Help Me Out Here-Why're Rail Shooters Not Considered Shmups?

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StudioMudprints
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Re: Help Me Out Here-Why're Rail Shooters Not Considered Shm

Post by StudioMudprints »

Contradictory or not, they're still close enough and still "shooters" at thier cores. As you were.
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BareKnuckleRoo
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Re: Help Me Out Here-Why're Rail Shooters Not Considered Shm

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

StudioMudprints wrote:they're still close enough
Vagueness in definition of terminology is not a virtue. Furthermore the word "shooters" is a vague term that's been used by the mainstream to refer unhelpfully to a wide variety of genres. Terminology that's more precise is ideal, such as "first person shooter", "third person shooter", "6DOF first person shooter", "run n' gun platformer", "2d shmup", and so on.

Just because games have some related similarities doesn't mean they're literally indistinguishable genres from one another. Super Mario Brothers and Mega Man are not the same as Gradius just because all three have some form of shooting as an offensive mechanic.
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Sumez
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Re: Help Me Out Here-Why're Rail Shooters Not Considered Shm

Post by Sumez »

Koa Zo wrote:There is no reasonable context anywhere on this planet where a run'n'gun is a shoot'em-up.
There are still reasonable contexts where you might want to include both genres under the same umbrella though.
Obviously a "top 25 shmups of all time" isn't one.
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MathU
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Re: Help Me Out Here-Why're Rail Shooters Not Considered Shm

Post by MathU »

BareKnuckleRoo wrote:Vagueness in definition of terminology is not a virtue.
Agreed. Now let's stop calling Star Fox a rail shooter and reserve that term for games where it actually describes what's happening.
Of course, that's just an opinion.
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Koa Zo
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Re: Help Me Out Here-Why're Rail Shooters Not Considered Shm

Post by Koa Zo »

Sumez wrote:
Koa Zo wrote:There is no reasonable context anywhere on this planet where a run'n'gun is a shoot'em-up.
There are still reasonable contexts where you might want to include both genres under the same umbrella though.
Certainly true. But that's not the subject of this thread.
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BareKnuckleRoo
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Re: Help Me Out Here-Why're Rail Shooters Not Considered Shm

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

MathU wrote:Agreed. Now let's stop calling Star Fox a rail shooter and reserve that term for games where it actually describes what's happening.
It's just the term that seems to have stuck for the genre. As I've said previously, I don't think it matters a whole lot what exactly we call it, as long as it's recognized as distinct from a 2D shmup. If the term rail shooter is seen as inaccurate people could just start calling them 3D shmups or something, wouldn't be a big deal and that would still keep it distinct as a genre in terms of categorization from 2D shmups.
StudioMudprints
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Re: Help Me Out Here-Why're Rail Shooters Not Considered Shm

Post by StudioMudprints »

BareKnuckleRoo wrote:If the term rail shooter is seen as inaccurate people could just start calling them 3D shmups or something, wouldn't be a big deal and that would still keep it distinct as a genre in terms of categorization from 2D shmups.
A lot of Japanese shooting games have made this distinction in particular. "Rail" might be an easier thing to say in the west but in Japan, shoot-em-ups are called "Shooting Game," while games like a Star Fox, a Rainbow Cotton or a Night Striker are "3D Shooting Game." A lot of run-n-gunners are "Action Shooting." The Saturn and Dreamcast were pretty good for these descriptors, though the Megadrive was more general.

