Non-Traditional Enemy Collisions: the Definitive List

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Non traditional enemy collisions

Hell Yeah!
11
34%
Hell Naw!
4
13%
Meh, can take them or leave them
17
53%
 
Total votes: 32

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LordHypnos
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Non-Traditional Enemy Collisions: the Definitive List

Post by LordHypnos »

The traditional thing to happen in shmups when your ship touches an enemy (or obstacle/scenery) is that you asplode and lose a life / your shield is damaged / autobomb, basically you are damaged. There are quite a few games that eschew this convention. Quite a while ago I was part of a conversation in another thread about this, and I compiled a list of the ones that we could think of. However, I kind of think this topic deserves its own thread to get more people involved and come up with a better list, because what is shmups forum better at than coming up with lists of shmup related things? I can continue to edit the first post if there are any games or trivial details that are missing, or if any of my info is bad.

...ANYWAY, Non-traditional enemy collisions: love them or hate them, lets list them and / or discuss them!

The list so far, broken up into categories and with notes on some games:

Category I: "fly over" collisions
This is to say that you pretty much have no interaction with the enemy except for your shots and theirs. You can freely overlap with them with no consequence
  • Aero Chimera (Sasupoika, ?, PC)
    Akai Katana (CAVE, 2010, AC)
    • Like its spiritual predecessor, Progear, this game has a vert-like air/ground distinction.
    Chaos Field (Milestone, 2004, AC)
    Demonizer (IoriBranford, 2020, PC)
    Giga Wing 2 (Takumi, 2000, AC)
    Giga Wing Generations (Takumi, 2004, AC)
    Goldrunner (Microdeal, 1987, Atari ST)
    • Also on C64, Amiga, and GBA. Apparently you damage the enemies when touching them. Note that there is still scenery that can kill you
    Great Fairy Wars (Team Shanghai Alice, 2010, PC)
    • bosses still can harm you
      Imperishable Night, and Possibly other Touhou games have some enemies that harm and some that don't
    Guardian Force (Success, 1998, AC)
    Hellsinker (Ruminant's Whimper, 2005, PC)
    • also an example of bounce-away collisions, but only on larger enemies
    Illvelo (Milestone, 2008, AC)
    Karous (Milestone, 2006, AC)
    Magical Shooter Puti'nPlin (Team Dangeroude, 1997, Sharp X68000)
    • Getting up close and personal with enemies will damage them with your magic wand.
    Mars Matrix (Takumi, 2000, AC)
    • incedentally, you'd think that there would be little to no interaction with scenery with this game, but there are actually several places where the scenery will block your shot or your opponents bullets, or will let you reflect bullets off of it for gold. Can actually be moderately significant for chaining. Of course you can always reflect bullets off of the enemies.
    Night Raid (Takumi, 2000, AC)
    Noiz2sa (ABA Games, 2002, PC)
    Parsec 47 (ABA Games, 2003, PC)
    Progear no Arashi (CAVE, 2001, AC)
    • Has the ground/aerial distinction that most vertical games have, but it's a hori. Interestingly, touching ground enemies seals their bullets, but also raises rank. Thunder Force IV also has something like this with background enemies on the one stage that has a "beltscroller" type perspective, Daser. But nowhere else
    Radirgy (Milestone, 2005, AC)
    • but not Radirgy Noa!
    Rolling Gunner (Mebius?, 2021, Switch)
    • Like Progear this has a vert-like air/ground distinction
    rRootage (ABA Games, 2003, AC)
    Sengoku Ace (Psikyo, 1993, AC)
    • Small enemies still harm you
    Tiger Heli (Toaplan, 1985, AC)
    • There are only ground based enemies, so no enemies harm you
    Titanion (ABA games, 2006, PC)
    • Gives you a choice of standard enemy collisions, bounce away, or fly over
    Tumiki Fighters (ABA Games, 2004, PC)
    Twin Hawk / Daisenpuu (Toaplan, 1989, AC)
    • Same deal as Tiger Heli, above
    Category II: Bounce away collisions
    You bounce away from enemies. This can actually be just as disruptive or occasionally even moreso if you're not expecting it as traditional enemy collisions. I think Vasara was the first game to do this, so I think of it as "Vasara style collisions" Just kidding, Vasara was not the first. lol.
    • Acrobat Mission (UPL, 1991, AC)
      • Probably the first example of this. Also includes blaster-burn, not that that's related to this list
      Aurorablast (Neo Transylvania, 2010, PC)
      Aurorablast 2 (Neo Transylvania, 2012, PC)
      Aurorablast 3 (Neo Transylvania, 2014, PC)
      • Unconfirmed
      Armed Police Unit Gallop (Irem, 1991, AC)
      • You will bounce away from walls, and lose your special weapon, but not actually die, but otherwise collisions kill you
      Akshicverse (Endless-Shirafu, 2012, PC)
      Border Down (G.Rev, 2003, AC)
      • walls do this. continue to grind and you will die.
      Darius (Taito, 1986, AC)
      • With hypershield, terrain will bounce you away instead of killing
