Name of this late 80s arcade shmup?

[chilled]

So after spending like 5 years finding the name of an arcade platformer (Wardner) of my childhood and finding that it was ported to my favourite console (!), I am looking for a late 80s early 90s shoot them up (so, like, vertical) whose main attraction was, pardon the pun, the awesome ATTRACT MODE in which the ship evolves via the different in-game powerups which (I think) make it bigger or at least with more firing power that's for sure and you can actually MOVE THE SHIP AND SHOOT (with no enemies I think) BEFORE INSERTING ANY COIN.

I'm desperate, I've googled it dozens of times and read through 80s & 90s arcade shooters lists with no luck. Can anyone help? I don't think it's an obscure game as it was in an arcade machine at a regular bar (not even an arcade saloon) in a mid-sized city in Spain around those years...

Thanks in advance!

[QuickSciFi]

The most well-versed individual in shmups here is Kollision. I'd try hitting him up. He is the Shmup King.

[cleeg]

I have no idea; I got excited for the OP just then because I saw the new post. I hope the answer comes!

[Bloodreign]

Didn't the ship evolve in Darwin 4081 in arcades and later on on the Mega Drive?

[NeoZeedeater]

Slap Fight? It's probably a bit too old, though.

[Kollision]

I've never seen an attract mode behaving like that.

Could it be Super Real Darwin or Bermuda Triangle?

[QuickSciFi]

^I was thinking Super Real Darwin too.

[Kollision]

It does seem to be Super Real Darwin, JPN version

According to this page:

"Bug? feature? : Under the attract mode the ship can me moved by the player as long that screen persists. It can fire both shots. Only in the Japanese version of the game."

[EyeDeeNo76]

Some visual aids.

[chilled]

oh that seems to be it, awesome! thanks!

I remember distinctly that this interactive mode was during a black background, which is the case of Super Real Darwin. Then the game switches to normal demo mode in which you cannot control anything anymore.

I remember very distinctly that you DIDN'T need any coin to move & shoot during those seconds. It was not that someone forgot a coin inside or something, it was everytime.

I like to think it was a feature, not a bug. How a japanese cabinet ended in some lousy bar in central Spain is beyond me.

So this is the sequel to the arcade/md game Darwin 4081.

I remembered the graphics way more impressive though, just like with Wardner (same bar, btw, ahh those times).

EDIT: it seems it's not a sequel to the MD/arcade game, it's a little more complicated:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRD:_Super_Real_Darwin

So, are there other games with interactive attract mode?

[chilled]

mmm after testing 2 roms of the game I can say that it is indeed the japanese one which has that bug/feature. it doesn't work with the World variant.

Either way I remember the sequence to be longer, with more types of fire power, but heh, maybe it's my deforming nostalgia.

[Barone]

Maybe it was a bootleg of JP SRD, with some extras.