is that none of the newer shmups have tried to really break new ground in shmup land. I have not really seen any good mix and cross polination of ideas from other genres and have them cohere well and get everything right, like it feels like it belongs there.
I played ikaruga and I thought it was pretty much ho-hum and bordering on average. So I thought to myself, we've had decades and we're still flying, dodging and shooting, and the best they could up with was absorbing bullets? the decision tree and interactivity with entities in shmups is painfully lacking.
If I play a game like Graidus V with the aiming laser vs playing Ikaruga, I'll take gradius V every time. Ikaruga for me had major problems with what I call "constrained options", that is, the game doesn't have much to do beyond move, shoot, absorb... the environment was sterile and lacking in interactivity, you couldn't say grab enemies, chuck them around, etc... now I know this was Ikaruga (arcade port) but my point is Ikaruga is the symbol of why the shmup genre died out.
This is a serious problem for a lot of shmups across the genre, it's like they can't think of more things for a plane or ship to do besides fly and shoot -- I've had SO many ideas for what other things it could be capable of doing it could do I could fill up my garage! The point is - interactivity and the user having many decisions and options at his disposal for how he chooses to interact with the world and the entities in it, as well as how they are designed to react and interact in reverse towards the player as well.
The interaction between enemies is severely lacking, why does the plane need to just shoot enemies? Why can't you fly into enemies? why can't your plane grow arms (mecha) and toss enemies into other enemies, and have them bounce off one another? Imagine doing chains by chucking enemies into enemies by predicting the bouncing path! My mind overflows with creative ideas whenever I play ikaruga for an extended period of time and my annoyance factor at the constraints of ikaruga reaches its pinnacle
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)
I wish I had the skills to go about implementing them, it seems a lot of game dev's are lacking in imagination... Also I watched the guys at blizzard hammer home during one of their presentations at one of the gaming development conferences, that I saw posted online... they said "what you think is fun... is not always the case!" (paraphrased) and hence the need for feedback.
Many devs (i.e. team behind ikaruga) seem focus on highly constrained and unimaginative gameplay, sometimes to the extent of other aspects of the game - story - feeling, etc. Ikaruga was so bland if you stripped it of its graphics and bullet absorbtion... there would be no game there at all... nothing worth selling anyway, it would be like an early alpha of some other shmup game. With Ikaruga... It I just wanted to pull my hair out. I know it was a port of an arcade game but man, it just shows me how unimaginative a lot of people capable of developing games really are.
I've noticed one truism for all games and game devs over my many years of gaming - some devs get what fun is and how to make games, while other devs don't. So hence my truism: "Just because you have the skills to develop a game, does not mean you know how to develop a fun gaming experience!"
Now... even with older retro shmups like UN Squadron/Area 88 (one of my personal fav's still to this day). Is that many shmup developers don't seem to evolve beyond fly, powerups and shoot - the objects and enemies and the options you have for interacting with them is so constrained as to be mindbogglingly numb.
There is so much potential in the 2D shmup genre but many shmup developers have a terrible lack of imagination. I think anime like Macross Frontier should be required movie viewing and other animes like it if they want to know all the cool shit we gamers wish our shmuppy machines could do!
I go back from time to time and play retro shmups and analyze and determine what is fun about them, and one thing I've noticed is the lack of interactivity, like shmup interactivity just stopped at move/dodge/powerup/shoot + cool visuals...
I only wish I had the time and the skills to get my ideas out there, but you devs with the skills can get the creative ideas implemented! What I hope this message does - is to cause you to think differently of WHAT ELSE could this machine/fantasy creature/etc be doing? What else could my enemies be possible of doing? What kinds of options do they have for interacting with each other beyond shoot, move, get hit and blow up?
The lack of choices and options for interactivity has been really hurting the shmup genre for me, and it's one of the reasons that even Gradius V for the PS2 sits on my shelf unless I have a buddy to play with or I am in a particular mood. My favorite weapoin in Gradius V was the steerable laser, because it put me "back in the game" and kept my attention focused, rather then merely move , align myself, and press a 'fire and forget' weapon. Fire and forget weaponry (without any imagination) is one of the things I think that has been killing the genre itself, because many devs can't seem to get beyond rehashing it endlessly.
The way weapons work, feel and are designed are based on a model that is over decades old by now. Try weapons that are not merely "fire and forget", try air-melee, plane-mecha transforms (ala macross), etc, etc... the sky is the limit, go find movies and mine the interweb for ideas... because I want to see the shmup genre come back desperately... I feel they have given fun and imagination the "cold shoulder"
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)