      Fast Striker (NG.DEV.TEAM, 2010, Neo Geo)
      • Most of the scenery will just bounce you away from it, you can usually tell which scenery is going to harm you. IIRC you will lose all your shields or die if you repeatedly grind against things for too long
      Gunroar (ABA games, 2005, PC)
      • both enemies and scenery
      Hellsinker (Ruminant's Whimper, 2005, PC)
      • on large enemies
      Ironclad (Tonk, 1996, Neo Geo CD)
      • Enemies have no qualms about point blanking you, though, so watch out, anyway
      P-47 Aces (NMK, 1995, AC)
      • Actually gives you points for bumping into enemies
      Seisou Kouki Strania (G.Rev, 2009, AC)
      • if you repeatedly grind against the enemies you will die
      Super Spy Hunter (Sunsoft, 1991, NES)
      • Walls bounce you away but still deal damage. I don't know if this applies to the original Spy Hunter arcade game by Bally Midway
      Titanion (ABA games, 2006, PC)
      • Gives you a choice of standard enemy collisions, bounce away, or fly over
      Triggerheart Exelica (Warashi, 2006, AC)
      Tyrian 2000 (Epic Mega Games, 1995, PC)
      • You can still get crushed, though
      Vasara (Visco, 2000, AC)
      Vasara 2 (Visco, 2001, AC)
      Zero Gunner 2 (Psikyo, 2001, AC)
      • You can actually kill the popcorns just by bumping into them. Good way to collect their power.
    Category III: Games where colliding with enemies and/or terrain still punishes you, but not as much
    I think pretty much every pre-Zero Gunner 2 Psikyo game is like this. Specifically you get powered down but not killed. Will not add a note to clarify this for Psikyo entries.
    • Deathsmiles (CAVE, 2007, AC)
      • half damage normally, and nothing when in powerup mode.
      Dragon Blaze (Psikyo, 2000, AC)
      Fast Striker (NG.DEV, 2010, Neo Geo / Dreamcast)
      • For enemies and harmful scenery you lose all of your shields or die if you have no shields left.
      Gunbird (Psikyo, 1994, AC)
      • The enemies actually knock the powerup out of you, so you can pick it back up right away
      Gunbird 2 (Psikyo, 1998, AC)
      Sengoku Blade (Psikyo, 1996, AC)
      SideLine (EMAG, 199X, PC)
      • In this case the unusual thing is that bombs and shields still protect you against terrain damage.
      Sky Kid (Namco, 1985, Arcade)
      • Getting hit (by anything) will send you crashing downward but you can mash out of it.
      Strikers 1945 (Psikyo, 1995, AC)
      Strikers 1945 II (Psikyo, 1997, AC)
      Strikers 1999 (Psikyo, 1999, AC)
      Twinkle Star Sprites (ADK, 1996, AC)
      • bumping into an enemy stuns you, but deals less damage than direct hits from your opponents. Also it can't actually kill you like enemy attacks.
    Category IV: Walls or other scenery that cannot be passed through, but won't actually kill you on contact
    Usually still has normal enemy collisions and sometimes other hazards. Usually will block player and enemy bullets too, I think. Death by screen crushing seems to still be a possibility in most of these.
    • Battle Mania: Daiginjo (Vic Tokai, 1993, Mega Drive)
      Deathsmiles (CAVE, 2007, AC)
      • Note that if you would get crushed by obstacles, you will instead slide out without taking any damage
      Gun Hohki (Irem, 1992, AC)
      Guwange (CAVE, 1999, AC)
      • Like Deathsmiles, you will slide out instead of getting crushed
      Final Mission (Natsume, 1990, NES)
      • Crushing deals damage, but it won't kill you. You can move through the terrain during the resulting I-frames
      Forgotten Realms (Capcom, 1988, AC)
      Harmful Park (Sky Think Systems, 1997, Playstation)
      Jackal (Konami, 1988, NES)
      • Enemy infantry can be killed by running over them. More dangerous enemies will kill you, though. This is probably also the case in the original arcade game (needs further research)
      Mr. Heli (Irem, 1987, AC)
      Prehistoric Isle (SNK, 1989, AC)
      • There are also cave men who will grab onto you and weigh down your plane without killing you, which is very unique
      R-Type Delta (Irem, 1998, Playstation)
      • Static obstacles won't kill you
      R-Type Final (Irem, 2003, Playstation 2)
      R-Type Final 2 (Granzella, 2021, PC/PS4/Switch/XB1)
      • same as Delta
      Side Arms (Capcom, 1986, AC)
      Super Star Soldier (Kaneko, 1991, PCE)
      Super SWIV (SCi Games, 1992, SNES)
      • You only need to deal with terrain as the tank, instead of being crushed by the screen you will be teleported to safety. There are also platforming sections
    Other:
    • 1941: Counter Attack (Capcom, 1990, AC)
      • Enemies damage you the same as bullets, but when you nuzzle your ship up against the wall you spin around instead of being damaged.
      Kingdom Grand Prix (Raizing, 1994, AC)
      • This is an odd one. You can bump other ships out of the way, and damage some enemies by bumping into them. Some will just die (because they only take one hit to kill), others will be moved slightly by your ship. Some are not damaged but still moved. There are quite a few different types of interactions here
Added dates, Developer, and original platform of release

