So, the lockdown goes on and a lot of people are dusting off all their consoles old and new to pass the time with a bit of classic gaming. But if shmups are your thing, your Switch may well act as an all-in-one for both classic and modern titles. With Japanese ratings agency CERO closed and no doubt various other issues stemming from the Covid-19 situation affecting publishers and developers, it has been a fairly quiet month news-wise, but we still got a few announcements.

Cat Girl Without Salad: Amuse Bouche – April Fools Day has, for some reason taken quite the hold of the video game industry with developers big and small taking the chance to prank their fans. In 2013, Shantae developers Way Forward pretended they were developing a genre-melding shmup called Cat Girl Without Salad. Fast forward seven years and they were at it again, except…this time it was for real and the game is available for your enjoyment right now!

Black Bird – One of the best shmups of 2018, Onion Games Black Bird is well established as a cult classic on Switch. There have been calls upon calls for a physical edition and on the 10th Limited Run Games answered. This bizarre Fantasy Zone inspired shmup is available for pre-order until the 8th of May.

Thunder Force AC – According to Japanese magazine Famitsu, next in line for the Sega Ages treatment will be Thunder Force AC, an arcade port of Thunder Force III for the Megadrive. The Switch already has Thunder Force IV so expect a similar level of bells and whistles when this arrives at an unspecified future date.

Toaplan – M2’s tie-up with Toaplan has been known about for a few months now, and on the 18th they announced the first four titles they’ve been working on. These are not yet confirmed for any particular platform, but it would be hugely surprising not to see them on Switch. The four titles in question are: Twin Cobra, Truxton II, Flying Shark and Out Zone, with the first three being pure shmups and Out Zone being in a very similar ballpark.

Task Force Kampas – Right at the end of the month, EastAsiaSoft announced that they will be bringing Casiopea’s procedurally generated shmup Task Force Kamapas to Switch on the 7th of May. Little is known about this one but you won’t have long to wait to try it out yourself.

ACA – Another busy month for ACA and I’ve decided to compile all their news into one section. The main event was probably the release of Plus Alpha, but they also released Tube Panic and Flak Attack and announced that Darwin 4078 will be joining the line-up in the future.

So, a quieter month than usual, but hardly surprising and it’s hard to see the next couple of months being much different. Hopefully, when everything’s blown over we’ll have a whole glut of shmups just waiting to be revealed, but until then there remains plenty of action available for even the most hardcore fan, so, until then, happy shmupping!