Horror-themed shmups?
Horror-themed shmups?
Is R-Type the only horror shmup series or are there others? Of course, there's also X-Multiply, which you could consider a spinoff of R-Type. I tend to refer to that game as "Fantastic Voyage meets Alien". Do the DeathSmiles series count?
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CloudyMusic
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Re: Horror-themed shmups?
Deathsmiles is a very light-hearted family-friendly version of horror, sure.
Guwange is pretty heavily steeped in classic Japanese horror, too.
Guwange is pretty heavily steeped in classic Japanese horror, too.
Re: Horror-themed shmups?
I remember there being something from Artesneit that may fit the bill, but I don't remember its name. There's also this old thread which names a couple others.
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llaoyllakcuf
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Doctor Butler
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Re: Horror-themed shmups?
Shoot 1up has gross body-horror shit, like R-type
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Bydobasher
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Re: Horror-themed shmups?
There's Gynoug (a.k.a. Wings of Wor) on the Genesis.
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Bydobasher
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Re: Horror-themed shmups?
It definitely has the kind of foreboding atmosphere I'd associate with horror, though I've never really thought of the game in those terms before. It has such menacing music from the moment you turn the console on.xxx1993 wrote:Oh, I got another. Does Bio-Hazard Battle count as horror?
Re: Horror-themed shmups?
If mentioning Deathsmiles, might as well chuck in the Kiki Kaikai and Cotton series plus Twinkle Tale. Not that I disagree with any of them, just requires qualification. Cute little girls shooting dead (but generally also cute) things.
For more feel-bad fantasy horror shooting I might mention Undeadline (MD), where the protagonist is a buff grown-ass mayne. So you know he's not gonna *poof* out of existence when that zombie horde corners him - they're gonna jam their bony digits in every available orifice and tear his screaming head off with an agonising slowness comparable to that dude in Day of the Dead (1985).
"Ch...
ch...
choooke on 'eeem..."
In R-Type's vein of bodyhorror-suffused xenoindustrial, I think Eliminate Down (MD) deserves some love. Excellently misanthropic settings in there, like a trip through some bleak corpse mulcher (staffed by unstoppable iron behemoths who seem ambivalent to your presence and firepower alike, their bulk threatening to crush your ship like a gnat), a cosmic horror carnival featuring a procession of teratomic entities, and an upper orbit skirmish with an obscenely grasping gigafacehugger. Boss machines have a Hellraiser-esque fondness for marrying twisted humanoid faces/limbs/genitalia with cruel blades, harpoons and claws, and there's also one of the more plaintive zako I can recall offhand:
Join starfleet, they said! Meet interesting new races, they said!
Also a veritable mountain of biomechanical dicks, discharging their Dangerous Seed™ with thrust after unfathomably mighty thrust.
Was Aprinet a front for the Gynoug/Cho Aniki dudes, or something?
Yeah I'm guessing so. Check those nips!
For more feel-bad fantasy horror shooting I might mention Undeadline (MD), where the protagonist is a buff grown-ass mayne. So you know he's not gonna *poof* out of existence when that zombie horde corners him - they're gonna jam their bony digits in every available orifice and tear his screaming head off with an agonising slowness comparable to that dude in Day of the Dead (1985).
"Ch...
ch...
choooke on 'eeem..."
I would consider it right on the borderline; ecological scifi/horror. The OST is outstanding, regardless. Discomfortingly skittery (st1), grimly galvanic (st3), and at times just flat-out morbid (st4). Even the relatively tuneful st2 has an offputting quality, less hummable hook than harried mantra. That's an excellent point about the very bootup audio letting you know what time it is!Bydobasher wrote:It definitely has the kind of foreboding atmosphere I'd associate with horror, though I've never really thought of the game in those terms before. It has such menacing music from the moment you turn the console on.xxx1993 wrote:Oh, I got another. Does Bio-Hazard Battle count as horror?
In R-Type's vein of bodyhorror-suffused xenoindustrial, I think Eliminate Down (MD) deserves some love. Excellently misanthropic settings in there, like a trip through some bleak corpse mulcher (staffed by unstoppable iron behemoths who seem ambivalent to your presence and firepower alike, their bulk threatening to crush your ship like a gnat), a cosmic horror carnival featuring a procession of teratomic entities, and an upper orbit skirmish with an obscenely grasping gigafacehugger. Boss machines have a Hellraiser-esque fondness for marrying twisted humanoid faces/limbs/genitalia with cruel blades, harpoons and claws, and there's also one of the more plaintive zako I can recall offhand:
Join starfleet, they said! Meet interesting new races, they said!
Spoiler
Also a veritable mountain of biomechanical dicks, discharging their Dangerous Seed™ with thrust after unfathomably mighty thrust.
