Would you be interested in new old school shmups?

[Pixel_Outlaw]

When I was a younger guy just starting my shmup journey I was really captivated by DonPachi and DoDonPachi leading shortly thereafter into the Danmaku era of shmups. I recently have been playing a lot of Toaplan games which previously I had written off as being too hard and crusty. I've been playing some Raiden lately too and suddenly I find it not as difficult as I used to but it still puts up a challenge in the later stages. I find myself wishing that we would have more traditional low resolution pixel art games that aren't so stuck in the notion of bullet hell and just present a straightforward military theme without all these lollies that Cave is suddenly attaching to everything.

I'm just wondering if people would still be interested in playing new very well balanced straightforward games. I'm kind of poking at the thought of a 240x320 resolution lovingly crafted pixel art game in the traditional sense. In other words sensible graphics military theme and maybe one of those pesky sniper tanks or two that we all hate. A bit faster bullets but not unsensibly fast. I feel like the genre has gotten lost in this whole macho bullet hell stuff and sometimes I just want to sit down and blast some military vehicles without all these multipliers and explosions clouding my view constantly. I also really like the Toaplan notion of one big long stage with checkpoints and area numbers along the way - uninterrupted gameplay. I feel like we've kind of reached peak visual noise as much as I love the more modern offerings. Anyway if I do program such a thing it will be a very traditional feeling game but I think I've played enough of the genre to know what makes a traditional game good. I'd also probably release for Linux, Mac, and Windows.

I love Danmaku games as much as the next guy, but I feel like at this point a lot of the young bucks are playing them to impress their friends with the high amount of screen clutter. They are different kind of hard than traditional hard.

[Sumez]

I'm much more interested in those sorts of titles than anything new bullet hell, and I'm sure I'm hardly alone in here.

[Pixel_Outlaw]

Yes I think we've had some excellent releases by M2 Shot Triggers.
In fact, after getting my 1cc on easy mode for Same Same Same I realize that I would like a little bit more of the same. (Pun intended).

Something just clicked for me and I realize that I want more military and pleasing backgrounds That tells a story as you traverse various landscapes with the enemy bases launching everything they have at you. Tanks peeking out from under rocks. Aircraft launching to intercept. I even like the little touches in some of the older games like the landing crew running into an arrow pattern to cheer your departure. I think somehow we've lost some of that storytelling or at least making things seem lively. For quite a while it's been acceptable just to have a generic space background and enemies just pop in out of nowhere from the top of the screen and fill the screen with all kinds of clutter. I don't have anything against that but I do miss the storytelling through background art- Enhancing feeling of you against an entire military force. I think young kids have it right sometimes. Sometimes you just want to have a simple story and be the fighter jet against an enemy fleet the lone pilot taking on the world.

[sunnshiner]

Yes times a squillion. Raiden DX and III are my go-to shmups. Psikyo's Strikers series (and Gunbird 2) and Warashi's Shienryu are cool too. I much prefer relatively difficult-but-fair old school shmups with aimed bullets to bullet hells with scoring systems you need a PhD to understand. Chaining or managing rank as an unspoken requirement to progress can get in the fucking sea as well. Extra depth is all well and good but not when it makes the game unenjoyable from the start.

Vertical is cool. Horizontal is also cool. Vertizontal is not cool. Bonus points if your ship is a helicopter. Helicopters in shmups are cool AF.

[Steven]

I've been considering making my own new Toaplan game for several years. The one requirement that I absolutely demand of myself if I make this game is that I will create it specifically and primarily as a 15khz JAMMA arcade game to be used in game centers, with Linux and Windows releases being secondary.

The two real secrets to Toaplan's excellence, outside of music, are zako placement and what IKD described as the rhythm of the games. There's a rhythmic, musical quality to Toaplan game design that is hard to describe. IKD talked about this in the Tatsujin commentary recently. I'd have to go back and check exactly what he said because I don't remember.

[Bassa-Bassa]

There's this:

viewtopic.php?t=67314

With 15khz 240p compatibility, even.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

There's this:

viewtopic.php?t=67314

With 15khz 240p compatibility, even.

Wow, that's awesome that the Steam/PC version of Crisis Wing supports the 15.75kHz low-res 320 x 240p format -- then it'd be just a matter of cobbling together a proper cable & controller interface to hook up to a candy cab or supergun setup. Has anyone gone that "particular route" with pieslice's Crisis Wing and list what's needed to pull it off successfully?

