Thunder Force/YMMV

""This is Exceliza, I want to fly now." "Roger, good luck.""
 * Adaptation Displacement: Remember Thunder Force II on the Genesis / Mega Drive? Yeah, well, remember the Sharp X68000 version that it's a port of?
 * Contested Sequel: Thunder Force V and VI
 * Crowning Moment of Awesome: The Boss fight against the Gargoyle in IV and all of Stage 5 in V.
 * Crowning Music of Awesome : Multiple examples. See the page.
 * Crowning Moment of Heartwarming: The good ending for Thunder Force V:
 * Ear Worm: The option music in Thunder Force II (X68000 version), IV, and VI, "Tan Tan Ta Ta Ta Tan".
 * Excuse Plot: Most of the series, though it starts getting elaborated upon starting with IV
 * Game Breaker: Free Range in V. Even the manual of the North American version describes it as the strongest weapon in the game and encourages you to use it.
 * In VI, the only ship you can initially play as starts off with all of its weapons and never loses them, which by Thunder Force standards is pretty broken. In other words, the default ship is more broken than the unlockable Rynex-R.
 * High Octane Nightmare Fuel: The bad ending of Thunder Force V, paired with nightmarish music.
 * Narm: The intro dialogue in Thunder Force II:


 * Nightmare Fuel: Thunder Force V's bad ending:
 * The good ending as well. While heartwarming music plays, the Last Letter scene is still a bit spooky.
 * Enemy/boss design in the games are often pretty Nightmare Fuel-y too, like that rotting thing carried by exploding flies in IV
 * Or the ORN Emperor in VI.
 * Porting Disaster: For some reason, Thunder Force AC has a really slow autofire rate, forcing players to furiously mash the fire button to achieve the same rate of fire as the Genesis version's autofire. And then there's Thunder Spirits, a port of AC with still no autofire and lots of slowdown.
 * Thunder Spirits actually has autofire, it just has to be turned on in the options menu, which for some reason is hidden instead of being obviously accessible.
 * Sequel Displacement: Few gamers have heard of the original Thunder Force (it doesn't help that it was released in 1983 on an obscure Japan-only computer platform), even fewer have played it, and there are NO videos of it on YouTube!
 * Sequelitis: VI was released 10 years after V, and came to be a big disappointment among fans, with only six short stages, a radically different soundtrack, excessive homages to past games, weapons as broken as Thunder Force V's, and a new weapon mechanic in which you start with every weapon and never lose any of them.
 * "Stop Having Fun!" Guys: To every fan, "I can't beat Thunder Force III on one credit" translates to "I should consider quit playing shmups."
 * So Okay It's Average: Thunder Force VI, which did not quite catch the high expectation its So Cool Its Awesome previous titles had anticipated.