Consensus Best vs Personally Most Underrated Arcade Game by every Genre

As someone who has spent more time and money on emulation setups than actually playing, I want to break this habit, but the tendency for rom sets to be terabytes of every game ever made ever presents paralysis of overwhelming choice, so why not narrow things down?

1. Only coin-op arcade games allowed (this usually means near-zero homework in terms of learning to play)
2. Only two representatives of any genre: a consensus best vs what you think is overlooked by everyone agreeing on the consensus best

I don't know what the consensus best shoot-em-up might be (R-Type? Gradius?) but I'd guess something like Ikaruga would be the sleeper?
Something like Metal Slug seems like a genre unto itself, but surely there's a Metal Slug knockoff out there that's even weirder?

What are your best+underrated picks?

dodonpachi was my fav shoot-em-up, haven't played any in ages though

idk about consensus best, but my personal underrated pick is Tempest

Dodonpachi's a good one, but is that consensus best or underrated?

Trying to think of 4-player genre, but should Gauntlet, Simpsons, TMNT all be in the same genre?

its a cult classic i guess, whichever that falls under

That's a conundrum, cult classics already being categorically underrated! I guess the counterpart would be a game that's more cult than cult like some polybius legend.

dodonpachi and ddp doj are def "consensus best" tier, they're almost on par with ikaruga when it comes to non-stg players being aware they exist. all cave stgs are fairly well known, in fact

underrated arcade gems would be something like thunder dragon 2, ninja spirit, and many more highly revered titles that i'd never even knew existed until hamster re-released them as part of their arcade archives lineup

lol it doesn't sound like any of you are actually playing coin op games in an arcade, perhaps I misread this thread

In the genre of FPS vector graphic tank games, is Battle Zone under or over-rated?

Is it controversial to prefer Stargate to Defender for side scroller shoot-em-ups?

also what genre is Tron?

other considerations:
maybe Zaxxon for that odd mock-3D perspective (see also QBert & 720) ...

Track & Field for the butter knife/pencil "hack"...

re: Stargate, I may have mis-ID'd it, that was the Defender clone with like 15 buttons plus a up/down joy?

ha that sounds right

720, best skateboarding/trackball thing?

720 soundtrack is great.

ooh if trackball is a genre then marble madness must make an appearance!

re: actual coin-op in an arcade -- i'm afraid my setup will be much closer to this:
https://lokalise.com/blog/wp-content/webp-express/webp-images/doc-root/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/arcade_machine_photo2.png.webp

I’m pretty sure the Atari vector Star Wars was terrible, but I loved it for some reason.

Everyone loved it!
https://arcadeblogger.com/2017/06/16/atari-star-wars-arcade-cockpit-development/

Even this guy:
https://missilecommand.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/george-lucas-sw1.jpeg

I didn't realize there was a real sequel to Qix!
https://archive.org/details/arcade_volfied

The most underrated arcade games imo: Klax, Super Hang-On, and most-of-all, Galaga 88, which just rules in every possible way

When I was a kid I got addicted to a Packrat machine but I haven’t ever seen one since I was 10, nor have I attempted to MAME it (so I can keep the positive memory intact)

It seems consensus and cult-classic both that Medieval Madness is the greatest pinball game ever (and is fairly uncommon), I never saw a machine til I was in my 30s and it was as terrific as they said, I found a local machine afterward and played the shit out of it

I think it’s Wreck-It Ralph that very cleverly has a MM machine displayed in the arcade, tipping their hat to all the pinheads

Personal fave = Shinobi
Underrated = 1943, Splatterhouse

I'm going to dissent on galaga88 based on this mame exhibit -- this is an unforgivably hard game!
https://archive.org/details/arcade_galaga88

Maybe there are dipswitches to crank down the difficulty level?