Why shmups are such a niche genre

[lgb]

Whoa, missed some posts.

good shmup players are bad for arcades

...What? What kind of logic is this? These people do not stop playing for at least months. Even good players will still credit feed for the heck of it sometimes.

blahckberry nonsense

HURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

(Y00T00B-CLASS COMMENTS... ON A BLACKBERRY)

OH LOOK, SEAGULLS

...DURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

[Obiwanshinobi]

Touhou apologists are supposed to be sad loonies, huh? Well, on these forums I've yet to see them getting smug or aggressive to the point of becoming a bunch of obnoxious pricks for the sheer heck of it.

[lgb]

That's because they usually ignore these forums.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Quite a few people voted for Touhou games in the 8th Annual Top 25 Shmups of All Time - voting thread. There are high scores and strategy threads about Touhou games. They seem fairly popular over here.

[moozooh]

Quite a few people voted for Touhou games in the 8th Annual Top 25 Shmups of All Time - voting thread. There are high scores and strategy threads about Touhou games. They seem fairly popular over here.

If you count the amount of people who've posted a competent score here, you'll end up with like… 10–12 players across all boards? Of which about a half has only worked on a single game of the series. That doesn't look too popular to me, to be honest, which is a shame because these players know these games deserve better.

[Obiwanshinobi]

But those who voted for Touhou even though they don't have flashy scores to post seem to like the games nonetheless. You're not gonna impress anyone by claiming to like Touhou after all. These games are too affordable to evoke any sort of collector's fetishism either.
It's not like all people raving about Cave on here are good at Cave games or even play them that much. How about voting for Ketsui despite not having played it? Of course Cave popularity isn't all mutual faggotry smoke and mirrors, but there is certain degree of snobbery attached to it.
I think it's safe to say Touhou games are relatively popular, for doujin stuff, that is. I mean, in the "doujin shmup" category.

[Exarion]

Touhou receives large amounts of complaints due to the fandom, particularly the part that does not make a serious effort to play the games. The games are generally well liked among those who play them. Too many people associate Touhou with the fandom and ignore the actual games.

[moozooh]

But those who voted for Touhou even though they don't have flashy scores to post seem to like the games nonetheless. You're not gonna impress anyone by claiming to like Touhou after all. These games are too affordable to evoke any sort of collector's fetishism either.

When I was talking about high scores I mainly meant that the score threads are pretty much empty. The games get some attention upon release, but the amount of people playing them for score from that point on drops enough to count them on one hand. As for Lunatic modes, the amount of people even attempting to scorerun them competently is even less, it's mostly a 1CC struggle.

I guess I could list Psyvariar 2 as another such game that is widely available (arcade, Dreamcast, PS2, Xbox — pretty much every shmup fan has a chance to play it in one way or another), is easy to beat, challenging to score in, has nice production values, is all-around appealing, and is loved by people who play it. Sounds like a popular game, right? But what really happens, as you can see on the scoreboard, is that barely anybody ever plays it, let alone competes. I admit I am guilty of it as well, because I stopped playing it way earlier than I should have (it became more demanding and I didn't have the motivation at the time), but at least I see a clear picture of what's happening. And this picture is rather disappointing.

I think it's safe to say Touhou games are relatively popular, for doujin stuff, that is. I mean, in the "doujin shmup" category.

Sure, it has no real competitors among the doujin scene. But I wasn't referring to Touhou as a doujin franchise, but a shmup franchise in general. Exarion summed up the situation pretty well in the post above.

[Rob]

I guess I could list Psyvariar 2 as another such game that is widely available (arcade, Dreamcast, PS2, Xbox — pretty much every shmup fan has a chance to play it in one way or another), is easy to beat, challenging to score in, has nice production values, is all-around appealing, and is loved by people who play it. Sounds like a popular game, right? But what really happens, as you can see on the scoreboard, is that barely anybody ever plays it, let alone competes.

If you mean playing it forever and ever, no, it's not worth that. I already played it and had a score up on the last version of the forum (closer to the time it was released). Others did too.

