Uploaded October 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 hours ago
Dace from Shmuptopia released a farewell video recently on his channel, after going dormant for a while. Shmuptopia had been one of my favorite shmup channels on Youtube, and I was fortunate to be interviewed by him back in 2023 as part of his Meet The Player series when I still more of a shmup Youtuber mostly dedicated to gameplay. In this video, I break down why I think he'll be missed but also the challenges of being a shmup Youtuber. Dace and his channel will be missed by the shmup community.
00:00 Shmuptopia Is Leaving Youtube
00:44 A Class Act On and Off Camera
02:48 He Did More With Less
06:07 Great Shmup Content
07:22 Being A Shmup Youtuber Isn't Easy
Shmuptopia's Farewell Video: youtu.be/c5DPXgt31PU?si=SjcUO_zUxuMtVaMh
Dace from Shmuptopia released a farewell video recently on his channel, after going dormant for a while. Shmuptopia had been one of my favorite shmup channels on Youtube, and I was fortunate to be interviewed by him back in 2023 as part of his Meet The Player series when I still more of a shmup Youtuber mostly dedicated to gameplay. In this video, I break down why I think he'll be missed but also the challenges of being a shmup Youtuber. Dace and his channel will be missed by the shmup community.
00:00 Shmuptopia Is Leaving Youtube
00:44 A Class Act On and Off Camera
02:48 He Did More With Less
06:07 Great Shmup Content
07:22 Being A Shmup Youtuber Isn't Easy
Shmuptopia's Farewell Video: youtu.be/c5DPXgt31PU?si=SjcUO_zUxuMtVaMh
![The New Tetris [N64] - Ultra Mode Run 2:36](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/vhS9KgBqSG0/mqdefault.jpg "The New Tetris [N64] - Ultra Mode Run 2:36
The New Tetris is one of my favorite Tetris games and definitely a highlight of the N64 library. I recorded this to show off the 4x4 square block mechanic to @LukesAwakening64, who does a lot of N64 first impression videos and live-streams. I recommend his channel if you like N64:
https://www.youtube.com/@LukesAwakening
This isnt a perfect run by any means, but this is my fastest run of Ultra Mode. I do regret some of the later moves I made but it didnt make much of an impact on the final result. The goal is only to get to 150 lines cleared, which was made easier with the silver and gold squares. If you make a 4x4 square blocks with the same exact type of piece, you get a gold square that makes any line that has a row of it worth 10 lines instead of one when cleared. If a variety of different pieces are used to make that 4x4 square block, you get a silver square thats worth 5 points per line that has a row of it included. If theres a row of both a silver and a gold square like in this clip, its 15 points per line so the bonus stacks with more than one square block.
Also, the DUSK video is still in the plans, but it has been a very busy month for me. I havent been playing video games as much as Id like either, but this was really easy to put together. I should start getting more free time next week, but its going to take more editing than usual to get that video to a finished state.
Played in RetroArch with the Fakelottes shader.")
![San Francisco Rush The Rock [Gamecube/Arcade] - Embarcadero 1st Place (Midway Arcade Treasures 3)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/wL8pkYCD70s/mqdefault.jpg "San Francisco Rush The Rock [Gamecube/Arcade] - Embarcadero 1st Place (Midway Arcade Treasures 3)
San Francisco Rush The Rock Alcatraz Edition got a port to 6th generation consoles via Midway Arcade Treasures 3. Unfortunately, a lot of the games included had emulation issues, and this game has issues on this compilation as well.
To start with the good, it runs most of the time at 60 FPS with only some minor dips near the beginning of races. This is noticeably better than the original game though that may disappoint those wanting perfect emulation. It looks pretty nice when using upscaling in Dolphin. It does have all the levels from Rush The Rock obviously, so it is based on the arcade version and not the console versions.
The main problem here is the physics getting tweaked. The cars are now too touchy, especially on jumps. This even applies to the Beginner car. Also, its pretty much impossible to keep your car on a straight line for some reason. You car always wants to veer to one side or the other and trying to correct can cause you to start losing traction, and it’s super obvious. It almost makes you wonder if your controller got stick drift from this game. Just compare this to the original running in MAME and you’ll see the differences right away.
