So my dad got a little nostalgic and asked me about a game he use to play back in 89-2000s (yeah, not helping, I know...). Now, I don't have a clue as to what game it is since his description is kinda... all over the place, but here's what I got so far. Maybe someone can somehow identify the game (or games since he thinks he could be mixing up more than one):

.It is not first person.
.You shoot people with the space bar.
.You can switch weapons with keyboard (most likely number keys)
.Each level has a boss at the end, like a giant floating "fish like creature".
.You have health pickups.
.It's around 19 levels long.
.It wasn't too hard.

The only games I could think of were: Doom, Duke Nukem 3D and Quake, but then he said no FPS. So I said Duke Nukem I and II... but he claims it is not those games. I thought maybe it was something on the NES we had at the times, but he claims it was on the PC. I even thought of Metal Mutant, but also, no. I asked about the chance of the game being a shmup, he claims "it could be" since he doesn't remember if you control a guy or a small ship...

So, does anyone have a clue of what game/s is my dad "remembering"? I'm seriously lost here xD

Xenon 2 Megablast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_7lqoz0GoQ

Ask your father again about game details, if it's not first person perspective then what is it, are there any games similar to it, what he meant when he said you can shoot *people*, how do they look like, et cetera et cetera.
89-2000s - was it DOS, Windows or something else.

It wasn't Xenon 2.

He doesn't remember if it was sidescroller, or vertical scrolling. Neither similar games to it, nor the OS. I am following a hunch and saying it was either DOS or Windows 95, since he wasn't using the PC that much after those two.

I will add more data if he remembers anything else (two days ago it was a "shooter", following day it was not an FPS and today it became what I posted on the first post. This is a true detective's work haha

Any chance one of these logos might ring a bell?

Honestly, the "Fish like creature" makes me think Darius.

When he means "people", is he referring to any type of enemy or specifically humans/humanoids?

I suspect it is a side-scrolling shoot 'em up which were quite popular in the 90s. Unfortunately, there are so many of them made during that era that is difficult to pin it on down to one game without knowing the specifics.

Not FPS... that kinda leaves third person shooters, platformers and side scrolling shooters. What about something like Tyrian? I seem to remember some of the bosses being aquatic-like.

Ok. An improvement haha. He claims is "pretty similar" to the Darius video, but we had no emulators or anything at the time so it has to be a DOS or Windows native game.

When he says "people" he means "enemy thing that moves".

As for the Tyrian feedback, it's vertical scrolling and not sidescrolling like he claims it is after watching Darius, He claims he was going "from left to right" and at the end there was a huge monster moving up and down, shooting stuff.

Also, he says it wasn't dark (meaning the background) as if it was day and not night/space.

Like Darvond wrote, it might be one of the Darius games. Darius Gaiden was released in 1998 for Win9x.

https://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/darius-gaiden/screenshots/gameShotId,19156/

Yes, that's also my definition of people.

Ok. After talking with my dad some more, ONE of the games, was Raptor: Call of the Shadows. So yeah, it was more than one and he was mixing them up...

The other game was ALSO a vertical shooter (so long, sidescrolling), but at the end of the level there was a huge monster-like enemy instead of just ships. But no, it wasn't Tyrian. And it's also not any version of Darius.

But a friend also drops by every now and then on the screen. And if you shoot him it's game over :P.

One of the Raiden series games maybe? Some had DOS ports/releases.

Stargunner is similar, including an episode taking place underwater. There are bosses aftear each episode.

https://youtu.be/AGmzLfJrC3E?t=9385

Welp... my dad doesn't remember anything else about the game. I guess this quest will remain open for the time being. But at least he's getting to play one of the two games he mixed up haha.

Thank you everyone :)

My only suggestion would be to also take a look at this list:
https://www.mobygames.com/browse/games/dos/arcade_/action/top-down/

It may seem a bit extense but you can reduce a lot of the titles by year search. It'll probably take some time but at least you'll also learn a bit more about PC gaming history.

Raiden?
Gyruss?
1941? 1942?
Galaga?
Millipede?