if you're on a schmup kick, i'd say my fave is Gradius 3 and Lifeforce (if you have a friend to play with coop is great). Parodius is a lovely antithesis of all those Konami games and my fave platform game that ties in schmup elements is Rocket Knight Adventures for the Sega Genesis. Infact, now I think I'm going to go play that game...
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Ahhh, this brought back such a strange memory of my dad telling me I'd never see stage 3 in Gradius III as a first or second grader! I don't remember the context, but I stopped playing it after that- what a strange thing to think about! I know I have at least one Parodius on hand, though, so I'll take your rec on it later! I'll have to look into Rocket Knight, too, I had no idea what sort of game that was!
Thanks for the comment!