Embarcadero shows off the problem with jumps pretty well, and this was my best run at that course. The ending is quite humorous, as the last car suicides right as I’m about to pass him. I avoided most of the shortcuts here because honestly, they’re not helpful.
Played in the Dolphin Emulator using a Razer Wolverine V2.")
![Cameltry [Arcade] - Beginner Course 1CC 109860 pts](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/xaRwlOQrJwQ/mqdefault.jpg "Cameltry [Arcade] - Beginner Course 1CC 109860 pts
Played on default settings using the MAME Current core in RetroArch.
Taito was more known for shmups back in the companys heyday as they helped pioneer the genre back in the 70s with Space Invaders and continued in the 80s and 90s with games like the Darius series and Rayforce. However, they did experiment with other genres from time to time, with Bubble Bobble, Arkanoid, and the Puzzle Bobble/Bust-A-Move spinoff games being pretty successful examples of that just to name a few.
Cameltry is quite unique even amongst the Taito library as its a physics based game where you rotate a maze in order to get a marble inside of it to the end of said maze, within a time limit. You can also press a button to bounce the marble off the wall and into the air, which can come in handy from time to time. On the surface, its a simple game, but there is plenty of depth in the scoring system as you can grab items from points and break bricks to gain points as well. Its a lot to balance scoring by grabbing items/breaking bricks and getting to the end within a reasonable amount of time, as finishing quickly also helps your score.
I think itd be great if whatever is left of Taito created an expanded version and released it on modern consoles and PC.")
![Slipstream [PC] - Grand Tour Playthrough (Route 12, All Rivals Beaten)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/y1NvVChtvFI/mqdefault.jpg "Slipstream [PC] - Grand Tour Playthrough (Route 12, All Rivals Beaten)
Slipstream is a 2D racer created by Brazilian developer ansdor and released originally in 2018 on PC via Steam. This game is not to be confused with the Capcom racing game from 1995 of the same name. It takes a lot of inspiration from the Outrun series. In particular, it takes quite a bit of inspiration from the second Outrun game, incorporating a slipstream mechanic as well as a pretty similar drifting mechanic and a Rival system.
The main mode of the game is Grand Tour, which used to be known as Arcade mode in prior versions of the game. This is structured like the Outrun, where you start out on a single section and once you get to the end of it, you start getting branching paths. Just like Outrun, you keep getting branching paths until you get to the fifth section, which is the last part of the run. You have a time limit and checkpoints as you would expect.
The drift mechanics works similar to the one in Outrun 2. You get off the accelerator pedal while turning and hit the brakes quickly, then get back on the accelerator quickly. Since you dont have gears in this one, you cant shift down then back up to do this like you could in Outrun 2 or even something like Daytona USA. The slipstream mechanic does work a bit differently here. Instead of getting a speed boost as soon as youre in a cars slipstream, you charge it up until you spell out Slipstream and then you get a big boost. As long as youre in a cars slipstream, the boost will continue. This seems to work best as a catch-up mechanic after making some mistakes because if youre driving fast and clean, you will have difficulties pulling this off.
It plays pretty well overall, especially if you play it with digital controls from a Saturn or Genesis style controller. However, this game sadly lacks a scoring system. Outrun 2 benefited so much from it, but this game didnt even bother with it even though the driving mechanics come from that game. The Rival system especially suffers because there seems to be no real incentive in passing all of them up in a run outside of getting an in-game achievement for it one time.
That being said, this is a fun game to play. It controls pretty well, looks good, and the music fits the game pretty well. It does have some extra modes like a Grand Prix style mode thats similar to the old Top Gear games as well as Cannonball mode, which allows you to have a more customized checkpoint-to-checkpoint experience but without branching paths. Also, it is cheap, as it is only $10 when its not on sale. It is even on modern consoles as of 2022.
