It seem to me to that the devs felt obliged to put games in the shmup genre because they were quite common in the 1980s, but without really knowing how to do it.
Xevious from 1982 is more advanced n terms of game design than all the UFO50 shmups.
I also think that shmups are too “pure” a genre, and the UFO50 games don't try to hide the fact that they're indie games (and not “retro” games), and because indies apparently can't make games without adding gimmicks, UFO50 shmups have become too gimmicky and silly.
And finally, Star Waspir is probably the worst game of this kind I've ever played, at least considering everything from 1982 onwards.

UFO 50 didn't fulfill my expectations, despite being an impressive collection. 50 games is insane and the amount of work the guys had to put in here is mind-blowing.
But honestly, this game only made me frustrated seeing the way critics and consumers really interact with games. A perfect analogy for how I feel is a scene from an episode of South Park, where one of the oldfarts sees the kids playing Guitar Hero and he gets excited thinking he could share his guitar hobby with them, but as soon as he shows them the real guitar, the kids just say "so what?" and go back to the game, because their interest wasn't in the guitar, but in Guitar Hero.
I see UFO50 as a collection of 50 indie mini-games with a limited colour palette, and that's it. I can't delude myself that I'm playing retro games from a parallel dimension, these games literally feel like indie games from the 2010s-2020s in every respect, from gameplay to amateurish art style. Just copying some famous sprites from the 1980s-1990s didn't do much to create a simulacrum.
But what really frustrates me is to see how much people praise the project excessively, even though a huge number of the games are worthless if removed from the collection (imagine buying Star Waspir as a full game on Steam, lol), and at the same time retro games of much better quality are ignored, or sometimes massacred by the reviews on Steam, coming from people who I imagine, as soon as they leave UFO 50 which is a famous project made by celebrity devs, suddenly become super demanding and start posting negative reviews on games that make UFO50's indie mini-games look like amateur projects.

It seem to me to that the devs felt obliged to put games in the shmup genre because they were quite common in the 1980s, but without really knowing how to do it.
Xevious from 1982 is more advanced n terms of game design than all the UFO50 shmups.
I also think that shmups are too “pure” a genre, and the UFO50 games don't try to hide the fact that they're indie games (and not “retro” games), and because indies apparently can't make games without adding gimmicks, UFO50 shmups have become too gimmicky and silly.
And finally, Star Waspir is probably the worst game of this kind I've ever played, at least considering everything from 1982 onwards.

I've only played a couple STGs (DoDonPachi, ZeroRanger, Eschatos, the Frantic and Reactance series-es back when Flash was a thing, a couple in arcades like Raiden 2 and R-Type, Einhänder, Drainus), but I generally tend to enjoy what I've played of the genre even if they're pretty tough games.
Star Waspir is... not enjoyable. One quarter of it of it feels like the game gets too ridiculous right out of the gate with its enemies and the sheer speed at which their bullets move, which makes it difficult to adapt to the game when it's immediately throwing snipers at you. Another quarter is the visual design, because Star Waspir's visuals manage to make me feel like I'm getting eye strain while playing and I'm not sure I can articulate why entirely.
The other half is the power-up system. I've kind of come to expect gimmicky chaining systems for score multipliers as just part of the genre (my personal favorite multiplier gimmick is graze mechanics like in Frantic), but when you're doing chaining gimmicks for power-ups, then things have been taken too far. The power-ups aren't even "permanent until you get tagged" either, they're either time-limited or breakable, which just makes the whole system feel bad to engage with since what you get for the effort doesn't feel as impactful as it really should if they're meant to only last a few seconds. Even 1943, which had time-limited power-ups, has them deliver a significant impact and gives you some actual time to use them.
It's a shame, since I like the other STG I've played so far in the pack (Caramel Caramel).

It seem to me to that the devs felt obliged to put games in the shmup genre because they were quite common in the 1980s, but without really knowing how to do it.
Xevious from 1982 is more advanced n terms of game design than all the UFO50 shmups.
I also think that shmups are too “pure” a genre, and the UFO50 games don't try to hide the fact that they're indie games (and not “retro” games), and because indies apparently can't make games without adding gimmicks, UFO50 shmups have become too gimmicky and silly.
And finally, Star Waspir is probably the worst game of this kind I've ever played, at least considering everything from 1982 onwards.

I've only played a couple STGs (DoDonPachi, ZeroRanger, Eschatos, the Frantic and Reactance series-es back when Flash was a thing, a couple in arcades like Raiden 2 and R-Type, Einhänder, Drainus), but I generally tend to enjoy what I've played of the genre even if they're pretty tough games.

Star Waspir is... not enjoyable. One quarter of it of it feels like the game gets too ridiculous right out of the gate with its enemies and the sheer speed at which their bullets move, which makes it difficult to adapt to the game when it's immediately throwing snipers at you. Another quarter is the visual design, because Star Waspir's visuals manage to make me feel like I'm getting eye strain while playing and I'm not sure I can articulate why entirely.

The other half is the power-up system. I've kind of come to expect gimmicky chaining systems for score multipliers as just part of the genre (my personal favorite multiplier gimmick is graze mechanics like in Frantic), but when you're doing chaining gimmicks for power-ups, then things have been taken too far. The power-ups aren't even "permanent until you get tagged" either, they're either time-limited or breakable, which just makes the whole system feel bad to engage with since what you get for the effort doesn't feel as impactful as it really should if they're meant to only last a few seconds. Even 1943, which had time-limited power-ups, has them deliver a significant impact and gives you some actual time to use them.

It's a shame, since I like the other STG I've played so far in the pack (Caramel Caramel).