■ The most vibrant games were actually spin-offs; the trilogy. Starting with 1996’s , which was followed a year later with the unrelenting , the trio of games reinvented as a faster, games – gave players a huge variety of options to explore, and subsequently ways to play. Again, the series’ capacity for personal flair had increased. But those two games were soon eclipsed by 1998’s sublime , which remains a titan of the shmup genre.