A dedicated jamma pcb running Crisis Wing would be even better, right?

The only indie STG title of Twin Tiger Shark that was released as a dedicated standard jamma pcb (as part of an extremely limited run that was heavily promoted through Kickstarter back in the day) is the only one known to date -- is rather a very special exception "one-off release" rather than the norm nowadays, of course.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Bassa-Bassa]

Didn't try it with Crisis Wing particularly, but did with many others which weren't even intended to make use of it (unlike Crisis Wing). In a general way, you actually only need that the game displays at the desktop resolution, and set that to 320x240 (or whichever resolution the game's natively designed at). To do it, the easiest route is by using CRT Emu Driver for Windows, though it requires a compatible ATI card. You then need the cables or interfaces for your 15khz setup - I can't tell you much about JAMMA cabinets, but there are solutions for those from decades ago now which many people use to this day, I'm sure many are even here on this forum. This forum is likely the oldest place discussing and explaning the subject:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.p ... d,4.0.html

For 15khz RGB TV sets, it's easier, though. I guess it only applies if you live in Europe.

There's also the hardware route - if the 320x240 game scales properly to 640x480 (usually they do, as it's a native Windows mode, so no specific graphics card needed), you can use a scan converter which downscales it to 240p and works well with your display.

However you get to do it, it's well worth the try, I think I've mentioned it here before. Even if some few games may present an unsolvable tearing/vsync issue, most work flawlessly at their native 1:1 pixel resolution. It's too bad so few devs are still unaware of this despite being so long now it's out there.

As for a dedicated PCB running the game, I don't think in the end it's any better than just running the Windows version under the aforementioned conditions, mind. If I recall, Twin Tiger Shark PCB version is running under some form of Windows? There's this as well which did, at least.

[PerishedFraud ឵឵]

I voted tweaks because I think it's the objective truth most people are really thinking.

Yeah oldschool is cool, but there's a lot of objective QoL that new releases can have, and beyond utter basics that's inherently a twist.

[Sumez]

Yeah oldschool is cool, but there's a lot of objective QoL that new releases can have, and beyond utter basics that's inherently a twist.

Any examples you have in mind? I wouldn't consider "QoL changes" to be a part of a tweak. But it's all really vague unless you are referring to any specific tweaks.
Like, of course I'd have things like a training mode, or a credits/continue system designed with home play in mind, rather than arcade economy. But I wouldn't consider those things a part of the core game itself.

[PerishedFraud ឵឵]

Training mode, comprehensive ui that displays all you need, infinite credits, difficulty options, lack of gotcha patterns/waves, no other minor annoyances (example: bait weapons/characters), probably an in-game guide to explain any gimmicks the game has too (tutorial or shown in first level, take your pick).

It's all minor stuff, much of it taken for granted and makes for a great vague post, but it piles up.

[pablumatic]

Absolutely prefer the old style shooters and always want more. Which is why I'm glad to see Salamander III happen.

I almost hate the modern bullet hell types. I still buy them from time to time but get little play out of that specific genre.

[Lemnear]

Both! In fact, I'm always looking for that hybrid that practically doesn't exist.

[CaptainKraken]

Both! In fact, I'm always looking for that hybrid that practically doesn't exist.

Dang, me too. I think ZeroRanger sorta fits that bill, it certainly has some bullet hell elements alongside traditional ones.

[Pixel_Outlaw]

On the topic of resolutions...

I know how to do it properly.

The best way to do it is just to have a set virtual resolution for the game and do everything from movement logic to graphics to transformations of those graphics there. You then take that small graphics buffer and you can transform it to whatever you want in a native resolution. This is essentially like we do in MAME.

Most indie games get this wrong because they try and do everything in native resolution and just scale the sprites but that looks terrible. The logic and graphics transformation are happening at a totally different resolution as well as their hideous high-res text. The whole illusion is lost because they didn't understand that you first need to render everything in the low resolution to a graphics buffer first.