Last Update: 2016.10.28 -- Added some italics, bolding, and color to improve readability. Also, I'm still keeping this list up to date, so feel free to post new examples or corrections.
EDIT 2018.02.25 -- Added Night Raid, added some info to TSS. I probably won't keep appending this post after every future edit.
EDIT 2021.04.09 -- Added Demonizer. (I guess I will keep appending this after each edit)
Last edited by LordHypnos on Tue Jun 15, 2021 5:41 pm, edited 32 times in total.
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Re: Non-Traditional Enemy Collisions: the Definitive List

Post by Perikles »

LordHypnos wrote:I think Vasara was the first game to do this, so I think of it as "Vasara style collisions"
I don't know if it's the first game to feature it, but Acrobat Mission did this way earlier. It's totally worth it to play this game a few times just for that, you can also try to singe enemies with your thrusters, it's astonishingly silly. :lol:
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Re: Non-Traditional Enemy Collisions: the Definitive List

Post by Hagane »

Sengoku Ace doesn't have power down stuns like most Psikyo games, in it only popcorn enemies kill you on collision. This enables you to "ride" and speedkill many mid-large enemies, something especially useful with Jane.

The first Gunbird stuns you whenever an enemy collides with you but, instead of the straight power down of later games you lose a power level and drop a power up item, which lets you recover your power level in some situations. Fun bit: if you get stunned with no power-ups you start losing bombs!

The Psikyo power down system is interesting because it makes it easier to get close and speedkill, which complements the company's offense oriented style very well.
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Re: Non-Traditional Enemy Collisions: the Definitive List

Post by mamboFoxtrot »

You can add P-47 Aces to the Category 2 list. You also get points for bumping in to things in that game. High-level scoreplay involves occasionally lodging yourself inside of things to get bump points every frame. I'm pretty sure STGWeekly has an episode on it.

I'd say Lords of Thunder for Category 3, but I actually can't remember right now if enemy collisions deal less damage than bullets (the game uses a health bar).


As for the topic at hand, it's a really minor factor for me, but if the developers want to make something less deadly than usual my scrub-ass sure isn't going to complain too hard. But really, I don't die to enemy collisions very often anyways.
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Re: Non-Traditional Enemy Collisions: the Definitive List

Post by LordHypnos »

See, this is why I made this thread. Already have a bunch more entries! Will update soon, but not really time to now.

