Tell us the daft crap non shmuppers say about the genre

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Been fans of such a missunderstood niche genre that is shmups its allways been easy to come across daft and miss informed notions about our beloved genre of gaming. Weather they make you laugh or want to rip their heart out one thing is clear that many folk dont know a great deal about shmups.

Anyway, i thought it would be a laugh if ppl would tell us some of the worst dumb fuckery said by noobs about shmups that youve encountered. I know its abit elitist but who cares its all game for a cheap laugh eh?

Heres one. One guy was adament (and wouldnt listen to reason) that touhou was originally not for the PC-98 but came out 20 years ago on the NES, he then went on to say that touhou was the grandaddy of all shmups with all modern shmups been clones of touhou. After some resarch to prove the idiot wrong a came across a fangame for the PC that remade one of the touhoui games into a NES era game and it was probably this where he got his crackpot idea from.

[mrtie]

Me: So I'm excited about this new game I having coming in this week, been waiting for a few years for it to come out.

Coworker: Cool man what game is it I've been looking for something new to play.

Me: Well it's a 2d shooter..

Coworker: What's that...

Me: Older arcade style shooting game

Coworker: Like House of the dead?

Me: No, more like Raiden

Coworker: ? no idea...

Me: *Cues* up video on my phone of Ketsui

Coworker: I don't get it isn't that like an NES game? It's all old looking, that looks stupid, you should buy MW2 instead bro.

Me: Walks away....

[ncp]

If I had a nickel every time someone told me they're "easy because all you have to do is memorize it, its the same every time"...

[esreveR]

Someone asked me if I were Japanese when I told them my shmup highscores.

I'm actually Chinese-American...

Also, someone once told me that playing shmups for score was for losers. Then he went on to brag about his CoD achievements...what irony.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I'm not pals with any of these people. Just recalling a couple of quotes.
From here:

Sometime in the mid 90s, some probably Japanese b*stard decided that shmups had to be ripped screaming and kicking from the masses, where they'd provided fun and cheap thrills for beer cuddling students for years (myself included) by allowing you to shoot the sh*t out of lots of thingies and make big explosions for not a lot of effort. From the early days of Defender, Scramble and Vanguard, through Salmander and R Type, sensible difficulty levels prevailed for the most part, with reasonable reflexes (even beer sozzled) and a rough idea of what came next being enough for most of the game, and ridiculous pixel memorisation not required until at worst the last few levels.

Nope, this wasn't good enough. Fun had to be banished, sometime around Ikaruga o'clock, and the hapless shmup kidnapped to a dark room to be the gimp of spotty OCD types who think memorising 12000 bullet trajectories and timings is the funnest way to spend a Saturday night.

And here:

I used to love them in the arcade and up until the end of the megadrive.
Then it seemed to be a case of "we can put a squillian bullets on screen at once so we better had"

I'd rather they focused more on a test of reflexes rather than an OCD level of bullet pattern memorising.

What strikes me about such statements is how clueless those people seem to be about the specific character of modern shmups (i.e. frilly, nuanced scoring). Of course scoring systems in modern shmups aren't terribly self-explanatory...
Also, I'm sick of people who know fuck all about OCD calling things OCD.

[originalz]

I'd say that anyone who knows what Touhou is would probably be more informed than 99% of the average gaming population.

The general fear of "bullet-hell" games can probably be attributed to mainstream sites spamming that Mushihime-sama video whenever the topic of modern shooters are mentioned. It's somewhat frustrating, I suppose, but I guess the genre never really evolved in the west like it did in Japan...it just kind of showed up out of nowhere for most people.

I guess a recent example for me was when I brought some friends to my place and one of them wanted to play shooting games. The other guy is a pretty casual gamer so I threw in Deathsmiles. He seemed to enjoy playing it, but couldn't comprehend that the game was released recently, was just as expensive as any other game, and that I spent full price on it. He kept going on about it in disbelief, wondering how I even found out about the game to begin with.

I put in Shooting Love afterwards and we all had a blast playing the skills test together though, it's become part of the regular gaming rotation when we get together!

[gs68]

Also, someone once told me that playing shmups for score was for losers. Then he went on to brag about his CoD achievements...what irony.

Someone once cussed me out for caring (and complaining) about Guitar Hero's scoring system. =/

Going with what originalz said, how not to introduce people to Touhou: Later stages on Lunatic!

[Mischief Maker]

Well to be fair, bullet hell is supposed to be intimidating.

