Fighter-like Controls in Shmups?

[MommysBestGames]

Hi all, I feel like I can almost remember some games like this, and yet my brain returns nothing. I was working on some new designs for a different style shmup in which the player uses fighter-style combos of charges and stick-quarter-rolls, to attack, rather than shooting constantly. (Yes, it would be an unusual shmup.)
Can you think of any shooters like this?
Any references would be appreciated, thanks!

[Ghegs]

There's at least Cotton 2 / Cotton Boomerang.

[scrilla4rella]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cho_Aniki
http://www.pcengine.co.uk/HTML_Games/Ai-Cho_Aniki.htm

Ai Choaniki (愛・超兄貴) is the only one that comes to mind. Not the greatest game but the music sure rocks.

[dunpeal2064]

I remember there being some movement input to trigger secrets in Batsugun, though I think they might have been too simple to qualify here?

[Shepardus]

Akashicverse -Malicious Wake-

You can also trigger powerups with fighter-like inputs in Shooters Solitude (by the same dev as Warning Forever), but that game was never finished.

I remember there being some movement input to trigger secrets in Batsugun, though I think they might have been too simple to qualify here?

You only have to hold a certain direction at a certain time to trigger those.

[Zaarock]

In G-Darius special moves for captured midbosses require fighting game inputs. Akashicverse has this as the most central mechanic?
Not charges but XII Stag and Psyvariar have mechanics around back and forth movement. I swear I'm forgetting at least one game here.

Senko no Ronde series while not a shmup has special moves tied to simple fighting game inputs like back and forth and half circle (initial direction doesn't matter).

[Mero]

Ninja Commando

[TransatlanticFoe]

Zangief players rejoice at all the circular motions you'll be doing in Triggerheart Exelica if you turn auto-rotate off.

I've read Skull Fang has special moves you pull off, fighting game style.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Tyrian 2000 does this: http://members.iinet.net.au/~vannevar/t ... rtwid.html

A couple of moves can be triggered unintentionally though. If you were going to implement this, I might suggest a separate button being used specifically for special inputs.

[Koa Zo]

Twin Eagle II was the first that I encountered with such controls. There are other moves not pictured on that flyer as well. (iirc, such as double forward tap full circle that would spin the 'copter around firing 360)
Digitized graphics, digitized speech, destructible environments, and fighter-type joystick commands - this game screams mid 90s!

[MathU]

This kind of thing usually doesn't work too well unless it activates some sort of invincibility special move because the movement can send the player's avatar into danger in a much more significant way than in fighting games. It's usually something borne more out of the necessity of the arcade machine a game is running on having limited numbers of buttons. Dragon Breed, Mystic Riders, and Darius Gaiden are a few others featuring it. In modern shooters with controllers that have tons of buttons you have to do a bit more to justify this.

[MommysBestGames]

Good examples, thank you! Yes, if I did it in a shooter.. it would have to make sense why it was happening and simply put--I would be doing in a regular bullet-hell style, as like you said, you'd be crashing into things as you moved the ship around. But the design continues, now with new things to consider!

[Squire Grooktook]

This kind of thing usually doesn't work too well unless it activates some sort of invincibility special move because the movement can send the player's avatar into danger in a much more significant way than in fighting games. It's usually something borne more out of the necessity of the arcade machine a game is running on having limited numbers of buttons. Dragon Breed, Mystic Riders, and Darius Gaiden are a few others featuring it. In modern shooters with controllers that have tons of buttons you have to do a bit more to justify this.

Akashicverse just slows your movement while you do it*. Works fine for giving you 8 extra attacks.

*Also a bullet slowing field but that's related to other things and the slowing of movement works just fine.

[Shepardus]

This kind of thing usually doesn't work too well unless it activates some sort of invincibility special move because the movement can send the player's avatar into danger in a much more significant way than in fighting games. It's usually something borne more out of the necessity of the arcade machine a game is running on having limited numbers of buttons. Dragon Breed, Mystic Riders, and Darius Gaiden are a few others featuring it. In modern shooters with controllers that have tons of buttons you have to do a bit more to justify this.

Akashicverse just slows your movement while you do it*. Works fine for giving you 8 extra attacks.

*Also a bullet slowing field but that's related to other things and the slowing of movement works just fine.

Most (all?) of the special attacks have some sort of bullet cancelling/invincibility/other defensive property too. The bullet-slowing field helps a lot though, there were times when I would mess up an input sequence multiple times and still have enough time to get it correct before getting hit. I found the inputs in that game hard on my hands (and with the sound of my keyboard, probably hard on my roommates' ears too) and quite frustrating, though I also dislike fighting game inputs in general so if you enjoy fighting games then you might not mind as much. It's not my biggest gripe with the game anyway. (The shield system is)

A couple of moves can be triggered unintentionally though. If you were going to implement this, I might suggest a separate button being used specifically for special inputs.

IIRC that's what Akashicverse does.

[EmperorIng]

Inexplicably, Skull Fang by Data East does this, though the game is so terrible and the moves are so pointless (a special move that orients your ship at 90 degrees for a brief time...) that you would be hard pressed to even bother*.

*those last five words describe Skull Fang pretty well.

[MathU]

Armed Police Batrider and Battle Bakraid both feature this for controlling option formations for the Garegga-style ships without the third button. It can be quite frustrating to accidentally change your formation by accident at a bad time. In Bakraid you also toggle chaining system information and enemy destruction point value displays with fighting game-like motions.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Twin Eagle II was the first that I encountered with such controls. There are other moves not pictured on that flyer as well. (iirc, such as double forward tap full circle that would spin the 'copter around firing 360)
Digitized graphics, digitized speech, destructible environments, and fighter-type joystick commands - this game screams mid 90s!

The English instruction strip of Seta's Twin Eagle II had a few fighting control inputs listed to perform the cool attacks and whatnot. I recall that Twin Eagle II was set up on a Dynamo upright cab back in 1994-1995 at the local Camelot Park arcade amusement joint (is now known as Boomers these days) back in the day. Not mention that all the games set up within Camelot Park took tokens rather than quarters as the "gold standard" to credit 'em up. Cool to learn that Twin Eagle II runs on the slick SSV (Sammy, Seta & Visco) arcade motherboard platform indeed. Awesome arcade shmup title to play on the SSV platform on a candy cab any ol' day.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~