Who started the tradition of creepy organic bosses?

Andy 5 · Post by **Andy 5** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 3:30 am

They appear in countless shmups and run 'n guns. I know people don't like me including run 'n guns with shmups, but the two genres have a great deal in common.

Anyway, I wonder who started the trend of hideous, deformed bosses, enemies and even entire levels...made up of human-like elements mangled together, with maybe some alien elements. I take it the Alien movies were a huge influence here...this boss type (at least among the most gruesome specimens) can be found in Contra: Hard Corps. In actual shmups, one major trend seems to be the "huge deformed baby," found in both Blazing Star and Guwange.

Any thoughts?

RoninBuddha · Post by **RoninBuddha** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 3:36 am

space invaders had organic sea creatures

Asherdude · Post by **Asherdude** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 3:51 am

I'm not sure if it was the first, but it was R-Type (1987) that made organic levels "cool."

Nuke · Post by **Nuke** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 4:21 am

I'd say it was Life Force, then R-type.

Post by **Shatterhand** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 5:00 am

Salamander . Or Life Force if you want to call it like that.

But R-Type made the big impact.

Necronom · Post by **Necronom** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 10:01 am

Yeah, R-Type made the biomechanical style "cool". IREM basically took the style of the alienarchitecture and creaturedesign from the first Alien movie and "built" it into their shmup. Imho quite an achievement because they not just copied it but carefully "translated" it into the aesthetics and mechanics of the game. Since the majority of the aliendesigns for Ridley Scott's masterpiece was done by Swiss surrealist H.R. Giger it can be said that to some extent his designs and paintings are the origin of R-Type's biomech style.
The long phallic alienheads that can be found on the flyer for the original R-Type and later on with some of the enemies in the first two games are clearly a variation of Giger's Alien. R-Type's alienbabies and the bydo landscapes were probably also heavily influenced by Giger's work which features also fetuses fused with strange technology and organic landscapes. Giger is probably the most influential western artist when it comes to videogames although he doesn't seem to be a big fan of them in general.

http://giger.com/Home.jsp

Sonic R · Post by **Sonic R** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 10:09 am

What about Gradius?

Stage 6 - the ameboa stage. That is organic organism to me?

and in Stage 5 its not the boss but those meatballs with arms - those are organic to me too -- creepy

shinsage · Post by **shinsage** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 2:14 pm

Sonic R wrote:What about Gradius?

Stage 6 - the ameboa stage. That is organic organism to me?

and in Stage 5 its not the boss but those meatballs with arms - those are organic to me too -- creepy

No one remembers that stage.
Everyone remembers R-Type.

The latter started the trend.

JoshF · Post by **JoshF** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 3:24 pm

That sentence should've triggered some sort of ban module.

Gradius was plenty organic. I suppose living (key word) Moai statues aren't organic because they're not fleshy. Giant pulsating brain doesn't count either because we like R-Type more.

tviks · Post by **tviks** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 4:14 pm

Doesn't matter whether it was Gradius or R-type. They both have those stages and they're both great.

shinsage · Post by **shinsage** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 5:33 pm

JoshF wrote:That sentence should've triggered some sort of ban module.

Gradius was plenty organic. I suppose living (key word) Moai statues aren't organic because they're not fleshy. Giant pulsating brain doesn't count either because we like R-Type more.

Just because someone did it first doesn't necessarily mean it started the trend.

Double Dragon and Final Fight; the handful of fighters before 1991 and Street Fighter II...there you go.

Tempest · Post by **Tempest** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 6:04 pm

shinsage wrote: Double Dragon and Final Fight; the handful of fighters before 1991 and Street Fighter II...there you go.

Except that both of those games are Beat 'Em Ups, not Fighters per se. Now Fatal Fury, that was a fighter that did it right before SF2 came out. I'm not trying to bust balls here, just informing.

Fighter17 · Post by **Fighter17** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 6:06 pm

Tempest wrote:
shinsage wrote: Double Dragon and Final Fight; the handful of fighters before 1991 and Street Fighter II...there you go.
Except that both of those games are Beat 'Em Ups, not Fighters per se. Now Fatal Fury, that was a fighter that did it right before SF2 came out. I'm not trying to bust balls here, just informing.

Don't sweat it.

Hey, are you the same Tempest from Atari Age?

If that's the case then welcome.

Tempest · Post by **Tempest** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 6:11 pm

Fighter17 wrote:Don't sweat it.

Hey, are you the same Tempest from Atari Age?

If that's the case then welcome.

Sorry, but no. I am Tempest from Mindwerks and Tempest_X1 at Shoryuken.

Ganelon · Post by **Ganelon** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 6:39 pm

Tempest wrote: Except that both of those games are Beat 'Em Ups, not Fighters per se. Now Fatal Fury, that was a fighter that did it right before SF2 came out. I'm not trying to bust balls here, just informing.

Except that Garou Densetsu came months after SFII, making it still a poor clone of a great original game. The fighting genre is unanimously attributed to Karate Champ. Just informing.

shinsage · Post by **shinsage** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 9:13 pm

Tempest wrote:
shinsage wrote: Double Dragon and Final Fight; the handful of fighters before 1991 and Street Fighter II...there you go.
Except that both of those games are Beat 'Em Ups, not Fighters per se. Now Fatal Fury, that was a fighter that did it right before SF2 came out. I'm not trying to bust balls here, just informing.

I'm aware.
My point was that with the beat 'em up genre, Double Dragon was one of the first. But the craze didn't hit until FF came out.

Same deal with the fighting genre. Karate Champ, Yie Ar Kung Fu, etc came out before SFII, but SFII was the spark of the genre.

mainpatr1 · Post by **mainpatr1** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 9:24 pm

Either Biohazard Battle or Gynoug started the trend of bosses that look like private parts.

PC Engine Fan X! · Post by **PC Engine Fan X!** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 10:19 pm

And would/could Cave produce such a bio-mechanical horror themed arcade shmup title in the same vein as Galshell or it's Tate'd sequel?

It would have to a carry a restricted rating, of course for the distrubing graphical imagery and nudity (as shown in the PC demo version) using hand-drawn sprites for that really ugly horror/gore factor & not resorting to CGI rendered imagery. Would really appeal to the horror/gore movie fans, indeed! ^_~

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

Battlesmurf · Post by **Battlesmurf** » Fri Jun 08, 2007 8:47 am

haha...private parts : P I think this f*cking cho- aniki game that I just got off the forum perfects the formula..