Suddenly STG

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freshtop
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Suddenly STG

Post by freshtop »

https://culture.vg/forum/topic?t=6740
icycalm wrote:Select Button is a depressing effeminate-pseud-infested shithole, but once a year or so they do happen to generate a decent thread worth linking, and today is that day for 2019.

https://selectbutton.net/t/suddenly-stg/8167
AutomaticTiger wrote:Suddenly STG

Tulpa and I were talking on discord and we realized there are a massive number of games that unexpectedly turn into shooters out of nowhere! If the vast majority of the game is something else, but becomes a shooter of some kind without warning at some point, especially near the end, it belongs on this list:
  • Kirby Superstar
  • Kirby’s Dream Land (in the middle, but it still happens)
  • Super Mario Land
  • Devil May Cry
  • Lost Planet (edge case, but I’m putting it here)
  • Magic Knight Rayearth
  • Star Fox Adventures (Also an edge case because you periodically visit these stages but the final boss being Andross pushes this over for me)
  • Super Smash Bros
  • Super Smash Bros. Melee
  • Super Smash Bros Ultimate
  • Kid Icarus
  • Loony Tunes (GB)
    *Banjo Tooie (edge case, but it does have a rail shooter mini game very different from any part of the game in the middle).
  • Nier
  • Nier Automata
  • Tingle’s Rosy Rupee Land
  • Dynamite Headdy
  • Metal Slug 3
  • Super Frog (Amiga)
  • Rocket Knight Adventures
  • Kingdom Hearts
  • Kingdom Hearts 2
  • Kingdom Hearts 3
  • Kirby’s Adventure
  • Tankz! (PC)
  • Solar Jetman
  • Digimon World 4
  • Knights of the Old Republic (edge case but close enough)
(I’ll update this as more games come in)
Is there any moral to be drawn from this phenomenon? There is actually, and I am not just talking about the weirdness and general old-school tendencies of some Japanese developers. For this is simply a holdover from the old "variety game" design philosophy that was common worldwide in the past and peaked in the '80s, before disappearing, and finally reappearing in the form of the modern survival-crafting game, as I have analyzed extensively in my recent essay, The Inevitable Death and Improbable Resurrection of Variety Games. The Japs simply haven't got the memo that this old design philosophy was flawed to start with and rightly disappeared, and on occasion continue to insert these useless, blatantly subpar STG segments in games in which they don't belong. It's a kind of virtue-signalling, believe it or not. The dev is saying to you, "Remember those old shooty-shooty games? Well we do, and we'll make sure you know we remember them by inserting a brief, subpar stage of them that contributes nothing to the overall experience in our totally unrelated game!" That Nier guy is the master of this signalling, and he continues to reap the rewards for it (=blind weeb loyalty and associated sales increases).
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waiwainl
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Re: Suddenly STG

Post by waiwainl »

Nice list, interesting topic - thanks!
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KAI
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Re: Suddenly STG

Post by KAI »

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Stevens
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Re: Suddenly STG

Post by Stevens »

The Messenger has a shmup stage.
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freshtop
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Re: Suddenly STG

Post by freshtop »

The most recent game I saw do this was The Wonderful 101.
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Sumez
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Re: Suddenly STG

Post by Sumez »

Games do this constantly, and the trend continues for almost any 2D title still coming out. It's probably easier to list games that don't have it.

There's a particularly crappy example in the latest Shantae game.

I'd like to highlight Rayman Origins for having one that doesn't suck despite being literally a euroshmup. I mean as a dedicated shmup release I'd probably hate it, but the stages are mostly unintrusive, and takes a lot of inspiration from Gradius.
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Mark_MSX
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Re: Suddenly STG

Post by Mark_MSX »

Super Mario Land has two shmup stages, too bad Nintendo never made a shmup spinoff game for Mario, I could see that being popular.
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Herr Schatten
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Re: Suddenly STG

Post by Herr Schatten »

Sumez wrote:There's a particularly crappy example in the latest Shantae game.
There's also one in Risky's Revenge, iirc.
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__SKYe
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Re: Suddenly STG

Post by __SKYe »

Herr Schatten wrote:There's also one in Risky's Revenge, iirc.
Yeah, I'm not sure in which game, but there's definitely one in either RR or in Pirate's Curse. Another WayForward game, Wendy: Every Witch Way, also has them. And so does Turrican 2.
Knightmare
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Re: Suddenly STG

Post by Knightmare »

La-Mulana definitely deserves a spot in the list for its iconic "suddenly STG" boss. It's worth noting that one of the devs' previous works was GR3 Project (the team went by that name too), an excellent MSX-styled Gradius homage game, of which there were a few versions. The team knows their Konami shmups.
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BulletMagnet
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Re: Suddenly STG

Post by BulletMagnet »

There have been a couple of threads like this on here over the years, though heaven knows if they're still buried anywhere.
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Shepardus
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Re: Suddenly STG

Post by Shepardus »

Knightmare wrote:La-Mulana definitely deserves a spot in the list for its iconic "suddenly STG" boss. It's worth noting that one of the devs' previous works was GR3 Project (the team went by that name too), an excellent MSX-styled Gradius homage game, of which there were a few versions. The team knows their Konami shmups.
Not to mention that Parodius-esque minigame accessed through a ROM combo that you had to checkpoint-milk to clear Hell Temple.
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NTSC-J: You know STGs are in trouble when you have threads on how to introduce them to a wider audience and get more people playing followed by threads on how to get its hardcore fan base to play them, too.
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viper_phase1
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Re: Suddenly STG

Post by viper_phase1 »

I think in some cases it has more to do with wanting to make a shooting game, but due to various circumstances they aren't able to make one properly, so they shoehorn it into a game they are currently developing.
god_
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Re: Suddenly STG

Post by god_ »

Whenever I see a game becomes a shmup out of nowhere it always comes off as garbage and was added in for padding, an example of this was Wonderful 101. Even though Kamiya having a huge boner for Darius, he didn't seem to know that having a diagonal perspective is probably the most stupidest idea for a shmup when he decided to shove or flagged the decision to have a shmup section in Wonderful 101. I think the kirby games have decent shmup sections and only used it sparingly.
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FRO
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Re: Suddenly STG

Post by FRO »

freshtop wrote:The most recent game I saw do this was The Wonderful 101.
Which just makes me love that game more :D
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