Rangerdog

Silly, short and simple shmup, a homage to [i]Parodius[/i] starring three doggies of different breeds against typical staples of Japanese society (conveyor belt sushi, wood carpentry, commuters, gambling etc.) Fairly easy but also quite amusing and with several neat ideas, especially during the boss battles. There's even the classic "whole stage is a battleship to dismantle" shmup trope, only here is a huge sheep! Good for when you have a little time to spare and want a colorful, funny old-school treat. Also, you can never get enough [i]Parodius[/i], since what few homages are there usually don't quite get how it worked in the first place, but [i]Rangerdog[/i] gets it.

Seriously fun indie shoot em up in the vein of Parodius.

I happened to receive this game for free during a key giveaway during Shmup Slam 4 which you should check out if you haven't. This game is an incredibly well made shmup. It is 7 stages long and each one is actually designed quite well. It gives off huge Parodius vibes which is also awesome. All in all, if I hadn't received the game for free I definitely would've bought it especially for 6 bucks US. If you enjoy shmups at all definitely give this game a shot. I can't recommend it enough.

An excellent follow-up to Paro Paro (which I recommend you play first before this one). On the easy side but that's honestly kind of a welcome break from the bevvy of hardcore indie STGs. The art is wonderful and there are so many creative ideas both visually and mechanically that I defy you not to be charmed by it.

A wonderful Parodius clone, with tons of nods and some enemies directly influenced by Sexy Parodius. A parody of Parodius? Konami would be proud. It's a bit on the easy side, especially if you're comparing this against the arcade classics this game copies, but it's incredibly fun, colorful, great enemy design... and it's a joy to play all the way through. Easy recommendation to shooter fans, my only wish would be for the branching paths of Parodius. For instance, Ranger Dog has you collecting coins in a stage similar to one in Sexy Parodius, but when you fall to collect enough in SP, you fail that condition and move on to a different subsequent stage. In Ranger Dog, you shoot the coins you've collected over the course of the stage into a piggy bank boss, and if you run out? No problem, more slot machines come to refill your coin count. I wish this would have been a fail state... the boss see's you're out of coins and flies off, which even if this didn't change the stage you progressed to next would impact your score and feel like a penalty for missing the goal target. A small complaint, though, in a truly wonderful little indie shooter. Two thumbs up!

Cute spaceship shooter, but with dogs (3 of them). I loved the design and the gameplay.