Dragon Spirit (TurboGrafx-16 / PC Engine)

Long before series like Panzer Dragoon had us flying around on dragons fighting evil, there were games like Dragon Spirit challenging us with this.  It's a solid little shmup with decent controls, and cool power-ups.  As opposed to the traditional combination of regular attacks and super bombs found in other games in the genre, here you had air attacks and ground attacks, and had to make good use of both in order to succeed.  Boss fights were pretty tough, as was the game as a whole because once you ran out of lives it was game over with no continues.

Side Arms: Hyper Dyne (TurboGrafx-16 / PC Engine)

One day as a kid on a shopping trip to the local mall with my family, I wandered into the arcade there to see what games they had, and there was one that really stood out to me: Side Arms.  This was when Robotech was being aired in the West, and I was absolutely hooked on giant robots and Veritech Fighters, so, seeing a game where you could play as a plane that turned into a robot just blew my mind.  The game also had really cool power-ups, and it was possible to combine your robot with another to become a super robot.  Amazing!  So, when I found out the game was coming to the TG-16, I ran out and got it.  A tough shoot 'em up, and probably nowhere near as good as a lot of other entries in the genre, but I loved the game. =)