small things that enhance games of the shooting genre

[orange]

what are some things that may otherwise be overlooked that you guys appreciate in these games?

i really like animated bullets, they add a lot of life to a game's presentation

[Momijitsuki]

Good music is always, always a plus in my book.

[BIL]

Detailed, varied enemy destruction animations -- Raiden II/DX, Battle Garegga and Under Defeat all exemplify this. Popcorn aircraft don't just "bloop!" out of existence ala Gradius, they'll often spiral out of control before finally exploding in a hail of shrapnel. It gives the action a particularly chaotic feeling, and can make the tiniest enemies rewarding to take down.

[Obiwanshinobi]

That shrinking/expanding spheres in Gradius V 1st stage seem to be crying with human voice when you destroy them. Also, I can't get enough of the Einhänder death animations. I'm hereby allowing myself to coin a new term - mechagony (although Google says someone's already invented it). There seems to be a life within those machines (until you do something about it, that is). Einhänder itself moves like a living being (an insect to be precise), which is a nice little feature too.

[BulletMagnet]

I remember making a topic like this WAY back when...probably doesn't exist anymore, though.

Anyways, on the more technical side of things, one feature I always appreciate is separate high score tables for different difficulty levels - thus, whether you want to work your way up to a "normal" 1CC or give yourself an extra challenge, you can easily track your progress rather than trying to sort out a mess of disparate score entries. I always wondered why so few developers bother with it, as it's so easy to implement.

[Taylor]

The smallest thing I can think of is this: ,

And it should go in scores.

[Smraedis]

My hands appreciate autofire when it is there.

[MathU]

one feature I always appreciate is separate high score tables for different difficulty levels - thus, whether you want to work your way up to a "normal" 1CC or give yourself an extra challenge, you can easily track your progress rather than trying to sort out a mess of disparate score entries.

I really appreciate this. I'll add that separate score tables for separate ships/characters like in Castle of Shikigami III is even better because then you actually see people playing other characters for score, instead of nothing but Ixion, Judge Spear, and those cheap slave ships. Why did the developers even bother putting in other ships/characters when a select few are objectively best for scoring? It increases the replay value of Castle of Shikigami III so much for me.

[emphatic]

Pink Flamingos, 5-chips, secret button combos.

[captpain]

I like enemies that blow up with a nice snappy *CRACK*, like in DOJ.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Music is a biggy for me, it was the main thing that drew me to crimson clover when i watched the original gameplay videos, as the music was matched to the action in the vid. Shame the dev has swapped the music for something slightly less apealling.

Another really usefull thing for me is been able to practice each stage seperatly, also the option to just practice against each of the bosses is even better. Still the stages i can practice should all be unlockable and not open as soon as i install the game.

And for doujin / indie shmups, menus in english is great along with a manual that explains the games mechanics in english will save me allot of time searching thru the net looking for titbits of info. And since i hate having to work it all out for myself and unless theyre simple im crap at that sort of thing anyway

[mirkvid]

Cool announcers, especially in Batrider when the guys says "Cool!" when you perform certain actions. It makes me want to trigger it every time I play.

[Neko]

I like it when's there's actually a background story that occurs in each of the levels. The interesting ones like Battle Mania Daijinjou actually make me want to clear each level just to see how the story progresses.

[third_strike]

Regards system:
- no power ups.
- no rank.
- no laser, fire and missile items flaying in screen.
- no bomb bonus.
- no lives bonus.
- no punishment for deaths.
- no chain.
- no loops.
- no check points.
- autofire.
- sub weapon.
- possibility of pressing one button for slowdown the ship.
- anything do your ship invincible during any seconds.
- slow bullets.
- no randomness in boss patterns.
- no TLB harder than whole game.
- presentations can disabled.
- easy boss battles.
- boss battles don't lasts forever.
- no boss milking.
- no pixel based dodges.
- super strong ships which kills enemies before it shooting at you.
- very cheap 1cc.
- small hitbox.
- no obstacles in way.
- possibility of accumulate several bombs and lives.
- infinite extends.
- no deep score system.
- no variable stage order.

Regards trivial:
- good music.
- destructible boss parts.
- no lolis mainly lolis crying, better is without female characters at all.
- good backgrounds.
- no polygons.
- no pre-rendered graphics.
- vertical screen.
- variety bullets shapes (but without flowers or heats shaped bullets).
- visible bullets.
- darkness atmosphere.
It's I like.
Cool!

[TrevHead (TVR)]

theres probably a few crappy shmups that have all those features, cant be arsed thinking of any atm tho

[ROBOTRON]

Good music is always, always a plus in my book.

I'm a sucker for shmup good musics.

[Momijitsuki]

Regards system:
- no power ups.
- no rank.
- no laser, fire and missile items flaying in screen.
- no bomb bonus.
- no lives bonus.
- no punishment for deaths.
- no chain.
- no loops.
- no check points.
- autofire.
- sub weapon.
- possibility of pressing one button for slowdown the ship.
- anything do your ship invincible during any seconds.
- slow bullets.
- no randomness in boss patterns.
- no TLB harder than whole game.
- presentations can disabled.
- easy boss battles.
- boss battles don't lasts forever.
- no boss milking.
- no pixel based dodges.
- super strong ships which kills enemies before it shooting at you.
- very cheap 1cc.
- small hitbox.
- no obstacles in way.
- possibility of accumulate several bombs and lives.
- infinite extends.
- no deep score system.
- no variable stage order.

