Turbografx!

[A Black Falcon]

For the Genesis, you need two things, an internal mod for games that are region locked and a way to get other region carts in.  For the latter, well, some 32Xes allow you to put Japanese carts in them without any modification.  Apparently it's only some 32Xes and not all of them, but I am fortunate enough to have one of those, so this isn't an issue for me; I just use my 32X.  For the former there are multiple solutions, but I ended up buying a region modded non-TMSS Genesis 1 with a switch on it for US NTSC, JP NTSC, or PAL.

Oh, and somehow or another a copy of that 3 in 1 game ended up on a ridiculously cheap sale here in the US, cheaper than Gate of Thunder by itself, so now I own Gate of Thunder (as well as CD versions of the first two Bonks and Bomberman via some cheat code, but I'll stick with the Hucard versions of those three).  What's nice is it seems this pack-in comes with full manuals for all three (alright, not Bomberman so I don't get that hilariously ugly box art), so it's currently sitting on my shelf with Gate of Thunder's manual slipped in the case.  Yes ABF, I finally have a "shmup", and wow is this a good one!  I'd never played a game where I'm a valkyrie fighting robots to a metal soundtrack, but this is certainly that thing I said.

The TG16/PCE has over a hundred shmups.  It is the best classic console for shmups in both quality and volume... and yeah, Gate of Thunder is one of the better ones.  I do find the very narrow areas that make up most of the game somewhat claustrophobic in a way, but otherwise it's amazing.