[gs68]

Yeah, the easiest bullet hell shooter is harder than the hardest not-danmaku shooter. =/

[MX7]

Yeah, the easiest bullet hell shooter is harder than the hardest not-danmaku shooter. =/

"=/" indeed! I'd love to see some of these people who claim that modern shooters are much harder than 'vintage' ones try something like Tasujin Oh or Tiger Heli. I was playing Image Fight the other day and I was absolutely delighted to get to the end of stage 2 on a super god-like fluke run. The stress and torment of playing this game... a far more 'manic shooter' than anything but the most bloody minded of modern danmakus!

[Skyline]

Aside from the usual confusion from the mention of the umbrella-classification "shooting game", I don't really get any of that.

Shmups are a weird breed of genre as far as popular perception, mostly due to it's heritage. Most if not all of the people who I discuss the genre with know full well what it is, and have an admiration for some favorites (mostly Raiden/Gradius, sometimes odd ducks like Darius Gaiden). They just don't play them anymore, and have moved on to the other genres that have become prevalent in the current age of console and online gaming, at the same time moving away from the arcade. When you get settled and comfortable in that bubble, genres like shmups start to seem irrelevant, much like a small portion of the folks here may have a disdain for the offerings of the current generation...they're perfectly happy with the classic and recent offerings in their favorite genre.

Shmups are not a boring genre by any stretch of the word, according to these aforementioned people. Picking up Raiden Fighters Aces itself spurred a discussion with the game store employees about how entertaining the original RF was, and the Raiden series in general, and eventually a list of choice favorites (surprisingly enough a lot of people in Reno seem to love Giga Wing). They'd heard of RFA and noticed it on their shelves but did not know that there was still an active scene for the genre overseas, and that the Japanese PS2/360 libraries cover the bulk of it (and don't get started on the Dreamcast)

As for danmaku, those who actually play them (at least in the cases I've seen) seem to get the basic feel of the game after coming to grips with the rationale behind collision boxes and such, and begin to grasp the point of the game after explaining the limitations placed on what can be considered an all-clear, as well as the scoring potential contained within. The 360 and PS3's respective achievement systems and rankings may be increasing awareness of game mastery, in this genre's case signifying that there IS a point to the single-credit-clear/high scoring, GamerScore whores be damned.

I do hope Deathsmiles does well upon release. There is a lot of potential there.

[Subterranean Sun]

"What? No, Raiden IV is too easy. You should go and play some Touhou."

[evil_ash_xero]

I have a good friend who said that it didn't take skill to be great at shmups, since all you needed was "reflexes". Uh..

Also, he said he didn't see how you could make a bad shmup, since they're all so simple.

I think he's getting better though.

[antares]

Here are some comments regarding Mushi Futari from xbox360achievements.org:

ありがとう : Clear all modes in arrange, in one credit(each) - 80G
lol thats impossible..i can survive for 1 minute in the first stage in ultra mode xD
Pretty much impossible for me too. I can clear stage 2 in one credit, but after that is absolutely ridiculous.

I've never played any of the games and will be getting this for chirstmas. So realistically, Could I expect to eventually get almost all of them?

does anyone else have massive slowdowns when you earn maximum power and shit all over the screen? makes the game almost unplayable

This game achievement is so screwed up..
1 credit ultra mode is not possible IMO. Plus you need to be at default setting or else the achievement won't unlock.... I really hope i can use cheat code for this game.. *sigh*

Japanese games are always the same, always RPG, Turn-Based Fantasy Amine shit, except POKEMON! LEGEND

this games = garbage...get tossed

The game is ok, its hard as hell though. Its v1.5 because it came out in the arcades and PS2 in the past. You will be able to play this game on a North American or European game console via a region free "Asia" release (not the Japan only release). I don't recommend the game though because like I said, its hard as hell.

I thought they would of made it an Xbox Live title, released in every regions.. shame, as I would of liked to get my hands on this without the needs of importing a fully priced retail copy for what is essentially a simple arcade game.


I'm sure you can find equally good ones for ESPGaluda 2

[Observer]

Here are some comments regarding Mushi Futari from xbox360achievements.org:

ありがとう : Clear all modes in arrange, in one credit(each) - 80G
lol thats impossible..i can survive for 1 minute in the first stage in ultra mode xD
Pretty much impossible for me too. I can clear stage 2 in one credit, but after that is absolutely ridiculous.

I've never played any of the games and will be getting this for chirstmas. So realistically, Could I expect to eventually get almost all of them?

does anyone else have massive slowdowns when you earn maximum power and shit all over the screen? makes the game almost unplayable

This game achievement is so screwed up..
1 credit ultra mode is not possible IMO. Plus you need to be at default setting or else the achievement won't unlock.... I really hope i can use cheat code for this game.. *sigh*

Japanese games are always the same, always RPG, Turn-Based Fantasy Amine shit, except POKEMON! LEGEND

this games = garbage...get tossed

The game is ok, its hard as hell though. Its v1.5 because it came out in the arcades and PS2 in the past. You will be able to play this game on a North American or European game console via a region free "Asia" release (not the Japan only release). I don't recommend the game though because like I said, its hard as hell.