@Hagane: I totally agree about Psikyo's enemy collision system complementing the aggressive play. I always thought this made a lot of sense.
@mamboFoxtrot: There was a while where I was getting really salty about running into enemies, because I had mostly played Gunbird 2 and Mars Matrix at that point, but these days it doesn't bother me much. I just think it's an interesting topic, and I do have a slight preference for it, though I don't think that it would be good in every type of game.
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Re: Non-Traditional Enemy Collisions: the Definitive List

Post by BIL »

One of my favourite things about this genre is its encouraging of universal standards (sharp controls, tight focus, substantial challenge) while leaving the specifics open. Allows a good variety of styles and subtypes, united by a certain no-nonsense arcade ethic. So I'm totally ok with these sorts of variations in theory.

The only Type 1s I've spent much time with (Mars Matrix, Radirgy) tend to fill the collision-free space with tons of bullets and items, and also feature short-ranged attacks, giving them particular characters. It's about appropriately using the specifics thus. Elemental Master wouldn't be nearly such rollicking fun if its terrain was deadly to touch. Image Fight's corridors wouldn't be as chillingly claustrophobic if you weren't constantly at risk of running from a sudden threat straight into a wall.
Perikles wrote:you can also try to singe enemies with your thrusters, it's astonishingly silly. :lol:
I wonder where the "booster burn" came from, I love spotting it in other games. :mrgreen: Image Fight's the earliest I've seen it, with II of course keeping the tradition... there's also Override (PCE), which really amused me as I'd already thought certain powerup and enemy features were IF-esque. Almost deserves its own topic, haha.
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Re: Non-Traditional Enemy Collisions: the Definitive List

Post by BulletMagnet »

Not sure if Twinkle Star Sprites would fit into Category 3 - in that one hitting an enemy temporarily powers and slows you down, but only inflicts a little bit of damage compared to a direct attack from your opponent. IIRC it works the same in the sequel.
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Re: Non-Traditional Enemy Collisions: the Definitive List

Post by Pixel_Outlaw »

I miss the concept of a ship running into another ship being something dangerous for the pilot.
Made sense in the 90's...

In some ways modern games feel like they have been over distilled to just dodging enemy shots instead of avoiding level dangers and actual enemies.
Some of the best shmups don't actually end in a vowel.
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Re: Non-Traditional Enemy Collisions: the Definitive List

Post by LordHypnos »

BIL wrote:The only Type 1s I've spent much time with (Mars Matrix, Radirgy) tend to fill the collision-free space with tons of bullets and items, and also feature short-ranged attacks, giving them particular characters. It's about appropriately using the specifics thus. Elemental Master wouldn't be nearly such rollicking fun if its terrain was deadly to touch. Image Fight's corridors wouldn't be as chillingly claustrophobic if you weren't constantly at risk of running from a sudden threat straight into a wall.
Interesting observation. Probably not a coincedence, either. Having a melee attack and not punishing contact with enemies does a lot to encourage an aggressive playstyle from your player. Certainly you can still encourage it with traditional enemy collisions, but then it's a bit more about being very precise with positioning so that you're all up in your opponent's grill, but not quite nuzzling up against them. This seems to be the idea with Ketsui scoring.
Pixel_Outlaw wrote: In some ways modern games feel like they have been over distilled to just dodging enemy shots instead of avoiding level dangers and actual enemies.
There's a lot of truth to this. Even when bumping into airborn enemies still kills you, it doesn't typically play a huge role in the challenges of your standard modern danmaku game. The exception would probably be something like Ketsui where you're encouraged to get close by scoring, but it's also risky to get close.

Not that I'm any kind of expert on Ketsui (I've maybe played like 3 or 4 credits total)

Also, updated.
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Re: Non-Traditional Enemy Collisions: the Definitive List

Post by ProjectAKo »

Kingdom GP: Enemies take some damage when bumped. Rival racers are bumped out of the way.
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Re: Non-Traditional Enemy Collisions: the Definitive List

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ProjectAKo wrote:Kingdom GP: Enemies take some damage when bumped. Rival racers are bumped out of the way.
Interesting... Might have to add an "other" category for that (was bound to happen eventually). How do enemies that don't die right away react to being bumped? Can you pass through them? Do you move them some?
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Re: Non-Traditional Enemy Collisions: the Definitive List

Post by uzernaem »

When your plane hits the walls in 1941: Counter Attack, it... go see for yourself guys, that's the cutest thing ever that could happen in a WWII shmup.
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Re: Non-Traditional Enemy Collisions: the Definitive List

