Ray’z Arcade Chronology

Many are likely to agree that RayForce - aka Layer Section, Gunlock, and the lame Galactic Attack; is this a record for alternate titles? - is still the best of the trilogy, even just by virtue of its superb 2D pixel art graphics, which also make great use of parallax and scaling effects, looking in some ways more three-dimensional than many 2.5D games.

The scoring system and boss patterns present choices that are at odds with one another: the lock-on system rewards you better for delaying your kills to get as many locks as possible and in the correct order, and the bosses all have individually destructible parts, but faster kills make the game easier most of the time (and are often necessary to get the good ending in Raycrisis).

The Rayforce series is a state of the art for its time both artistically and gameplay-wise, and does a lot of things better than shmups do today.

EDIT: I have a Sega Saturn controller and I like playing the game with the binds from the Saturn version, as god intended.

There is a level of "show, don't tell" storytelling in the first game that you never get to see in most action games, and all three of the games have absolutely astounding music and level design.