SHMUPs!

[miyabi95_]

You may or may not already know that I prefer shooters that involve human pilots

Personally, I generally prefer everything else, to be honest. I never understood the whole "Playing as a human is more fun because you can relate to them more" concept. I actually prefer playing as other things because they're LESS like me. ...But I guess that's just separate opinions there.

Like with most genres, my favorite SHUMPs have HUGE bosses, generally more organic looking ones as opposed to robotic ones. ...I'm not a huge expert of SHUMPS though. I do recall playing Parodius a lot. It's a spoof of the Gradius series that has a LOT of playable characters. I've played the first three games, but I've yet to play Sexy Parodius yet. There might be more, but I only remember the original, the two SNES games and Sexy Parodius. I thought the fact that the SNES ones had so many characters to choose from, each with their own powers, was kind of cool. I especially liked playing as Ran the cat (I think that was his name) in the second one for the SNES.

Well I will say that I have that preference purely for the aesthetic, lol. Though I don't mind if they're riding on something, a la Mushihimesama or Cotton.
On a side note, if Konami got back to SHMUPS, I think they would be better off rather than if they continue hiding from their problems. However, I would prefer that they create new properties rather than go back to old ones like Gradius and Parodius, which are pretty stale IMO.

Ships are definitely fine for me in a shmup, but good ship design is imperative.

Unique characters are usually more of a draw, though. For example, I always liked Abadox a lot out of the NES shooters because you are a little space man rather than a ship.

Abadox sounds like fun. I'll have to give it a try. If you're looking for something that's unique, I recommend Psychic World for the MSX/MSX2/SMS/SGG. It's moreso a fusion of Metroid/Megaman/SHMUP styles but has that lingering pressure of keeping the screen moving and proceeding through the level at a constant pace.