Categories within arcade shmups

[shmupsrocks]

What would you say are the major categories of arcade shmup from the perspective of someone wanting to try all the different types? I can imagine the categories would follow the developers pretty closely.

[Shepardus]

• good shmup
• bad shmup

[Despatche]

Honestly, the above is a serious response. Don't worry too much about subgenres.

Subgenres are indeed largely based around a specific developer, so a list wouldn't be terribly interesting. A lot of Namco's non-Galaxian shmups are Xevious or Xevious-based. Then there's the occasional exception like Dangerous Seed, which doesn't really play like any other game, though I guess some of the pattern design is similar to Dragon Spirit.

[shmupsrocks]

In that case which have been the most important dev shops?

[Square_Air]

This might be the info you're looking for:

Shmups:

• Non-scrolling playfield
  • Fixed Shooters (Space Invaders, Galaga)
    Maze Shooters (Berserk, Tank Battalion)
    Field Shooters (Robotron 2084, Smash TV, Geometry Wars)
    • including those set on a cylinder or torus (Asteroids, Star Castle)
  Scrolling playfield
  • Automatically scrolling shooters
    • Vertically scrolling shooters (Xevious, Cybattler)
      • including those set on a cylinder (Scion)
      Horizontally scrolling shooters (Gradius, R-Type)
      • including those set on a cylinder (Fantasy Zone)
      Isometrically scrolling shooters (Zaxxon, Viewpoint)
    Multi-directional auto-scrolling shooters set on a torus (Bosconian, Time Pilot '84)
  Manually advancing ("push-scroll") shooters
  • Manually advancing horizontally scrolling shooters (In The Hunt, Mr. Heli no Daibouken)
    • including those set on a cylinder (Defender)
    Manually advancing vertically scrolling shooters (OutZone, Ikari Warriors)
    Manually advancing multi-directional shooters (Granada, KiKi KaiKai, Bangai-O)
    • including those set on a torus or infinite plane (Sinistar)
  Outliers or Grandfathered titles:
  • Every Extend series
    Gyruss and clones
    Tempest, clones, and sequels

In that case which have been the most important dev shops?

This is a really spicy question. Pretty much any developer can be subjectively "important" in someones eyes, so you'll more likely than not just get people listing off pretty biased choices. That being said, the only correct answer is Williams/Vid Kidz.

[Despatche]

This is arguably better as a "what is a shmup?" thread. Pang and Luxor are shmups, bee tee dubs. Space Harrier and co. are also shmups, let's be honest here. You can't allow things like Tempest, and things like Commando, but not things like Space Harrier. It's just not right.

In that case which have been the most important dev shops?

Depends on what you mean by "most important". Namco and Xevious basically created the scrolling shooter from scratch. Toaplan and their Kyukyoku Tiger is the game Raiden (one of the most popular games in the genre) ripped off. CAVE is the go-to for "bullet hell". You could write a series of books about Touhou and its influence, even if a lot of that influence is about the characters more than the games.

[Shepardus]

Let's just link to some of BulletMagnet's articles:
http://www.racketboy.com/retro/shmups-1 ... d-shooters
http://www.racketboy.com/retro/games-th ... mups-genre

[Despatche]

There are a lot of issues with those articles. Not nearly as bad as HG101 chaff though. Yeah yeah, I know, "why don't you point them out", etc. I'm worried that, just like with HG101, anything I say will fall on deaf ears. Also it would require days of work, and I don't really have any free days right now.

I'm sorry, a lot of people ask me to write things, but I just don't have the time or patience for it. I don't think I ever have, and I have reason to believe I never will. So yeah, it just sounds like I'm whining about something I won't be assed do anything about. That's not what I want, but damn it, if others are allowed to do that and be rewarded for it, I should at least be allowed to do that in peace.

[shmupsrocks]

I think this is pretty much what I was looking for:

http://www.racketboy.com/retro/games-th ... mups-genre

I can't play every shmup but I want to try and play at least one of every type of shmup so I don't miss out on a group of them that I really like. Should the above article do the trick for the most part?

[Shepardus]

I think it's a good place to start. Of course everyone you ask is going to list off different "must-plays," but that list should give you pretty good bang for your buck. You may also want to look at the results of this forum's annual top 25 shmups vote, though that tends to be heavily weighted towards bullet hell shmups, particularly those by CAVE. Here are last year's results; this year's should be coming out sometime in the near future. Individual members' votes may be more interesting especially if you find a member whose tastes align with yours. Here's my vote because my taste is impeccable.

[shmupsrocks]

I've been mining those results threads for a while. I love em but I've come to realize that a better strategy for at least trying to cover the whole genre is to understand the different groups that the games fall into and try something from each group.

[FRO]

I've been mining those results threads for a while. I love em but I've come to realize that a better strategy for at least trying to cover the whole genre is to understand the different groups that the games fall into and try something from each group.

Just FYI, I do a monthly shoot-em-up club, where we pick a different game and play it for a month, discuss the game, share scores, strats, etc. Then I podcast about it. It's a casual way to try a bunch of games from different segments of the genre. Last month we played Zanac, this month it's Crimzon Clover: World Ignition. Obviously, there's a fair bit of difference between those 2 games. I'll be updating that thread here shortly, so assuming you read this in the next day or two, you'll see my thread show up near this, so feel free to check it out

[shmupsrocks]

That sounds killer! It sounds like there's an existing thread devoted to this? If so could you point to it?

[Square_Air]

That sounds killer! It sounds like there's an existing thread devoted to this? If so could you point to it?

Shmups forum thread
RF Generation thread

Pang and Luxor are shmups, bee tee dubs. Space Harrier and co. are also shmups, let's be honest here. You can't allow things like Tempest, and things like Commando, but not things like Space Harrier. It's just not right.

I think a good argument can be made for Pang being a shmup, but I don't know how I feel about Luxor. That argument would have to be pretty tight, because it's a very short slide away from saying Puzzloop, Zuma, and Puzzle Bobble could be considered shmups. Sure, the movement is the aspect in Luxor makes it more aligned with shmups, but there's enough styles of movement in shmups that I don't think being stationary is necessarily more of a deal breaker than designing the "enemy" to passively move on a rail.

I have absolutely no clue what Commando is doing in your second comparison, I don't understand your intention of including it. You make a good point about Tempest and Space harrier though, and honestly I think i'm more on the side of Tempest being relegated to outlier status.