Slipstream on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/732810/Slipstream/
00:00 Intro
00:23 Race
06:21 End Results")
![Outrun [Sega Genesis] 1st Hyper Mode Clear - Goal A (45408)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/yBmRKJVkNgI/mqdefault.jpg "Outrun [Sega Genesis] 1st Hyper Mode Clear - Goal A (45408)
This is my first clear of the hidden Hyper mode on the Genesis port of Outrun, which is one of my favorite SEGA games of all time. The time limits are the same as the Pro difficulty, but your car has a 30 mph higher top speed than it normally does.
For my first time winning on this mode, I think I had a pretty good time with 15 seconds to spare at the end despite running into the back of other vehicles several times. However, I never flipped the car over in this run so that helped.
I do have some other non-shmup arcade game content planned at some point, as well as more shmup related videos.")
![Assault Shell [PC] - Original Full 2-ALL Playthrough (B2)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ySQYxsbIXZQ/mqdefault.jpg "Assault Shell [PC] - Original Full 2-ALL Playthrough (B2)
Assault Shell is a bullet hell shmup created by Team Overclocked and released in 2020 on Steam. Team Overclocked is a one-man team consisting of Tyler Hughes, aka Someguy009, a member of the Western shmup community. One man team or not, this is definitely one of the best indie shmups on Steam that Ive played yet.
Stylistically, this game borrows a lot from Crimzon Clover as well as the Dodonpachi and Espgaluda games made by CAVE. The Stand system is very similar to the Break system from Crimzon Clover. Interestingly enough, you do not have a bomb in this game, but it doesnt feel all that necessary when you have the Break activation and your SP weapon to cancel bullets.
The thing that really stands out is how well the game plays and the overall balance. All the ships (4 ships, 2 SP weapon choices per ship) feel viable for a 2-ALL even if some are a bit better than others (G1 is an excellent survival ship in particular compared to A1) and theres a ton of depth when playing for score, like there should be in a bullet hell shmup like this. Nothing feels too spongy or ridiculously unbalanced from an enemy standpoint. Even the TLB, though very difficult, is definitely learnable and pretty reasonable by TLB standards. I just dont think it should be able to be fought in every mode, only Original Full. In particular, its a bit weird to put that fight in Light Mode, which is the games Novice mode. However, thats a pretty minor complaint. The bullet patterns are quite creative and actually take a little bit of influence from Touhou at times. You can tell from playing it that the dev is a serious shmup fan.
There are a couple of small flaws with this game. One, the graphics are a bit lacking. Granted, this is a one-man team so its probably a bit unfair to expect CAVE levels of art, but it could have been better. Two, the dialogue between stages in the first loop doesnt add much and comes off as forced. However, this complaints are small in the grand scheme of things.
This game is supposed to be receiving a sequel some time this year, so itll be interesting to see if it improves on the original or not. Someguy009 has a bright future as a shmup developer IMO.
Assault Shell Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1432970/ASSAULT_SHELL/
Assault Shell itch.io page: https://overloadedstudios.itch.io/assault-shell
Assault Shell 2 Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2173850/ASSAULT_SHELL_2/
00:00 Start
00:33 Stage 1-1
03:40 Stage 1-2
07:14 Stage 1-3
11:33 Stage 1-4
17:10 Stage 1-5
23:46 Stage 2-1
26:42 Stage 2-2
30:12 Stage 2-3
34:26 Stage 2-4
40:01 Stage 2-5
46:37 TLB
Note: I did notice a little bit more micro-stuttering when playing the video file back in VLC before uploading. Not sure why that happened, but if you noticed some stutters, those are not frame rate dips and not something I experienced when playing through the game.")
![S.T.U.N. Runner [Atari Lynx] - All Stages 1CC 744,675 pts](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ynT7-BT9dOE/mqdefault.jpg "S.T.U.N. Runner [Atari Lynx] - All Stages 1CC 744,675 pts
S.T.U.N. Runner is a futuristic driving/racing game with shooting elements originally released in arcades by Atari Games in 1989. The arcade version ran on a modified version of Ataris Hard Drivin hardware and featured fully polygon 3D graphics, which were quite a revelation at the time though not the first arcade game to do so. The Atari Lynx would receive a port developed in-house by Atari Corporation in 1991, which is the port that I cleared for this run.