I'm on board with making "3D Shmup" or "3D Shooting Game" a more established moniker.
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Despatche
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Re: Help Me Out Here-Why're Rail Shooters Not Considered Shm

Post by Despatche »

Ah, one of these threads.
BareKnuckleRoo wrote:whereas 2D shmups do not have inertia.
Yes, they do.
BareKnuckleRoo wrote:Inertia is a very bad property in a shmup
No, it isn't.
BareKnuckleRoo wrote:They're related genres. Sister genres if you will. But they feel sufficiently different nevertheless. It's kind of like arcade style racers vs realistic racers. They're somewhat related as they're both racing, but really they're radically different in feel enough that they're considered very different mechanically.
The line is actually very thin. Many older racing games aimed for the greatest amount of realism they could, whether they were completely realistic or not. There are a lot of weird borderline games that basically cannot be categorized like this, such as TrackMania.
Sumez wrote:I think it goes without saying that a game like Starfox is massively different from a game like Gradius no matter how you look at it. That doesn't mean you're not allowed to like Starfox, or call it whatever you wish to call it.
There literally exist games like Solvalou and Solar Assault specifically to claim otherwise on this exact point.
SuperDeadite wrote:When I want to play a rail-shooter, I would never say "Let's play a shmup." When I want to play a shmup, I would never say "Let's play a rail-shooter." Therefore different genres. If your friend says, "Hey lets play something like Starfox, "would you put on R-type? Cause that would make you a shitty friend.
That's because you spent years being told and telling yourself that these are actually different things. People only know what they're told.
BareKnuckleRoo wrote:And to add to that, one of the single most popular threads on the forum is the Run 'n Gun thread in the off-topic section. It's certainly not that rail guns or run 'n guns aren't enjoyed or respected. They're just sufficiently different from shmups that they're not quite the same genre.
This is literally the result of years of begging people to avoid Contra or Metal Slug discussion when someone wanted to talk about Gradius. That is all this has ever been.
Koa Zo wrote:There is no reasonable context anywhere on this planet where a run'n'gun is a shoot'em-up.
Can I just write this off as propaganda? I mean fuck, you could put this exact line on some scary propaganda flyer.

The definition of "shmup" is partially nonsense. There is no actual reason for the inclusion or exclusion of any specific game type, except maybe FPSes because they just represent something so fundamentally different. Really, any "shooting game" that has "arcade origins" (whether it's actually an arcade game or whether it's made like one) should be treated with the exact same level of respect around here. FPSes would stop being so fundamentally different real fast if any of them had a scoring system.

You know what would be even better? Fuck "shmup" and just be a proper arcade-general forum, something better than Arcade Otaku or whatever. The forums would probably die if this ever happened of course, because this community runs on a weird feedback loop that could break at any time.

I am not even going to say "this is 2020", because this is something we should have put aside way the hell back in 2005. Well, here we are. "Shmups purity", man.

By the way, Solar Assault score threads go in the normal Hi Scores subforum. Just so you know! Man, we need more than just an STG Hall of Records, we need the whole damned JHA thing categorized. This hobby deserves better.
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copy-paster
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Re: Help Me Out Here-Why're Rail Shooters Not Considered Shm

Post by copy-paster »

I made Night Striker scoreboard in Hi-score subforum and no one loses their shit so far. No one create Solar Assault scoreboard because either there is no port exist, very rare PCB, or this thing is bugged as hell in MAME.
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Rastan78
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Re: Help Me Out Here-Why're Rail Shooters Not Considered Shm

Post by Rastan78 »

Despatche wrote:You know what would be even better? Fuck "shmup" and just be a proper arcade-general forum, something better than Arcade Otaku or whatever. The forums would probably die if this ever happened of course, because this community runs on a weird feedback loop that could break at any time.
Yeah, I've often wished there was a place like this where people talked strategies and posted scores and replays for all types of arcade games. Maybe there could be a section other than OT thats arcade specific for non shmups.

When you think about a lot of the best shmup players like iconoclast or ben shinobi they play multiple genres. Whether action platformers, beat em ups, etc. How many serious arcade heads are really only interested in shmups 100 percent?

One thing that all arcade games have in common is that it's pretty much impossible to learn everything about them all on your own.
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AZA
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Re: Help Me Out Here-Why're Rail Shooters Not Considered Shm

Post by AZA »

I dont get why some stubborn people insist rail shooters and scrolling shooters are the same genre. You shoot stuff in both panzer dragoon and Super Star Soldier but thats about all they have in common.
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