Post by BIL »

Yeah, I always loved that. :lol: Now there's a job for Zing Zing Zip's "Yahooo!" sample.
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Re: Non-Traditional Enemy Collisions: the Definitive List

Post by Nameschonvergeben »

The Touhou series has some pretty inconsistent collisions with enemies, even within single games. I don't know for sure about other games off the top of my head, but I know that in Imperishable Night there are enemies that kill you on contact but also a lot of those that don't interact at all on collision (so Category I).
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Re: Non-Traditional Enemy Collisions: the Definitive List

Post by ProjectAKo »

LordHypnos wrote:
ProjectAKo wrote:Kingdom GP: Enemies take some damage when bumped. Rival racers are bumped out of the way.
Interesting... Might have to add an "other" category for that (was bound to happen eventually). How do enemies that don't die right away react to being bumped? Can you pass through them? Do you move them some?
They move some. There's a few enemies that don't take bump damage but still get bumped. Some move more than others and some less when bumped into. Some planes have more bump power than others. It's all weird.
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Re: Non-Traditional Enemy Collisions: the Definitive List

Post by LordHypnos »

uzernaem wrote:When your plane hits the walls in 1941: Counter Attack, it... go see for yourself guys, that's the cutest thing ever that could happen in a WWII shmup.
:lol: That's awesome!
Perikles wrote:Acrobat Mission
Just tried that out, and it's actually a pretty fun as well as funny game. I like how they actually send a lot of zakos at you at such an angle as to encourage you to use the blasterburn :lol:
Giant bullets as well in a few places.
Nameschonvergeben wrote:The Touhou series has some pretty inconsistent collisions with enemies, even within single games. I don't know for sure about other games off the top of my head, but I know that in Imperishable Night there are enemies that kill you on contact but also a lot of those that don't interact at all on collision (so Category I).
Yeah, I'm not sure whether I should include that. Most games do do the thing where you can fly over ground based enemies, though I'm guessing there's less in the way of visual cues in IN to be able to tell visually that you can fly over some enemies. In the case of GFW, apparently (Been too long since I've played it for me to remember, as such) it's all enemies except bosses that you can fly through. Maybe I'll just make a note of it.
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Re: Non-Traditional Enemy Collisions: the Definitive List

Post by STG »

Progear has a rather unique one, when you fly over a collision-less enemy like a ground tank it not only prevents them from shooting back at you, but you actually increase the rank and the game get's harder. This only applies to the first loop, and it's mainly used on the earlier stages to squeeze out more points.
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Re: Non-Traditional Enemy Collisions: the Definitive List

Post by ELabit »

Plin X68000 you can fly over enemies which destroys them with your wand
https://youtu.be/JO8NQePH4VI
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Re: Non-Traditional Enemy Collisions: the Definitive List

Post by BIL »

STG wrote:Progear has a rather unique one, when you fly over a collision-less enemy like a ground tank it not only prevents them from shooting back at you, but you actually increase the rank and the game get's harder. This only applies to the first loop, and it's mainly used on the earlier stages to squeeze out more points.
Interesting, I remember reading about Garegga applying the same penalty for "sealing" tank bullets this way.

Regarding ground enemies, I'm a fan of that "beltscroller" perspective seen in Progear, Akai Katana and one specific stage of Thunder Force IV (Daser/desert). Can allow for some more elaborate ground enemy arrangements than the more common straight-on perspective, and also just looks satisfyingly contiguous. Effectively the sidescroller equivalent of classic topdown ground enemy "flyover," of course.

TFIV's burrower tanks are not only harmless to touch (naturally, as you're flying over them), they'll actually dive beneath the sand and visibly tunnel away to pop up elsewhere if you try sealing them. Cute and functional.
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Re: Non-Traditional Enemy Collisions: the Definitive List

Post by LordHypnos »

ELabit wrote:Plin X68000 you can fly over enemies which destroys them with your wand
https://youtu.be/JO8NQePH4VI
Clearly somebody was salty about everything switching over to Windows :P

This is interesting in that there seems to be a proximity based multiplier in effect (well according to the description text, that is). This is also a thing in Aero Chimera. In both cases encourages you not to leave any room for jesus when trying to point blank them.