Spoiler
Was Aprinet a front for the Gynoug/Cho Aniki dudes, or something?
Spoiler
Yeah I'm guessing so. Check those nips!
光あふれる 未来もとめて, whoa~oh ♫
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schleichfahrt
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Re: Horror-themed shmups?
The Yakouga series fits the horror bill.
Its scariness sometimes backfires a bit due to the home made graphics appeal, but still counts.
They also have a nice haunting music theme they re-use in variations over the series.
Its scariness sometimes backfires a bit due to the home made graphics appeal, but still counts.
They also have a nice haunting music theme they re-use in variations over the series.
When you ruin some enemy, add to score points.
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Strikers1945guy
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Re: Horror-themed shmups?
Tossing in my votes for X-Multiply & Undeadline.
Mister Midnight wrote:btw, cant trust them Koreans; remember Pearl Harbor
Re: Horror-themed shmups?
Undeadline for MSX 2, Mega Drive, X68000 should count It has gravestones and monsters, spooky stuff.
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Bydobasher
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Re: Horror-themed shmups?
Gee, I never thought of it quite like that . . . now it seems horrifying indeed. Though with Undeadline the real horror is trying to beat that game (at least for me it is, I don't think I ever managed it).BIL wrote: For more feel-bad fantasy horror shooting I might mention Undeadline (MD), where the protagonist is a buff grown-ass mayne. So you know he's not gonna *poof* out of existence when that zombie horde corners him - they're gonna jam their bony digits in every available orifice and tear his screaming head off with an agonising slowness comparable to that dude in Day of the Dead (1985).
Haha, I love these descriptions: "grimly galvanic", "harried mantra". Makes me want to play this game again (it's not one I've ever gotten seriously into, though I've always found it interesting).BIL wrote:I would consider it right on the borderline; ecological scifi/horror. The OST is outstanding, regardless. Discomfortingly skittery (st1), grimly galvanic (st3), and at times just flat-out morbid (st4). Even the relatively tuneful st2 has an offputting quality, less hummable hook than harried mantra. That's an excellent point about the very bootup audio letting you know what time it is!
"Bodyhorror-suffused xenoindustrial", goodness, that's a fine label for my favourite shmup series. Anyway, good call on Eliminate Down: it's definitely more grim than I remembered. Man, what is it with the Genesis library? Gynoug, E-Down, Undeadline, Bio-Hazard . . . there was a real edge to these games.BIL wrote:In R-Type's vein of bodyhorror-suffused xenoindustrial, I think Eliminate Down (MD) deserves some love. Excellently misanthropic settings in there, like a trip through some bleak corpse mulcher (staffed by unstoppable iron behemoths who seem ambivalent to your presence and firepower alike, their bulk threatening to crush your ship like a gnat), a cosmic horror carnival featuring a procession of teratomic entities, and an upper orbit skirmish with an obscenely grasping gigafacehugger. Boss machines have a Hellraiser-esque fondness for marrying twisted humanoid faces/limbs/genitalia with cruel blades, harpoons and claws, and there's also one of the more plaintive zako I can recall offhand
Re: Horror-themed shmups?
Defender feels sci-fi/horror to me.
Re: Horror-themed shmups?
Abadox?
Re: Horror-themed shmups?
^^^ yeah definitely. XMultiply-style xenodemonic bio-horror down to its very title. The former element seems to have been quietly jettisoned from the NES localisation; the game's original subtitle is the overtly diabolic Jigoku no Inner War.
edit: Not to knock Milton Bradley - the game remains remarkably grotesque even in totally secular terms. I still remember seeing the ad in Archie and going "OH WAO THAT AIN'T NORMAL" (I called it "Abado Ex" then )
edit: Not to knock Milton Bradley - the game remains remarkably grotesque even in totally secular terms. I still remember seeing the ad in Archie and going "OH WAO THAT AIN'T NORMAL" (I called it "Abado Ex" then )
Last edited by BIL on Mon Jun 04, 2018 10:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
光あふれる 未来もとめて, whoa~oh ♫
[THE MIRAGE OF MIND] Metal Black ST [THE JUSTICE MASSACRE] Gun.Smoke ST [STAB & STOMP]
Re: Horror-themed shmups?
Black heart?
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Re: Horror-themed shmups?
The Milton Bradley NES version of Abadox still retains the "Deadly Inner War" catchphrase on the outer title sticker label itself.BIL wrote:^^^ yeah definitely. XMultiply-style xenodemonic bio-horror down to its very title. The former element seems to have been quietly jettisoned from the NES localisation; the game's original subtitle is the overtly diabolic Jigoku no Inner War.
edit: Not to knock Milton Bradley - the game remains remarkably grotesque even in totally secular terms. I still remember seeing the ad in Archie and going "OH WAO THAT AIN'T NORMAL" (I called it "Abado Ex" then )
PC Engine Fan X! ^_~
Re: Horror-themed shmups?