Regards trivial:
- good music.
- destructible boss parts.
- no lolis mainly lolis crying, better is without female characters at all.
- good backgrounds.
- no polygons.
- no pre-rendered graphics.
- vertical screen.
- variety bullets shapes (but without flowers or heats shaped bullets).
- visible bullets.
- darkness atmosphere.
It's I like.
Cool!

So basically, you like a very easy shmup that gives you absolutely no chance of losing whatsoever? That's...kind of boring

[SockPuppetHyren]

Regards system:
- no power ups.
- no rank.
- no laser, fire and missile items flaying in screen.
- no bomb bonus.
- no lives bonus.
- no punishment for deaths.
- no chain.
- no loops.
- no check points.
- autofire.
- sub weapon.
- possibility of pressing one button for slowdown the ship.
- anything do your ship invincible during any seconds.
- slow bullets.
- no randomness in boss patterns.
- no TLB harder than whole game.
- presentations can disabled.
- easy boss battles.
- boss battles don't lasts forever.
- no boss milking.
- no pixel based dodges.
- super strong ships which kills enemies before it shooting at you.
- very cheap 1cc.
- small hitbox.
- no obstacles in way.
- possibility of accumulate several bombs and lives.
- infinite extends.
- no deep score system.
- no variable stage order.

Regards trivial:
- good music.
- destructible boss parts.
- no lolis mainly lolis crying, better is without female characters at all.
- good backgrounds.
- no polygons.
- no pre-rendered graphics.
- vertical screen.
- variety bullets shapes (but without flowers or heats shaped bullets).
- visible bullets.
- darkness atmosphere.
It's I like.
Cool!

Uh...wha...?

[third_strike]

So basically, you like a very easy shmup that gives you absolutely no chance of losing whatsoever? That's...kind of boring

I have searched shmups names regularly in this site: http://maws.mameworld.info/maws/srch.ph ... ar&cat=104
Then I do rom download of game, credit feed the game, if it is very easy I try 1cc, if no I switch for next. I got 3 cheap 1cc in later two months this way
Now let's back for topic theme.
Cool!

[Battletoad]

Definitely good music is the biggest "small" thing for me. It can raise the fun drastically. Shooters can be perfect gameplaywise, but aren´t complete without a good soundtrack. I´d even say bad shooters can be fun (for some time at least) if they have great music.

@ third_strike
Whoo... what? I thought you once wrote "Nothing can be more fun than lots of memorization and frustration."? How does that match?

[Jeneki]

60fps, minimal input lag, and button config. (sadly, these are overlooked in many modern games)

[Meyers07]

Details... DETAILS!

Like in Raiden DX, where bombs and fallen enemies leave visible scars on the battlefield. Not to mention the reflection of sky in one level, even though Raiden DX is 16-bit.

And variation of subgenres. Like RPG has turn-based or action-based battle, shmup maybe should has sub-archetypes, like shops (Tyrian and Jets'n'Guns) or a system where you pick weapons in the start of the game and disarmed by enemy fire before destroyed (Axelay). The two mentioned are more plausible instead of instant salvaging of weapon upgrade on the go.

[azinth]

When the items you collect are gold pieces of some sort. It's scientifically proven to automatically make a scoring system twice as enjoyable.

[Damocles]

A quick restart button.

[orange]

A quick restart button.

hello cave please implement this or remove stage 1 from futari

[RoninBuddha]

loli

[LtC]

-Minimal input lag.
Can't really get into any shmup with noticeable input lag. I'm looking at you Raizing :(

-Hitboxes smaller than actual sprites.
Makes me always feel a lot better at these games than I actually am.

-Symmetrical~ ship/player & no wobbling character.
Some games can be really annoying with their hitboxes, mostly horizontal games.

-Overpowered ship.
You always must have the feeling that you're able to destroy everything.

-No enemies from behind without a warning.

-No RPG Elements.
No, I don't want to level up anything while I play. Or Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...........

[cools]

-Minimal input lag.
Can't really get into any shmup with noticeable input lag. I'm looking at you Raizing

Wut?

[worstplayer]

Really tiny things:
-Muzzle flash on enemies. Even if you're looking somewhere else you can see there will be bullets coming your way soon.
-Craters and debris. They have no purpose, but it looks cool. Bonus points if debris disappears near player and DOESN'T look like bullets (*cough*raizing*cough*)
-HUD that gets out of the way if you move near it.
-Speaking of HUD, hyper/bomb/shield indicators on, or next to the ship (Crimzon Clover really got this part right)
-Hit indication. Enemies flashing, bullet impact sounds, bullet impact flashes, anything that shows you're doing damage. This is especially important if there are very small or invulnerable enemies.
-If there's any scrape system, something showing successful scrape (sparks please).

[Keade]

A stage select option.