I've been falling in love with my Saturn all over again, playing tons of shmups around playing through Deep Fear. I was playing a bit of Batsugun again, where I made it into Stage 4 of the base game for, apparently, the first time, according to my rankings table. Last time I was playing Batsugun, a few years ago, I was mostly playing the Special Ver, which I don't know if I entirely realized is much easier than the base version. I know I made it to the boss in Stage 4, where I was going to try to do a bunch of point farming, but ended up dying because I couldn't really find the safe zone. Anyway, it's a little weird to me that the Special Ver. gives 8 credits, while the base version only gives 4. Maybe the Special Ver. has a much more difficult Stage 5, or something, but the shield granted in the Special Ver. makes things significantly easier. Not that it matters, since I'm always doing single credit attempts, anyway.
I was also playing around a little bit with Battle Garrega (pretty rusty at this one), Sengoku Blade, Darius Gaiden, Donpachi, Valgus, Exed Exes, all of the Konami shooters, and Steam Hearts (mostly to see if it's really as lackluster a shooter as I remember it being, and it is--even in terms of titillation, I don't really see the appeal).
I've been mostly focusing on Gradius, and Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius, though. I've 1cced Gradius before on the PSP collection, but I'm trying to beat it again with all the default settings (mainly the arcade screen size), but abusing the hell out of rapid fire. I'm getting to Stage 4 fairly consistently, which was the main wall that I remember last time. I'm finding the game to be way easier with very few power ups, though. Most sections of stage 4 are a lot easier when I only have missiles, a speed power up, and the pea shooter. Perhaps victory is in sight. Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius feels like a relatively easy game. It clearly was not made with arcades in mind, considering it's essentially a Super Nintendo game. The stages are quite long, and feel way easier than Parodius Da, for instance (maybe it's just a difference in stage scrolling speed). I was using Upa a bit, after discovering his homing missiles, and then I decided I just wanted to try out Mike, because, floating cat. Then I found the real star of the game: Ran. She is obscenely good, and also a floating cat, so win-win. She has two "h-bit" missiles that home in on things, and return, doing damage in both directions, plus a reflect shot that fires in three directions, and bounces off of solid objects. It's nuts. Her other shot weapon is a homing laser, and the cherry on top is her shield power up, which is just a cardboard box that covers up her limbs.

With Ran, I last made it to Stage 6, where I was backed into by the boss, which was such BS, because I was hanging out near the middle of the screen, expecting it to come in from the left. I couldn't really recover from that setback, partly because Stage 6 is so full of visual noise, and really ramps up the difficulty in general. This game tosses out extra lives like tic-tacs, though. Part of the benefit of Ran, is how easy it is to uncover a lot of the hidden fairies, which are a 10k point bonus each (same as the max combo bells, and a lot less work). I am digging Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius.
Edit: Ugh, man. I made it through Stage 4 of Gradius tonight, and got through all the limbed brain things, then somehow died right as I was shooting the core of the boss. I seriously have no idea how I died. It's amazing how much easier Stage 5 is than Stage 4. I can't quite recall how bad Stage 6 is, but I know I remember Stage 7 being partly luck when I beat it the last time.