What would it take to turn 2hu games into real shmups?

I'll try that one. I've only played Panorama Cotton before.

panorama cotton is great, had a successor title with the dreamcast rainbow cotton. Cotton Boomerang is the game play successor to Cotton 2, which introduced the grab mechanic. Cotton Boomerang perfected it and has a brilliant punch/grab system that works in tandem with elemental bubbles and the various shot styles and attributes. I theorize a good Cotton Boomerang player can beat the entire game without firing a single shot barring some situations. It's a thrill having hundreds of danmaku fired at you and instead of dodging like a pussy you take it all head on with a flurry of punches. Cotton Boomerang may be the best game in the series, so you may want to play Cotton 2 before hand so that experience doesn't seem lesser.

Many bosses in both games, mini and otherwise also have frames of vulnerability, where you can initiate a grab on them and paralyze them or in some cases, instantly kill them. It's usually at the point where they are most vulnerable and you are about to be hit where you can pull these attacks off. There's an incredible sense of risk and reward at play, and I've never seen a shmup before or since compare to it. Touhou is novel but it's rather simple in comparison to its contemporaries.

Panorama Cotton is most fascinating for how the game was pulled off on the Genesis with no expansion hardware, it's a marvel of technical engineering, but it's also a great game.

I enjoyed this shump until I realized you could just spam this one move that negates any bullet in front of you.

You must not have gotten very far since it doesn't work on all projectile types and later stages test how well you can control throws or directional shots.

I see. Guess I'll pick it up again sometime.

Just kill yourself.

That fucking cover.