Best Horizontal Scroller

Gate of Thunder is a 1992 horizontal-scrolling shoot 'em up game developed by Red Company and published by Hudson Soft for the TurboGrafx-CD. The game was notably included as a pack-in title with the TurboDuo console in North America. It features a futuristic science fiction setting where players pi...

Space Manbow is a horizontally scrolling shoot 'em up video game developed and published by Konami in 1989. It was released exclusively for the MSX2 home computer platform and is recognized for its technical achievements on the hardware, specifically utilizing multi-layer parallax scrolling to simul...

Taito's 1993 arcade vertical shooter, developed partly by former Gun Frontier staff, is noted for its bleak narrative atmosphere and a charge-beam mechanic shared between player and bosses.

Released in 1992 for the Sega Mega Drive, Gleylancer is a horizontally scrolling shoot 'em up developed and published by Masaya. The game distinguishes itself from other titles in the genre with a strong emphasis on narrative, utilizing animated cutscenes to tell its story. It is particularly notabl...

Xexex is a horizontal scrolling shoot 'em up developed and published by Konami for arcades in 1991. Players pilot a spacecraft equipped with a unique weapon known as the Flint, a detachable tentacle-like appendage used to grapple and destroy enemies. The gameplay requires players to navigate detaile...

1989 Irem arcade shoot 'em up set inside a human body, where the player pilots a microscopic craft and attacks parasites using extendable mechanical arms.

Sturmwind is a horizontally scrolling shoot 'em up originally developed by Duranik and published by redspotgames for the Sega Dreamcast in 2013, making it one of the final commercial releases for the long-discontinued console. The game features 3D-rendered backgrounds beneath 2D gameplay and include...

'Darius Burst' is a horizontal-scrolling shoot 'em up video game developed by Pyramid and published by Taito for the PlayStation Portable in 2009. As the fifth main installment in the long-running Darius franchise, the game tasks players with navigating heavily armed spacecraft through branching sta...

"Cotton 2: Magical Night Dreams" is a horizontally scrolling shoot 'em up video game developed and published by Success in 1997. It is part of the "Cotton" series, which follows a young witch named Cotton and her fairy companion Silk. The game runs on Sega's ST-V arcade hardware and was released for...

Steredenn: Binary Stars is an enhanced edition of the 2015 shoot 'em up game Steredenn, developed and published by Pixelnest Studio. It is a horizontal scrolling shooter with roguelike elements, where players engage in procedurally generated space battles. This version introduces local co-op multipl...

Cotton Reboot! is an updated release of the 1991 side-scrolling shoot 'em up game Cotton: Fantastic Night Dreams, originally developed by Success. The reboot features fully redrawn high-definition graphics alongside the original arcade version. Players control a young witch named Cotton who rides a...

Steel Empire is a horizontally scrolling shoot 'em up originally released for the Sega Mega Drive in 1992 by Hot-B. The game is notable for its steampunk aesthetic, featuring diesel-punk aircraft, zeppelins, and mechanized enemies in an alternate-history industrial world. Players can choose to pilot...

Gradius ReBirth is a horizontal scrolling shoot 'em up developed by Konami and released exclusively for the WiiWare digital distribution service in 2008. The game was designed to evoke the aesthetic and gameplay of the 16-bit era, serving as a nostalgic revival of the classic Gradius franchise. Play...

Fantastic Night Dreams: Cotton is a horizontally scrolling shoot 'em up arcade game developed and released by Success in 1991. The game follows a young witch named Cotton who rides a broomstick through various fantasy environments while battling monsters using magical attacks. The storyline revolves...

Carrier Air Wing is a 1990 horizontal-scrolling arcade shoot 'em up developed and published by Capcom. Released under the title U.S. Navy in Japan, the game is themed around modern carrier-based naval aviation. It supports two-player cooperative gameplay, allowing users to pilot fighter jets across...

Prehistoric Isle in 1930 is a horizontally scrolling shoot-em-up arcade game developed and published by SNK in 1989. Players control early 20th-century biplanes tasked with navigating a mysterious, time-displaced island populated by hostile dinosaurs and other giant prehistoric fauna. The game is re...

Andro Dunos II is a side-scrolling shoot 'em up video game developed by Picorinne Soft and Visco, serving as a sequel to the 1992 arcade classic Andro Dunos. Released decades after the original Neo Geo title, the game preserves the traditional horizontal scrolling shooter mechanics of its predecesso...

Satazius is a horizontally scrolling shoot 'em up released for Windows in 2011 by Astro Port, a Japanese independent game developer. Players pilot a spacecraft through enemy formations, environmental hazards, and boss encounters while selecting and upgrading weapons suited to different tactical role...

Visco's 1992 Neo-Geo horizontal shooter lets players choose from four distinct weapon types at the outset, each upgradeable through several power-up tiers during play.

Wolf Team's 1990 horizontal shooter was one of the Mega-CD's Japanese launch titles and was later ported to the Sega Mega Drive under the alternate title Sol-Deace.

A 2020 enhanced remake of Rigid Force Alpha by com8com1 Software, a horizontal shoot 'em up featuring a shield-deflection system and collectible force fragments in a sci-fi setting.

Jaleco's 1993 arcade vertical shooter features a robotic mech protagonist and a selectable weapon power-up system across multiple vertically scrolling combat stages.

Psikyo's 1997 arcade fantasy shooter blends conventional shooting mechanics with close-range sword attacks and magic spells, giving the genre an action-RPG character.