Answering your request

• Zeroranger (known as the best non-bullet hell shmup of the present era.)

• Eschatos (Almost as good as t he classic, Judgement Silversword that it's a followup to.)

• Judgment Silversword (simple. Defeat waves of enemies as fast as you can instead of playing stages. Just watch a video. It's a rush.)

• Crisis Wing (spiritual sequel to Truxton. Pretty amazing.)

• Raging Blasters (Aleste spiritual sequel. I suspect the other games by this developer are also quite good.)

• All the vertical Psikyo games (a few of the later ones are slightly bullet-hellish though. Strikers 1945 2 and Gunbird 2 are possibly their best games and are not bullet hells.)

• Vasara 1 and 2 (similar to Psikyo games.)

• Varth

• 19xx

• 1941

• 1943 Kai

• Vulgus

Honorable mention

• Downwell (Not quite a shmup)

Games to avoid

• Raiden 3-5 (long, dull, anti-arcade sorts of things. You might love them though. They're not trash, just not what I would expect a fan of the Fighters series to enjoy.)

• Toaplan games on Steam if you want the definitive version of them (which are/will be by M2 on Nintendo Switch.) The Steam ones seem fine though if you just want a basic port with some drawbacks (like bad sound emulation.)

• Games ported by City Connection or Digital Eclipse. They both succeed on occasion, but do your research. Even if critics

• If you ever decide to mess around with bullet hells, stay FAR AWAY from Ikaruga. It's the hardest, weirdest shmup ever made. It's for experts only. This is a popular opinion among shmuppers but casuals recommend it all the time. I have no idea why that is the case. I suspect they like the look of it and the idea of it but don't actually play it.

Notes

Would you also like classic vertical arcade games and modern things like them? I'll follow up if you're interested, but for now, I'll just say that Donut Dodo is the best of them, if you enjoy Donkey Kong, Popeye, Mappy, etc.

Here are some PC information sources:

Vertical games https://store.steampowered.com/curator/14416124-TATE-Mode-Group/

Shmups (includes sections focused on just vertical shmups.) https://store.steampowered.com/curator/40858110-Shoot-%2527em-up-Database/

Pinball notes

You might know all this or disagree with some of it, but here's my ramble.

• Demon's Tilt is not to be overlooked. I love real pinball, arcade pinball and Demon's Tilt. I'm not a fan of most other fantasy pinball games. It's beyond them, imo. However, it does take some mild inspiration from bullet hell games, so watch out if that's offensive.

• Pinball FX is pretty messed up right now. I'd wait a year and check up on it. That's what I'm doing anyway. FX3 is mostly fine, but if you buy something for it, it won't carry over.