Indeed! However, "Jigoku" / "Hell" has strong infernal connotations, far moreso than the ambiguous "Deadly". Obviously it can be used in a "war is hell" sense, ala Ketsui: Kizuna Jigoku Tachi. But in Abadox, it's among a conspicuous few hints towards the occult. There's also the ghostly and devilish imagery of the final stage, and the FC manual's story revealing a demonic bent in the title itself:
The NES story shuffles things around so "Abadox" is merely the name of the protagonist's home planet. Doesn't seem much of a stretch that "Hell/Hellish" was quietly dropped for the relatively safe "Deadly." Also possible MB didn't care for the details and were just cranking out a bare-bones translation, of course.
ala X-Multiply, AFAIK nothing supernatural is ever confirmed - in both games, I like to think that was deliberate. Both leave the occult as precisely that: "unseen," unknown, beyond human comprehension. Very cosmic horror! Plenty of dedicated horror games over-explain their mysteries down to useless little nubs.ACSeraph wrote:The last line definitely says something about Abadon though, not Abadox, so there might be some kind of link here.
And I believe the final line says something to the effect of: "It is as though he is fighting against Abadon, the destroyer of worlds." I'm not so sure about the kanji here, this is just my guess. I definitely don't think Abadon is referring to a place.
Judging by the last line I'm pretty sure the connection was intentional, although it isn't explicitly stated. "Sore ha maru de" means "It was as though" or "It was almost as if". I think we were meant to come to our own conclusions about the true nature of the Parasitos.
Also I can confirm it is Earth that is being attacked.
The NES story shuffles things around so "Abadox" is merely the name of the protagonist's home planet. Doesn't seem much of a stretch that "Hell/Hellish" was quietly dropped for the relatively safe "Deadly." Also possible MB didn't care for the details and were just cranking out a bare-bones translation, of course.
光あふれる 未来もとめて, whoa~oh ♫
[THE MIRAGE OF MIND] Metal Black ST [THE JUSTICE MASSACRE] Gun.Smoke ST [STAB & STOMP]
Re: Horror-themed shmups?
Undeadline has a Jason Voorhees-inspired enemy type, incidentally - clashes with the medieval-ish setting, but whatever. Actually the mansion stage they appear in is kinda Evil Dead, with rotting fiends under the floorboards, a pyromaniacal fireplace, and imploding windows offering a great view of flying shattered glass.
光あふれる 未来もとめて, whoa~oh ♫
[THE MIRAGE OF MIND] Metal Black ST [THE JUSTICE MASSACRE] Gun.Smoke ST [STAB & STOMP]
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Re: Horror-themed shmups?
There's always that unreleased arcade shmup prototype - Chimera Beast. In that one, you get to play the mutating bad guy creature that wants to eat everything. Ultimately, you help destroy the human planet, and even prevent the humans from escaping in their space shuttle, dooming their race forevers. Pretty nihilistic stuff.
I have heard that one of the designers took a working PCB to arcades for a while for people to enjoy. I think there is a running board open for play in the Galloping Ghost arcade in Illinois. You can play it on MAME.
I have heard that one of the designers took a working PCB to arcades for a while for people to enjoy. I think there is a running board open for play in the Galloping Ghost arcade in Illinois. You can play it on MAME.
Re: Horror-themed shmups?
Act Fancer: Cybernetic Hyper Weapon
Re: Horror-themed shmups?
Just echoing what others have said--
Undeadline, a must for "horror" shooters (at least the MD version, that's what I have played). Also, Abadox on NES is.. sort of fitting. More alien-esque, whereas Undeadline consists of demons, monsters, etc. Deathsmiles is pretty obvious too, great game. I am trying to think of more, but so many that pop in my mind blur the line between horror and something else..
Undeadline, a must for "horror" shooters (at least the MD version, that's what I have played). Also, Abadox on NES is.. sort of fitting. More alien-esque, whereas Undeadline consists of demons, monsters, etc. Deathsmiles is pretty obvious too, great game. I am trying to think of more, but so many that pop in my mind blur the line between horror and something else..
Re: Horror-themed shmups?
Galshell and Galshell 2 are supremely horror.
Please don't remind me of these.
lmaoBananamatic wrote:otomedius
Please don't remind me of these.
Re: Horror-themed shmups?
Otomedius is nowhere near horror or scary to begin with.Bananamatic wrote:otomedius