Vertical scrollers that turn into horizontal scrollers?

[the_last_shmupper]

How does everyone feel about the blending of the two? A good reference would be to Life Force where a side scroller turns into a vertical scroller. With anything that's top down or overhead, the player can always be rotated or turned with minimal effort.

What would everyone feel about games that turn the ship so its facing from going north to heading, east, west or even north east? Is it a welcome change or a situation where it throws you off?

I've seen vertical scrollers that end up scrolling sideways, while maintaining the north facing direction, so the ship is flying to the side instead of forward. Do you enjoy that sort of challenge? Screen panning west and east, but you can only shoot north?

If you like the mix of vertical and horizontal, do you prefer vertical and side scrolling? It something that definitely feels like its meant for a landscape style and not a portrait style of shmup.

Let me go a step further that I feel might "break the genre," what about flying south instead of north exclusively? While I'm not seriously considering this, its only a passing thought. Such as you've blown up a boss and now its time to turn tail and head out the way you came, rather than flying north for a big escape.

Thank you all for your answers, opinions and as always indulging in my questions.

[JBC]

I believe you fly south in the vertical sections of Abadox & it works quite well.

On the reverse, Legendary Wings is primarily vertical & switches to horizontal for special segments.

I'm not really a huge fan of switching orientation, but it doesn't really bother me either. As long as the quality remains consistent & it feels like I'm playing the same game.

I seem to recall one which seemed to be programmed by two separate teams who weren't in communication, but I can't remember the name. Different power ups & lead ship design, all that. It was terrible.

[Shepardus]

Guwange does a lot of horizontal scrolling for a vertical shooter. The fourth stage of Progear scrolls vertically and most of the enemies come from above despite the player still remaining horizontally-oriented. In both cases the player is able to deal with targets coming from unusual directions, in Guwange because of the familiar system that allows you to target anywhere on the screen, and in Progear because of the lock-on system. Without these the levels would feel terrible.

I believe Astebreed transitions between vertical and horizontal gameplay, but I don't know how well it does it since I haven't played it. It looks pretty cool though. G-Darius has at least one section where you're facing towards the top-right of the screen, though it's pretty short and there aren't a whole lot of enemies in that part. It creates a nice cinematic effect but doesn't affect actual gameplay all that much, which is what I think most orientation changes like those in Salamander/Life Force and Astebreed boil down to - they don't add much to the gameplay mechanics, but can help create a cool presentation. I'm not sure about flying south instead of north - it could look cool, but it's likely to be disorienting, which I dislike (I prefer to feel like I have perfect control at all times), and I can't think of any new gameplay opportunities from doing so. Some games do have backgrounds scrolling backwards while retaining the same gameplay orientation, though, like stage 5 of Ketsui and stage 2 of Recca, and those are great.

[JBC]

Oh right, Steel Empire has a neat section where it reverses direction as well.

[Strikers1945guy]

Doesn't the original Salamander do this? I never liked the vertical levels it had though... felt super sluggish to me.

[the_last_shmupper]

Doesn't the original Salamander do this? I never liked the vertical levels it had though... felt super sluggish to me.

Agreed. Even without 2 players.

[Doctor Butler]

Astebreed actually switches between hori, vertical, and psuedo-railshooter, with lock-on and homing shots.

[mamboFoxtrot]

I believe Astebreed transitions between vertical and horizontal gameplay, but I don't know how well it does it since I haven't played it.

Yeah, there's vertical, horizontal, and sometimes from-behind perspectives. Vertical and Horizontal control feel the same, so it just visual variety. Works great. Slightly off-topic, but the behind perspective wasn't handled as well. It fixes your shooting angle towards the center, which is useless against multiple enemies. Dodging shots that come at you is also a lot different (and generally easier) than the 2D perspective. So, those brief sections usually just devolve the game to "move in circles, spam lock-on".

[emphatic]

Terra Force for life.

[NRS]

Philosoma on the Playstation has pretty much all views covered.

Also, Axelay.

[Jeneki]

Vanguard has right, up, and down scrolling sections. Or diagonals if you can find an arcade version. Pretty neat as you follow a map through the game.

[soupbones]

Thunderforce 2 goes from side scrolling to free roaming overhead levels, Time Pilot style.

While I love me some Thuderforce 3 and 4, I do miss the overhead levels from 2: especially that epic last level boss stage. The stage design could be unfair at times, but I think the idea was great.

[LordHypnos]

Presentationally, I'm a pretty big fan of scrolling that goes all over the place. circling, side to side, up and down, into and out of the screen. A lot of times it won't really affect gameplay (e.g. Giga Wing 2, Omega Fighter) because the ship stays oriented the same way. Omega Fighter is probably worth mentioning just because the entire game takes place around a single space ship that you are gradually destroying (you take out its wings, for example). you end up scrolling in multiple directions as a result. It's kind of a cool bit of presentation.

A few interesting examples to consider are Zero Gunner 2 (also an awesome game than you should probably check out anyway), not so much because the scrolling has much affect on gameplay, but because in addition to having non-traditional scrolling it is also an arena shooter (you can rotate your ship to fire in any direction).

Ray Force / Layer Section / Galactic Attack / Gunlock: In this case there is a background and a foreground plane that are only accessible by one of your two weapons (lock on for background, shot for foreground), so if you move into the screen you might end up on the same plane as enemies that were previously on the lower plane. Also Rayforce has the prettiest graphics of any shmup, not that that affects gameplay at all. You do always face the same direction though AFAIK.

Eschatos: You never move to side scrolling, but the perspective changes a lot in a way that mildly affects gameplay. occasionally you'll be dodging bullets moving into the screen at you at something like a 3/4 perspective (Note that Under Defeat does this to a milder degree for the entire duration of the game. Also occasionally scrolls right and left, though the ship moves the same way, but you can rotate it slightly).

I'm sure I'm forgetting some examples. I think Super Aleste has a memorable stage that gradually descends toward earth, but I don't know whether or not it has mechanical effects. I don't mind the alternating vertical / horizontal scrolling in Salamander, at all, FWIW. Just some stuff to consider.

[tizerist]

I don't like the changing of directions. I prefer that the game remain consistent in that regard. Gameplay tends to change a bit too much when that happens, and not in a good way.