Updated 2011-08-04 with No-miss Omake! YouTube video (scroll down)
My love for CAVE and all of their excellent shooting games was originally brought on by Ketsui, but that wasn't an affordable title at the time, so instead I started to play ESPGALUDA. And more importantly, I started to play it for score and not only for survival. The latter way was how I've always played shmups, as this most of the time was how you got a high score in the shmup titles from the 80's that I grew up playing. Take Twin Cobra for instance, where your sole purpose in the game is to survive each stage without dying, as you get a stage clear bonus consisting of all the bonus icons you pick up. Of course survival is important in CAVE games as well, but unless you play daringly during each stage and keep away from using bombs your score will take a rather big hit.
I actually played ESPGALUDA...