Image Fight inspiring Radiant Silvergun

[gs68]

Q: Are there any references to other works?
A: As a game, [Radiant Silvergun] references to previous shooting games as a whole. The game itself can be said to reflect "Image Fight". Other than games, it references to quite a number of things, so I'll leave those out.

Okay, I've asked around #shmups and a few shmup-playing friends and cannot get a straight answer: does anyone know just how Image Fight is the main inspiration for Radiant Silvergun? As far as I know, the only similarities I see are trivial: vertical scrolling shooter and multiple shot types.

[IDA]

Also terrain obstacles in a vertical shooter.

[gs68]

Still not unique enough; several vertical shooters in between had obstacles as well: Axelay, Super Aleste, 1941, among others. Heck, Salamander / Life Force had them before IF.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I think the main similarity is how much of a brainer it is. The most "high-brow" shmup I can think of (somewhat rigid presentation strenghtens this "intellectual" feel). This might sound trivial, but you just HAVE to play it right (unlike some games where you can completely ignore crucial features, like in Dangun Feveron, and yet you can still beat the game). It's very, very unforgiving in this regard. Also, button combinations.
These are my superficial impressions, though, as I haven't played Radiant Silvergun and only briefly played Image Fight.
P.S. Am I the only one who thinks Irem's 8-bit shmups look like PCBs?

Still not unique enough; several vertical shooters in between had obstacles as well: Axelay, Super Aleste, 1941, among others. Heck, Salamander / Life Force had them before IF.

I think Radiant Silvergun's development might just have begun in Hiroshi Iuchi's head in the year 1988, triggered by Image Fight.
Although what stroke me about Image Fight first and foremost is one feature: EVERYTHING seems to be "aware" of your presence. No frills whatsoever; you deal with deadly weapons all the way rather than popcorn, fireworks and confetti. Nothing passes by just for kicks. That's the most unique feature if you ask me. Combined with the brutal button mashing, this makes for one exhausting experience.

[IDA]

Still not unique enough; several vertical shooters in between had obstacles as well: Axelay, Super Aleste, 1941, among others. Heck, Salamander / Life Force had them before IF.

The first two are console shooters. Salamander is a vertical/horizontal hybrid, and even then the obstacles are predominant in horizontal stages.

The point is that in both IF and RS the terrain defines the gameplay in some sections (i.e. long walls that impose strict left/right movement). This is more obvious in RS since it is a vertical shooter in an horizontal monitor.

[Klatrymadon]

Also, whether these features are unique or not, or whether or not you yourself have observed them in RSG, is quite beside the point; Iuchi's just explaining which game influenced them. Which game they played that made them want to get off their arses in the first place. If I told you Alfred Bester and Stanislaw Lem were the biggest influences on my writing, it'd be rather presumptuous and point-missing for you to say "not unique enough; there were plenty of science fiction novelists before them", wouldn't it? At no point is it implied that Image Fight was a trailblazer, and at no point is it implied that RSG was intended to plumb absolutely everything that made it special. When Iuchi says "the game itself can be said to reflect Image Fight", he might well be referring to the same surface sheen you're talking about, although I do think the similarities Obiwanshinobi and IDA have pointed out are meaningful in gameplay terms.

[gray117]

Maybe but learn/copy/influence/idea/feel are all very nuanced ideas, which are probably somewhat lost in translation/culture exchanges.

I would have been interested in the details and little influences that he glosses over... ack well ... just another glimpse into the huge amounts of info lost to us forever [?] from the world of computer games documentation