More here. https://www.syntaxbomb.com/tutorials/pr ... esolution/

[BareKnuckleRoo]

This topic almost makes it sound like there aren't any such games being made. No, it's not the most popular thing and games have been generally pushing harder and harder on flashy visuals with bullet hell being a popular subgenre, but there are good modern shmups out there that capture more of that early arcade shmup style without being needlessly complex or loli bait:

• OverObj is a Famicom homebrew game that has a very minimalist interface, and a thin shot that's reminiscent of UPL's 1989 game Omega Fighter. Copies are apparently out of print so you may have trouble tracking it down... It's bullet hell, but with an interesting minimalist interface that serves as both a fun game and an interesting tech demo, proving bullet hell can be done well on the system.

• Zakichi's got a wide number of games that go from more busy bullet hell to more classic styling in terms of visuals and bullet patterns: https://zakichi.ojaru.jp/

• People are hyped for Yuzo Koshiro's Megadrive shmup, Earthion.

So I'm sure if you developed your own there'd be genuine interest.

[Sumez]

Don't forget Twin Tiger Shark, which is a pretty heavy handed Toaplan love letter. Unfortunately it's very much on the easy side, but it's a super enjoyable game IMO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDzIXCV65f8

[To Far Away Times]

I like my hori’s old school and new school. For vert’s, I tend to prefer as danmaku games.

Some old school verts are cool, but if you start going too far back some of them with slow ship speed and a massive hit box are just not my jam at all.

Some old school verts that I enjoy would be games like Crisis Force or Compile’s games. Games with lots of firepower, and a decent ship speed.

[M.Knight]

I think I would be interested in old school games with tweaks, and there's definitely some old-school shmups in my favorites, but I voted No because I don't want the specific kind of games you are describing.

Plenty of cool old-school shmups offer very distinctive weaponry that's fun to use and that strongly defines the games mechanically. Gradius' trailing options that make you think about how to move and how to not move, the R-Type Leo homing bits providing a rhythm to deploying and recharging the attack, Dr Toppel's Adventure's option formations giving you lots of flexibility in how to attack and spread out your shots in multiple directions, the Ray series lock-ons that play with the foreground/background interactions and also push you to get close to enemies to ensnare them in the cursor, Cotton 2/Boomerang's enemy capture ability that lets you cause fun chain reactions on enemy waves with nicely timed throws, Metal Black's beam that lets you attack through walls and makes you think about how and when to recharge it, Dangun Feveron's charged roll or missiles that add fun extra dynamics to the speedkilling respectively with the charge & release or the spawn killing with continuous explosions, and so on and so forth.

There's so many cool ways to attack enemies in these old-school games and yet...your go-to example for old school shooting is Toaplan military shooters, the most uninspired kind of old-school shooter where all those cool weapons that made old-school shooters so iconic are gone and all you have are a wide shot, a laser, a shitty green/yellow weapon, and bombs the game doesn't know whether to reward you for using with encounter skips or to reward you for not using with end-stage bonuses. (Amusingly enough, this is close to most DDP games' toolkit except they removed the shit weapons)

Danmaku games normalizing "generic space backgrounds"? That would actually characterize older shmups like Galaga or Tatsujin way more than anything CAVE made or danmaku shmups in general. The same goes for the "macho" attitude of players of those older games and the disdain for anything that's a little colorful, girly, or just human in general. The "lollies" [sic] comment being the prime giveaway of that mindset that is unaware of danmaku games with very cool character design like Shikigami games, Psyvariar 2, or Homura, and also ignores that a lot of these games had very varied settings with personality. Even just within CAVE games, you got stuff like steampunk, cartoony toy worlds, forest/nature environments, urban fantasy, traditional Japan, or gothic. Meanwhile military shooters are the same tank boat plane over and over and over again, on the same bland deserts and oceans and jungles over and over and over again. So much for storytelling.

One recent old-school style shmup I sunk my teeth into is DariusBurst ACEX which definitely pushes the cool weaponry and enemy destruction aspects over bullet dodging (even though some boss patterns are no slouch), and this one also has personality in the music and the usual fish-inspired boss visuals. I would dig something in that vein, or maybe like Eschatos which has speedkilling and shield mechanics while remaining very wave-focused in the vein of older caravan-style shmups.

But if you want something that sticks to those military games' sensibilities, I think you would have to really up the presentation game and make something on the level of Air Gallet with its really slick style and fun radio chatter that makes the military planes and stuff actually cool.

[jehu]

Yes, of course.