@BIL & STG:
So, with the beltscroller horis thus outlined, Is it just the background enemies that you can fly over, and foreground ones harm you (sort of like the traditional ground / aerial split in verticals), or am I misunderstanding this. Also are there any other games like this anyone is aware of?

As for the rank increase, that's a cool idea. The game is being really sneaky letting you think you're getting off easy by sealing bullets when in actuality it's compensating by increasing bullet counts and/or speeds behind the scenes. Then again that also gives you more bullets to cancel into point items. Neat!
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Re: Non-Traditional Enemy Collisions: the Definitive List

Post by BIL »

In TFIV's case (been a while since I played the others), it's strictly a horizontal equivalent to the typical vert approach of letting you fly over ground targets. Daser's tanks are ground targets and can be freely passed over - everything airborne will kill you on contact, as usual.

Total tangent, but DECO's Breakthru is an entire game played from this perspective, though the ground target is you: NES longplay
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Re: Non-Traditional Enemy Collisions: the Definitive List

Post by ciox »

Nice and thorough list, don't really have much to add besides some anecdotes

Armed Police Unit Gallop / Cosmic Cop (US): you can jam yourself into terrain and destructible walls at any angle without getting hurt for as long as you want, you just bounce away and lose your special weapon, being pushed off screen by terrain or touching something obviously hazardous like a laser beam or enemy will blow you up though, also in the US version Cosmic Cop enemy missiles will bounce you away a very large distance in the first stage instead of blowing you up, like a tutorial thing

Under Defeat: while invincible you will bounce off large enemies instead of going through them, making it impossible to go through bosses, dunno if it was to prevent certain strategies or just to help beginner players not chain deaths on bosses
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Re: Non-Traditional Enemy Collisions: the Definitive List

Post by Perikles »

LordHypnos wrote:Twin Hawk / Daisenpuu (Toaplan, 1989, AC)
only true because all of the enemies are tanks (and thus ground based), but as such this is kind of the Ur example of this type of collisions
Just read this, Toaplan's own Tiger-Heli works exactly like that, but came out four years earlier. There's also a plethora of games with both ground and aerial enemies, the former of which can be harmlessly passed (Hishouzame, Same! Same! Same!, Tatsujin, Kyuukyoku Tiger, Raiden, Sand Scorpion, Vapor Trail, Task Force Harrier (EX), Zing Zing Zip, Cyber Core, Xevious, Dragon Spirit, Dragon Saber, all the TwinBee games, Dimension Force, Strike Gunner S.T.G just to name a selected few), do you want to include all of these, too? At least the MD port of Task Force Harrier EX is interesting since it alternates between stages that have both types of enemies and stages where every enemy is ground based.
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Re: Non-Traditional Enemy Collisions: the Definitive List

Post by copy-paster »

R-Type Delta is the first game in the series when obstacles doesn't hurt you, instead it creates a "sparkling" effect if you string to it.
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Re: Non-Traditional Enemy Collisions: the Definitive List

Post by STG »

LordHypnos wrote:@BIL & STG:
So, with the beltscroller horis thus outlined, Is it just the background enemies that you can fly over, and foreground ones harm you (sort of like the traditional ground / aerial split in verticals), or am I misunderstanding this. Also are there any other games like this anyone is aware of?
Generally in Progear, enemies on the ground/sea you can fly over, enemies in the air you will collide with. This goes for bosses as well. It's a pretty consistent design choice in that game.
Spoiler
I might be forgetting if there's an enemy that doesn't follow this rule...
LordHypnos wrote:As for the rank increase, that's a cool idea. The game is being really sneaky letting you think you're getting off easy by sealing bullets when in actuality it's compensating by increasing bullet counts and/or speeds behind the scenes. Then again that also gives you more bullets to cancel into point items. Neat!
Right, having the rank increase this way allows me to get the first streaming section seen here in Stage 1: https://youtu.be/3mOx8XEk29g?t=1m12s

Regardless of how well I would score (before incorporating this technique), it would not increase rank enough to get the yellow planes to shoot bullets out like that in the section above, I would only get those at the very end of the stage.
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Doctor Butler
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Re: Non-Traditional Enemy Collisions: the Definitive List

Post by Doctor Butler »