I thought they would of made it an Xbox Live title, released in every regions.. shame, as I would of liked to get my hands on this without the needs of importing a fully priced retail copy for what is essentially a simple arcade game.


I'm sure you can find equally good ones for ESPGaluda 2

This leaves me speechless. We need more of those reaction pictures. It's like all the shit I've been reading for a while churned in a single place... "Simple arcade game" (lol) and lol, and more lol. Ok, there is so much lol... Proving that achievements might actually cause a counter-productive effect and make these people hate the games even more.

[Udderdude]

.

[drunkninja24]

Yeah, the easiest bullet hell shooter is harder than the hardest not-danmaku shooter. =/

"=/" indeed! I'd love to see some of these people who claim that modern shooters are much harder than 'vintage' ones try something like Tasujin Oh or Tiger Heli. I was playing Image Fight the other day and I was absolutely delighted to get to the end of stage 2 on a super god-like fluke run. The stress and torment of playing this game... a far more 'manic shooter' than anything but the most bloody minded of modern danmakus!

Yeah, Raiden II still kicks my ass handily to this day, despite being fairly decent at more recent Cave games.

[captpain]

From the early days of ... R Type, sensible difficulty levels prevailed for the most part, with reasonable reflexes (even beer sozzled) and a rough idea of what came next being enough for most of the game, and ridiculous pixel memorisation not required until at worst the last few levels.

[NR777]

The R-Type comment is seriously disturbing. R-Type is more difficult than DoDonPachi by quite a bit.

[The Coop]

"What's Thunder Force? Is it a sequel to The Force Unleashed, cuz I love Star Wars games."

[lgb]

why would you not recommend a game to someone because it's hard

[Ruldra]

Because it's too intimidating for newcomers?

[emphatic]

After credit-feeding through Futari (Novice) a friend of mine went "That's it? How much did you pay for this, it's way too short." I then let him try 1.5 Ultra and he just shook his head after that.

[monkeyman]

I recall reading a review of Ikaruga which basically said 'the games too easy, you literally press one button and once it's finished there's nothing more to do'. Unless this guy is a bullet eating god I'm assuming the one button he pressed was 'start' at the continue screen.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Hehe i love what that poster wrote at EB games forum, i would love to know which r-type hes on about that u can play pissed up and requires no memorisation.

And i just shuck my head reading antare's post about futari achievements.

hehe classic

does anyone else have massive slowdowns when you earn maximum power and shit all over the screen? makes the game almost unplayable

This game achievement is so screwed up..
1 credit ultra mode is not possible IMO. Plus you need to be at default setting or else the achievement won't unlock.... I really hope i can use cheat code for this game.. *sigh*

Theres another gamer who doesnt GET video games, is not the result but the journey thats the fun part. Plus whats the point in claiming a achievement if he cheated for it? how miss guided our western gamers are.

BTW those of you on this forum who live in the east, could you tell us what mentality of your local gamers are like? are they many similar to our mainstream gamers or do many gamers understand why hard gaming is so much fun. Im intrested to know. although i would geuess in Japan theres more of a "hardcore" crowd there, or are they still a very small minority with most of their gamers just like our western gamers and dont know their arse from their elbow?

[Taylor]

Find a shmup on youtube with over 20,000 views and you could probably fill 5 pages of this thread. Particularly Cave videos because at least half the comments will be touhou fans saying how easy it is by comparison, but I'm sure you can find gems in all of them. This provided enough rage in the niche thread, for example (and I'm glad someone decided "look, let's just stop trying to analyse it" and made this thread).

[NR777]

Particularly Cave videos because at least half the comments will be touhou fans saying how easy it is by comparison

This. One of my biggest pet peeves, actually: ignorant fanboys talking shit about games they have never played.

[Ebbo]

I can't really describe how much antares' post baffles me
That's just wrong.
I also wholeheartedly agree with Taylor's post.

More daft crap from non shmuppers: some guy at finnish gameforums bought Mushihimesama Futari Black Label from XBLA. He thought it was the actual game, but soon realized it was just an extra mode. That was hilarious on its own, but then he declared how he was going to buy and master the game. "After this, Gradius games are like nothing!"

I asked him if he had played Gradius III AC. He just lolled how easy they are and posted video of the first Gradius.

[gs68]

Particularly Cave videos because at least half the comments will be touhou fans saying how easy it is by comparison

Huh. I've run into a Touhou fan or two who thinks Futari on anything is the hardest thing ever.

[lgb]

but then he declared how he was going to buy and master the game. "After this, Gradius games are like nothing!"

wait no this is half-awesome