I've noticed that there's a dubious consensus - manufactured by early communities of retro gamers digging for 'hidden gems' and reinforced by the HG101 review squad and similar enthusiast content creators of their ilk and era - that the 'generic' military shooter is a lamentable, yet inexplicably widespread breed of STG. They're all basically the same, these shooters. Throw them in a blender and you get a washed out, indistinguishable mass of grey, green, dirt brown, rust brown, and light blue. And they all basically play the same, too. Sad.

Spoiler

Exhibit A: The HG101 review of Air Gallet. Our inspired reviewer writes:

For the most part, this is a typical vertical shooter similar to the likes that Toaplan previously put out. As you plow your way through enemies and face towering bosses, your friends back at your base share sometimes comedic banter with you through digitized radio chatter. They also give you hints and commentary, and it adds a lot to a game that otherwise looks like another faceless shooter. Air Gallet needs this shot of personality, because other than a few impressive effects and sprites, it looks ugly. Buildings are muddy gray like nimbus clouds. A lot of the popcorn enemies lack detail. The effects on your fire weapon are underwhelming. Everything in general looks washed out and darkened. Sure, the bomber effects look cool, there is some nice parallax scrolling, and the final boss is a sight to behold, but for the most part, Air Gallet looks generic.

Spoiler

I pick this example because even previous poster M.Knight, who does seem to - in a limited sense - embrace the more-color-is-better ethos, is able to appreciate the evident beauty of this game. This post isn't about him or anyone else in our community, but about a consensus manufactured a long time ago that still impacts our community's discourse and needs reevaluation.

Needless to say, I don't think these people are worth going to for thoughtful genre retrospectives - to say nothing of their capacity as aesthetic tastemakers.

The pared down, naturalistic military STG appeals to a more refined aesthetic sensibility than these commentators apparently possess.

Being unable - or performatively unable - to distinguish between games unless they're pouring the visual equivalent of saccharine bowls of Fruit Loops into your eyes is a defect in the subject and not the object of evaluation. This is why healthy children eventually abandon their dogged attachment to cartoons when they become able to make more sophisticated aesthetic judgments about the media they consume.

I'm suspicious about the judgment of any adult who would claim that a Milestone shooter is more visually accomplished than P47 Aces or Akuu Gallet, just as I'm suspicious of an adult who would prefer the style of Adventure Time over that of a Bela Tarr film. If you think Harmful Park is more aesthetically compelling than Raiden II, I have bad news for you.

Don't get me wrong. Ideally, tastes would be expansive enough to appreciate and accommodate and appreciate all styles when executed well. But I think we've overdue for a discursive correction. It's just one of many errors generated by the old generation of credit-feeding retro gem hunters. We've realized that their capacity for judging game design was fundamentally flawed; it's time to acknowledge the same for their similarly lamentable aesthetic sensibility.

[m.sniffles.esq]

I guess since I voted #3, I should clarify?

Would I be interested in new Toaplan style games (even though that's a bit broad, I more or less understand)? = Sure

Would I be interested in new antiqued/nostalgia-based Toaplan style games? = Not at all

See the above mention of Dariusburst AC as an example something in the 'Toplan style' but still looks/sounds/plays like a modern title

[Lethe]

It's just one of many errors generated by the old generation of credit-feeding retro gem hunters. We've realized that their capacity for judging game design was fundamentally flawed; it's time to acknowledge the same for their similarly lamentable aesthetic sensibility.

If we can get this expanded to cover the persisting generation of credit-feeding middle-aged shumpsfarmers too, then it sounds like a flawless plan!

[Herr Schatten]

Both! In fact, I'm always looking for that hybrid that practically doesn't exist.

Look no further than Trizeal. I always fehlt that it sits comfortably inbetween oldschhool and more modern styles, which is part of why I like it so much, even though it probably doesn't really excel at anything.

[Sumez]

your go-to example for old school shooting is Toaplan military shooters, the most uninspired kind of old-school shooter

[Sumez]

Yes, of course.

Spoiler

I've noticed that there's a dubious consensus - manufactured by early communities of retro gamers digging for 'hidden gems' and reinforced by the HG101 review squad and similar enthusiast content creators of their ilk and era - that the 'generic' military shooter is a lamentable, yet inexplicably widespread breed of STG. They're all basically the same, these shooters. Throw them in a blender and you get a washed out, indistinguishable mass of grey, green, dirt brown, rust brown, and light blue. And they all basically play the same, too. Sad.

