Shmups on Switch reviews ESP Ra.De.

Sorcer Striker / Mahou Daisakusen review

Here's Electric Undeground with a review of Mahou Daisakusen (Sorcer Striker), available on PSN Japan.

Other tidbits: M2 makes a PSA, Sisters Royale goes west etc.

M2 wish to make it clear that their new release of CAVEs ESP.Ra.De should have the moniker "Psy" as opposed to "Psi".

Sisters Royale, the Shikigami-esque game available for both Switch and PS4 in Japan is heading west on both platforms as Sisters Royale: Five Sisters Under Fire! with a January 30th release date.

Retro Cores Battle of the Ports tackles 1942:


Run'n'Gun Valfaris is getting its Japanese debut on both PlayStation 4 and Switch on January 23rd.


Bare Knuckle Development details where the inspiration for their awkwardly-named new shmup Super Mega Space Blaster Special Turbo came from.

M2 to port (almost) entire Toaplan library to modern consoles

There's just a lot of good new to spread around lately and this surely must come close to the cream of the crop: the absolute masters of porting old titles to modern hardware, M2, are going to port most of Toaplans library to modern consoles.

The titles are set to start arriving next year. Oh man! Toaplan has made so many great shmups!

M2s port of ESP.RA.DE has a release date: Dec 19th

M2 said they were aiming for  a late 2019 release and now they've committed to December 19th as can be seen on the official website.

It will be physical for both PS4 and Switch:

I'm confident M2 will do this release justice.

Vacation update number 2

I'm two weeks into my vacation with two weeks to go. But the news keeps coming!

1. I hope you got your order in for a copy of the Vasara Collection this weekend because it sold it quickly, all platforms. There is a japanese physical release coming by the end of the year, but only for PlayStation 4.

2. Galaga is coming to Atari 2600. It's a homebrew, but still!


3. Shmups on Switch has a review up for Pawarumi.

4. M2 is working on a new game in the Aleste series, Aleste Branch.

ESP Ra.De aiming for late 2019 release on Switch, PS4

Developer and porter extraordinnaire  M2 confirmed in an interview that ESP Ra.De really is coming in late 2019 and also confirmed platforms this time: PlayStation 4 and Switch. They are just discussing a japanese release for now but shmups have a way of escaping the confines of their region these days.

Battle Garegga goes Limited

M2s fantastic PS4 port of Battle Garegga is getting a release from Limited Run Games on May 10th.

The Limited Collector's Edition will include the soundtrack on both CD and LP and a Blu-ray with a new documentary, M2: The Complete Works, on the M2 game development team. Our old friend Serrax from Bullet Heaven has made the music for the documentary.

Here's the trailer for the documentary:

Battle Garegga is of course already available in physical form for the PS4 in Asia but it's not english-friendly. Depending on pricing (and i'm guessing it's gonna be mighty pricey) I might skip this even though I'd love that documentary.

Ketsui, Fast Striker and Rival Megagun, oh my!

M2 released Ketsui Deathtiny for PlayStation 4 yesterday in Japan. It's available on japanese PSN and as a physical release from the usual suspects (in my case Play-Asia).

Bullet Heaven has a review of Fast Striker (PS4/PS Vita version).


The player vs Player shmup Rival Megagun is out now on Steam, PlayStation 4, Xbox One,and Nintendo Switch (EU/JP, US/Canada gets it on Dec 6th).

ESPrade trailer

Playing catch-up

M2STG has just announced a bunch of great things: ESPrade is coming (probably to PS4, I haven't seen platform mentioned), Battle Garegga is coming to Nintendo Switch and there's also an announcement surrounding Aleste 30th Anniversary coming next summer. ESPrade is the pre-cursor to Espgaluda and has to my knowledge never had a console release before. It's CAVE at it's best so this is very welcome.

As previously mentioned, Super Hydorah was coming to Nintendo Switch and it is out now (released Nov. 15th).

New Ketsui: Deathtiny trailer

Dangun Feveron!

Dangun Feveron out in US and JP on Xbox One

For the lowly sum of $34.99 the US Xbox One owners can now be the proud owners of a download of Dangun Feveron. CAVEs disco-themed shooter.

It's also out in the JP store but has yet to be available in any european territory.

Aprils Fools...?

So M2 is launching Ninja Soldier. Created after following 30-year old documents they found in their warehouse. It could be an elaborate joke, I guess.



Mani Yugo Tokoyo, a top-down shmup focused around the theme of buddhism has launched on Steam.


It has been out on the New Nintendo 3DS for some time already.

Both games look aimed at "old-schoolers" who want their 16-bit era back. Nothing wrong with that I guess.

The shmup machine gets Dragon Blaze

Zerodiv has announced that the next Psikyo game to land on the Nintendo Switch is Dragon Blaze from 2000. It will launch on april 5th in Japan.

Dragon Blaze was previously available on the PlayStation 2.



Also, as reported earlier M2 was going to announce a release date for Dangun Feveron outside Japan and the date is april 4th for both Xbox One and PlayStattion 4. It's looking to be a busy month ahead!

Battle Garegga rev.2016 patched

Battle Garegga rev.2016 for PlayStation 4 has been updated:

Details from M2STG.

Everything is right with the world again

The Korean physical edition of Battle Garegga Rev.2016 for PlayStation 4 has returned to Play-Asia.


Get it while it lasts!

PlayStation 4 version of Ketsui appearing

At a japanese gamer event on december 16th a playable version of the upcoming PS4 version of CAVE bullet-hell shooter Ketsui will be shown according to an announcement on the games teaser site.

The games M2 has ported thus far have been great so let's hope Ketsui makes the transition in good form too.

Sorcer Striker also got new trailers!