Psikyo Shooting Stars Alpha

Barring Sol Divide, this is a great collection of shooters from one of the best in the business. If you’re a fan of the shmup that hasn’t made the leap into these titles on Switch, now’s the perfect time to do so, even if it does only just manage to justify its price versus picking up the games separately.

It’s safe to say that if you’re a fan of arcade shoot ’em ups, you need to buy a Switch. Not only it is one of the very few systems in which you can play those games with a vertical aspect ratio, but the amount of titles available for it is staggering. In one single portable platform, you can own and play games like Ikaruga, Pawarumi, I Hate Running Backwards, Raiden V, Vasara Collection, RXN Raijin, not to mention the wide assortment of emulated arcade titles available either as standa...

With so many shoot 'em ups out there, it's fantastic whenever a compilation of them releases. Speaking of which, Psikyo Shooting Stars Alpha is here and it's a collection of 6 classic shmups so let's get shooting!

If you’re a big fan of shooters and don’t already own the majority of the games included, Psikyo Shooting Stars Alpha is a bit of a no-brainer, really. You could spend more money just trying to pick a battered old copy of one of the included games up, so of course you’ve got to buy it. If you just like to delve into the occasional bit of shooter action, however, then there are more modern shooters available that are simply better than anything on offer here and also cheaper. With Psikyo Shooting Stars Alpha you get six blasts from the past, but the lack of fanfare alongside them is a little di...

Psikyo Shooting Stars Alpha is a fun collection of notable artifacts from the golden age of arcade shmups. Most of the games included are a blast, one of which is a gem that’s never been available on console before, and the whole package is a better value than buying each game piecemeal from the Nintendo Switch eShop. I would have appreciated more effort in the presentation, but mostly I'm just glad these gems have been dug up and are taking advantage of the Switch’s unique capabilities.

Psikyo Shooting Stars Alpha offers an arcade port package of bullet hell classics.  It starts with the Strikers 1945 trilogy. These give off a fine feel goi