Spoiler

Exhibit A: The HG101 review of Air Gallet. Our inspired reviewer writes:

For the most part, this is a typical vertical shooter similar to the likes that Toaplan previously put out. As you plow your way through enemies and face towering bosses, your friends back at your base share sometimes comedic banter with you through digitized radio chatter. They also give you hints and commentary, and it adds a lot to a game that otherwise looks like another faceless shooter. Air Gallet needs this shot of personality, because other than a few impressive effects and sprites, it looks ugly. Buildings are muddy gray like nimbus clouds. A lot of the popcorn enemies lack detail. The effects on your fire weapon are underwhelming. Everything in general looks washed out and darkened. Sure, the bomber effects look cool, there is some nice parallax scrolling, and the final boss is a sight to behold, but for the most part, Air Gallet looks generic.

Spoiler

I pick this example because even previous poster M.Knight, who does seem to - in a limited sense - embrace the more-color-is-better ethos, is able to appreciate the evident beauty of this game. This post isn't about him or anyone else in our community, but about a consensus manufactured a long time ago that still impacts our community's discourse and needs reevaluation.

Needless to say, I don't think these people are worth going to for thoughtful genre retrospectives - to say nothing of their capacity as aesthetic tastemakers.

The pared down, naturalistic military STG appeals to a more refined aesthetic sensibility than these commentators apparently possess.

Being unable - or performatively unable - to distinguish between games unless they're pouring the visual equivalent of saccharine bowls of Fruit Loops into your eyes is a defect in the subject and not the object of evaluation. This is why healthy children eventually abandon their dogged attachment to cartoons when they become able to make more sophisticated aesthetic judgments about the media they consume.

I'm suspicious about the judgment of any adult who would claim that a Milestone shooter is more visually accomplished than P47 Aces or Akuu Gallet, just as I'm suspicious of an adult who would prefer the style of Adventure Time over that of a Bela Tarr film. If you think Harmful Park is more aesthetically compelling than Raiden II, I have bad news for you.

Don't get me wrong. Ideally, tastes would be expansive enough to appreciate and accommodate and appreciate all styles when executed well. But I think we've overdue for a discursive correction. It's just one of many errors generated by the old generation of credit-feeding retro gem hunters. We've realized that their capacity for judging game design was fundamentally flawed; it's time to acknowledge the same for their similarly lamentable aesthetic sensibility.

I love all of this post. Yes. I agree so hard.

[Bassa-Bassa]

While his sentiment is easy to sympathise with, specially with that HG101 bit, equating comedic style with low-level art, or fans of that kind of aesthetics with "credit-feeders" is quite ignorant, though.

[Sumez]

If that's how you're reading it, you are missing the point. It's about which merits you judge the game by.

The same logic applies back to movies. It's not like cartoons are inherently low brow trash, but if you actually watch movies for their content, you'll find a much broader range of things to appreciate than the appeal of their visuals.

[m.sniffles.esq]

Eh, the 'indistinguishable paste' is in a large part due to how these games are approached nowadays. One doesn't walk up to a cabinet or insert a cart that belongs to that title anymore. "Toaplan" is a folder. Within it are files for every game they ever made, and the player credit-feeds for 5-10 minutes each then says "okay, I know Toaplan. Psikyo's next"

These are the hazards of people consuming things towards the goal of being encyclopedic rather than enjoyment. There are people that buy the Ingmar Bergman box set just to have the movies playing constantly while they're doing dishes or trying to get laid on Tinder, just so they can say "I've seen all nearly all the films of Ingmar Bergman"

While true, what did you get out of them (other than an indistinguishable paste of stark, stately, black and white images of Swedes looking troubled)?

[Sumez]

trying to get laid on Tinder, just so they can say "I've seen all nearly all the films of Ingmar Bergman"

Yeah nothing gets you laid on Tinder like being a big nerd

[Bassa-Bassa]

If that's how you're reading it, you are missing the point. It's about which merits you judge the game by.

We've realized that their capacity for judging game design was fundamentally flawed; it's time to acknowledge the same for their similarly lamentable aesthetic sensibility.

English is not my mother tongue as anyone can say, but sounds pretty much like he's focusing on the aesthetics thing now since what these reviewers have to say about the other aspects already had our agreement.