This game is known for being one of the best arcade ports done on the Atari Lynx back in its heyday, which is saying a lot. Obviously, the Lynx was not capable of delivering an entirely 3D port of this game. Instead, the programmer, D. Scott Williamson, opted to utilize the Lynxs sprite scaling to give off the illusion of 3D. This turned out to be a brilliant move, as this ended up much better than even the Amiga port. The game pulls off the pseudo-3D perfectly and the game manages to give off a great sense of speed, albeit with a little bit of slowdown at times but nothing that hurts the game overall.
The gameplay here is a mix between a racing game and a shoot em up. It looks like a precursor to F-Zero with the futuristic car hovering about the ground, the boost pads, and the tunnels that are reminiscent of the pipes youd see in F-Zero X and GX much later. Like in RoadBlasters, you can shoot at enemies by pressing A but unlike that game, you can even shoot ones that are above you by holding down while firing. Also from RoadBlasters is the option to skip to a later stage at the start with a certain amount of bonus points. However, you can easily outscore that 200,000 pt bonus from starting on Stage 11 if you just start from Stage 1. You can earn shockwaves by passing over enough green stars in a particular stage. The shockwaves are your bombs: they clear the screen even taking out the grey armored cars that cant be shot down. These are very helpful, especially near the end, and you can carry up to six of them.
The stages appear to be pretty faithful as well except for one change: the Ultimate Challenge can be finished in this version. In the arcades, it is supposed to be impossible to finish with the amount of time youre given so youre just supposed to go as far as you can. That is not the case here. Also, this version is really easy, especially if youre playing via emulation and are able to see better than you would on an unmodded Lynx. Then again, the arcade version is not known for being brutal either, as even the original did not have much RNG nor did it have the fuel system of something like RoadBlasters that is rigged against the player. Most of this game is a cakewalk until you get to the Ultimate Challenge, which is the only real difficulty spike and is not that easy. However, I was able to stockpile enough shockwaves and hit just enough boost pads early on to get through it. If you dont beat the final stage on one try, it does result in a Game Over with an ending screen without the fireworks, so Im assuming thats the bad ending.
Despite the easy difficulty, there appears to be some potential for score play in terms of killing enemies, hitting boost pads, finishing as fast as possible, not losing shields from getting hit, and grabbing those green stars. It plays extremely well and holds up today.
One small note: I did use external autofire off of my Qanba Crystal (which Ive modded into a mixbox at this point) but theres a pretty low shot limit in this emulator (which is probably true for the real thing) so it ends up not giving me a real advantage because I wasnt even close to the normal 15HZ that my fighstick would usually give me. You can sustain the same rate of fire with your fingers or thumbs tapping manually, which I try to avoid nowadays in order to take care of my hands. In fact, I almost 1CCd the game on a cheap Anbernic handheld with no autofire, but my right thumb was cramping a bit after losing on the final stage.
00:00 Intro
00:19 Stage 1
00:53 Stage 2
01:37 Stage 3
02:30 Stage 4
03:29 Stage 5
04:29 Stage 6
05:37 Stage 7
06:27 Stage 8
07:12 Stage 9
08:03 Stage 10
09:13 Stage 11
10:05 Stage 12
10:54 Stage 13
11:54 Stage 14
12:46 Stage 15
13:52 Stage 16
14:50 Stage 17
15:53 Stage 18
16:48 Stage 19
17:34 Stage 20
18:28 Stage 21
19:25 Stage 22
20:19 The Ultimate Challenge
#atari #atarilynx #arcadegames #drivinggames #classicgaming #handheldgames #racing #atarigames")
![Omega Blast [Sega Genesis] - 1st Clear 518950 pts.](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/zTvKMJPtC68/mqdefault.jpg "Omega Blast [Sega Genesis] - 1st Clear 518950 pts.
Omega Blast is a brief but excellent caravan shmup for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive. I first discovered this game because of Shmup Junkie. He recently revisited it again in his Mega Drive shmup video and gave it an A ranking, which is a fair rating for its only mode: a 2 minute score attack. The bullet density is crazy for a 16 bit game and overall, its an intense 2 minutes.
Played with autofire from my arcade stick.")
