each step. Another interesting mechanic is the the fact that your ship has a separate shield meter and armor meter.

Armor is your actual ship's durability which can be upgraded by purchasing higher-end ships. Shields are the first line of defense against collisions or enemy fire, and once shield is depleted, damage is dealt on armor. Once your armor is gone, your ship is destroyed.

Armor can only be restored by picking up armor repair kits, whereas a small portion of your Energy is transferred to Shields every time Energy is full. Energy is also spent on firing weapons, so if you over-upgrade on your offense and incessantly shoot without giving enough downtime for your generators to build up enough Energy for later gunfire and shield restoration, you can become Energy-starved and vulnerable to destruction.

This is an interesting balancing of resources that is present in few other games in the genre if any. All in all, this game features an incredible amount of customization, resulting in nearly TWENTY MILLION combinations of FULLY UPGRADED loadouts. The game has a ton of different modes, including a two-player mode where each player controls a separate half-ship that can fight individually or combine into a single combo ship where one person controls movement and the other aims.

Fighting, splitting, recombining, rinse and repeat. Tyrian also includes secrets such as a fully fledged artillery game hidden by secret code in the main menu. Incredible. Here's the bad: Being that Tyrian was built over 20 years ago, the DOS-based game can only be run in DOS-emulators such as DOS-box which honestly isn't much trouble nowadays, but the game is hard-capped at 30 frames per second which is disappointing for hardcore players, but isn't too distracting considering the game's low resolution.

Another annoyance is that in a 1999 rerelease, a 5th episode was added but some annoying food-themed items and levels were added too in an effort to promote another game. Despite these drawbacks, the additional stages make "Tyrian 2000" the definitive version of the game.

The good news is that the game, its code and its soundtrack has officially been released as freeware! You can pick up a ready-to-play copy with all the DOS-box trimmings for modern PC play at GOG.com. There is also a fan project called OpenTyrian which is an open-source remake of the game which runs natively in Windows.

Your mileage may vary with this version and it does not include the 5th episode, but features like an improved framerate and upscaling options make it absolutely worth trying out. So that's my case for Tyrian. Feel free to leave a comment if you you liked this video or have any suggestions or points on the Shoot 'Em Up genre.