Nameschonvergeben wrote:The Touhou series has some pretty inconsistent collisions with enemies, even within single games. I don't know for sure about other games off the top of my head, but I know that in Imperishable Night there are enemies that kill you on contact but also a lot of those that don't interact at all on collision (so Category I).
I'm almost certain that in some Touhous flying into popcorn-enemies will kill them and not you!
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BIL
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Re: Non-Traditional Enemy Collisions: the Definitive List

Post by BIL »

copy-paster wrote:R-Type Delta is the first game in the series when obstacles doesn't hurt you, instead it creates a "sparkling" effect if you string to it.
Only static walls though - anything moving (st2's falling pillar, st3's walker, st5's debris) will blow you up reeeal good as usual. :3

I like Einhander and Border Down's compromise on traditional STG walldeath. Bumping a wall in the heat of battle is okay - humping or grinding on one will kill you promptly. Puts a neat distinction between minor error and outright slop.
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mamboFoxtrot
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Re: Non-Traditional Enemy Collisions: the Definitive List

Post by mamboFoxtrot »

I haven't played Delta and Einhander enough, but I wonder if their walls are forgiving enough that I won't suffer my usual death of clipping the tip of my rear on a corner when exiting a wall-heavy section, because that is 90% of my wall deaths right there. Shit is infuriating.
BIL wrote:Regarding ground enemies, I'm a fan of that "beltscroller" perspective seen in Progear, Akai Katana and one specific stage of Thunder Force IV (Daser/desert). Can allow for some more elaborate ground enemy arrangements than the more common straight-on perspective, and also just looks satisfyingly contiguous. Effectively the sidescroller equivalent of classic topdown ground enemy "flyover," of course.
LordHypnos wrote:@BIL & STG:
So, with the beltscroller horis thus outlined, Is it just the background enemies that you can fly over, and foreground ones harm you (sort of like the traditional ground / aerial split in verticals), or am I misunderstanding this. Also are there any other games like this anyone is aware of?
Yeah, it's basically just like most vertical shooters, just horizontal with the appropriate sprite style change.
The only other games I know of that do this are Prehistoric Isle 2 and Ironclad, and I've only seen PI2 in YouTube videos, so I'm not sure if it's really like that. Ironclad also has some more traditional hori-style segments with walls in some of its stages. Either way, it's not really a non-traditional enemy collision style as it is just a rarely seen visual style, so it's probably not worth putting in this list.

e: also, I totally forgot to confirm what I said about Lords of Thunder! I'll try to remember that tomorrow.
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Re: Non-Traditional Enemy Collisions: the Definitive List

Post by ciox »

Just remembered, Armed Police Batrider has a couple of air enemies that lack air collision, mostly in Airport, simply so it's easier to aura them for extra points, I don't think you have any of that in Garegga or Bakraid
Psyvariar Revision has just one of those in Graviton, annoyingly the same enemy shows up in earlier levels but WITH collision.
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LordHypnos
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Re: Non-Traditional Enemy Collisions: the Definitive List

Post by LordHypnos »

Perikles wrote:
LordHypnos wrote:Twin Hawk / Daisenpuu (Toaplan, 1989, AC)
only true because all of the enemies are tanks (and thus ground based), but as such this is kind of the Ur example of this type of collisions
Just read this, Toaplan's own Tiger-Heli works exactly like that, but came out four years earlier. There's also a plethora of games with both ground and aerial enemies, the former of which can be harmlessly passed (Hishouzame, Same! Same! Same!, Tatsujin, Kyuukyoku Tiger, Raiden, Sand Scorpion, Vapor Trail, Task Force Harrier (EX), Zing Zing Zip, Cyber Core, Xevious, Dragon Spirit, Dragon Saber, all the TwinBee games, Dimension Force, Strike Gunner S.T.G just to name a selected few), do you want to include all of these, too? At least the MD port of Task Force Harrier EX is interesting since it alternates between stages that have both types of enemies and stages where every enemy is ground based.
I have other notes to make, but not enough time to right now. Just to get this out of the way, though, I'm not including games where there is the standard air/ground distinction in enemy collisions (at least in vertically scrolling games), because that is the standard. It's not even just Toaplan, also CAVE, some Capcom games (but not Exed Exes IIRC), in fact I'm pretty sure that even Xevious does this. Too normal to include. However, it's rather uncommon to have a game that has only ground enemies (I only knew Twin Hawk), so I figured that was worth noting.
Also this is pretty uncommon in horis, so I'll probably include those.

More later, I've gotta go!
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