With most of us still under some form of lockdown, it’s been, unsurprisingly, another slower than usual month in terms of shmup news and announcements. We did get a couple of decent releases, however, and with the upcoming schedule rather bare, we’re looking to traditionally announcement heavy June to, hopefully, pick up the slack.

As for what we did see this month, the details are all below.

Task Force Kampas – Eastasiasoft dropped another surprise shmup in our laps on the 7th in the form of vert Task Force Kampas. The game features just three stages and feels more like a demo than a full-game, something that is reflected in its budget price tag.

The Shmup Collection – Made up of three Astroport shmups (vert Wolflame and horis Satazius and Armed 7), The Shmup Collection is a worthy little collection and offers bucket loads of old school fun and variety. Brought to Switch by Pixelheart, this one launched digitally on the eShop on the 15th (each game is also available individually) and has a slightly delayed physical coming next month, too.

Thunder Force AC – The Sega Ages line blessed us with another shmup this month in the form of Thunder Force AC, an arcade edition of the Genesis hori Thunder Force III. If you’ve played Thunder Force IV, you’ll know what to expect from these retro releases, but even if you haven’t, the knowledge that M2 are involved ought to tell you all you need to know about the high quality of the release.

Game Paradise – City Connection’s port of this parody-style vert has become caught up in some rather frustrating controversy due to its delayed and delayed again physical version, and on the 28th Game Paradise was brought to the eShop with only City Connection themselves mentioned as the publisher. Things seem to be moving again on the physical front, but for those of you who can’t wait – and didn’t want to grab the Japanese version – this is a feature rich edition of a renowned shmup, and well worth a look.

ACA – Two new shmups joined the ACA range this month with MagMax hitting the eShop on the 7th and Radical Radial joining it on the 13th. These are real back-to-the-old-school titles, but will no doubt be of interest to anyone swotting up on a little bit of gaming history.

So, a slow month by any standards, but, just like last month, we do come away from it with another smattering of solid titles to add to the ever expanding library and, with June being announcement season, we’ll hopefully have more to tell you about then…