STRIKERS 1945

A solid vertical shoot em up with good graphics for the time, six different planes to use, and eight stages with a bit of randomness on the order you can play the first four in and with what bosses and sub bosses can appear on later stages. Each plane has a unique shot type, bomb types, and as they power up they have different subweapons that you can charge up by holding shoot to activate a different temporary attack mode. Bosses often shift from their first mode into some type of mech for their final form. Playing through the game once begins a second more difficult run. No story other than your final score and completed runs altering an ending look at your pilot either in full uniform with no details known to detailing their name and having them in less clothing until they are topless (and covering themselves except for the one male pilot).
The stages don't do too much of interest with the environments. There are some ground targets and at one point effects of enemy planes coming through the clouds but nothing too interesting apart from good visuals. Enemy bullet patterns are often fair as is there spawn locations but certain attacks can cover such a wide area or come at you so much faster than normal enemy shots that you really have to know the game to be able to avoid what is coming at times, even more so in the slower planes. Enemy types themselves never do anything too interesting but there is just enough variety, though the mechs bosses transform into are never very visual interesting or too distinct from one another in style.
The PC version has the typically expected positive inclusions. You can remap the controls, you can make a button auto shoot when held down (so you still need a normal shot to activate your charge attack), you can choose between seven difficulty modes (though only 4 and up have the additional runs after a completion), you can give yourself nine lives instead of the usual three, and can add more or infinite continues (which become disabled when you access a 2nd or 3rd run in the same playthrough), there is a high score mode, co-op is supported, etc.
Screenshots:

Pretty fun shmup. Quite basic compared to modern shmups but fun for what it is and great for beginners.

Great SHMUP! Not to difficult yet not to easy! Great Starter Shooter!

Everything I could want in an arcade release brought to PC. Looks, plays, sounds as good as you could want on a modern set up on PC.
Outstanding effort by the team that has brought this to Steam. This is a great example of an arcade conversion done right on the PC platform.

Yo this game is really good and play this joint at the max difficulty you'll love it. You only get 3 lives and 3 continues and if you don't make it you have to start over. Also I really like the fact that when you do start over it picks a random stage every time. I love games like Raiden Project on the PS1 and it reminds me so much of it.

Overall, STRIKERS 1945 is a challenging but fun shmup. Despite having several difficulty levels, this game is still quite difficult regardless (I managed to 1CC this game but only on child difficulty). Easy recommendation for anybody that likes shmups.

Everyone who likes shmups/shooters owes it to themselves to play the Psikyo games (the Strikers series, Gunbird series, and Samurai Aces series). It seems like Toaplan (who i also love) is usually considered the best developer when it comes to shmups, but i think Psikyo was every bit as good and deserves to be mentioned alongside them as the best of the best. The Psikyo ports by City Connection are very good.... except on the Switch, unfortunately, where they are basically unplayable due to input lag. But you're not reading this on Switch, so who cares! The PC port is great.
Anyway... this game rules, as do all of the others mentioned above.