[moozooh]

Well, indeed, I didn't know what happened on the previous version of the board, but since 2005 there were only a few players attempting anything serious in it. It's undercompeted despite a huge and ever-present leeway for improvement. The only rational reason I see why less rewarding games like DDP enjoy way more attention despite the shortcomings is that they're available on MAME.

Besides, you don't even play games for score anymore, do you? :P

[Obiwanshinobi]

I guess I could list Psyvariar 2 as another such game that is widely available (arcade, Dreamcast, PS2, Xbox — pretty much every shmup fan has a chance to play it in one way or another), is easy to beat, challenging to score in, has nice production values, is all-around appealing, and is loved by people who play it. Sounds like a popular game, right? But what really happens, as you can see on the scoreboard, is that barely anybody ever plays it, let alone competes. I admit I am guilty of it as well, because I stopped playing it way earlier than I should have (it became more demanding and I didn't have the motivation at the time), but at least I see a clear picture of what's happening. And this picture is rather disappointing.

If you put it this way, I don't think there's enough people who play shmups competitively left to render every good shmup popular. They are too damn demanding to serve them all properly if there's only so many people interested in the genre. On top of that, wonders of emulation easily make people spread themselves too thin.

[gs68]

These games are too affordable to evoke any sort of collector's fetishism either.

In fact, I've been chewed out by a few fans for expressing my interest in buying 1 or 2 of the games instead of just doing t3h t0rrentz.

(Ironically, the one TH game I have bought is one of the fighting games. And I don't play fighters a lot. FML.)

[Exarion]

And that’s the reason why ports of arcade shooters will only ever be appreciated by a narrow few. Because the rest of the world, those who don’t hang out in the right online forums, have a friend with a Japanese arcade cabinet in their rec room, or own a good arcade stick for the Xbox (an absolute must for precision play of this game) will have to learn to love Deathsmiles on their own. And game that kills you every three seconds can be hard to love.

http://g4tv.com/games/xbox-360/53714/De ... on/review/

I agree with almost everything he says on why the genre is so niche. The only point is disagree with is the lack of motivation to do better at home, though that might be because I found the high scores forum early on in my introduction to shmups. Maybe we just need to give the player a bit of background?

[drunkninja24]

And that’s the reason why ports of arcade shooters will only ever be appreciated by a narrow few. Because the rest of the world, those who don’t hang out in the right online forums, have a friend with a Japanese arcade cabinet in their rec room, or own a good arcade stick for the Xbox (an absolute must for precision play of this game) will have to learn to love Deathsmiles on their own. And game that kills you every three seconds can be hard to love.

http://g4tv.com/games/xbox-360/53714/De ... on/review/

I agree with almost everything he says on why the genre is so niche. The only point is disagree with is the lack of motivation to do better at home, though that might be because I found the high scores forum early on in my introduction to shmups. Maybe we just need to give the player a bit of background?

Wow, that was actually a good review (and even mentions us ), and the lack of motivation point is valid. Way back in the SNES era, I credit-fed shooters all the time and then put them down because, well, the game was beaten. I'd go back to them once in a while, but never tried to play seriously or go for a good score. It really wasn't until I found this forum and the wider shmup community that I really came to appreciate these games in a whole new way to me. But most people will never seek out this community or others like it and thus, will never really catch on to learning the intricacies of the genre on their own.

[Subterranean Sun]

Touhou is popular.
Touhou shmups are NOT popular.
It's safe to say 99% of the Touhoufags has never beat Normal on their own.

[Sobek]

And that’s the reason why ports of arcade shooters will only ever be appreciated by a narrow few. Because the rest of the world, those who don’t hang out in the right online forums, have a friend with a Japanese arcade cabinet in their rec room, or own a good arcade stick for the Xbox (an absolute must for precision play of this game) will have to learn to love Deathsmiles on their own. And game that kills you every three seconds can be hard to love.

http://g4tv.com/games/xbox-360/53714/De ... on/review/

I agree with almost everything he says on why the genre is so niche. The only point is disagree with is the lack of motivation to do better at home, though that might be because I found the high scores forum early on in my introduction to shmups. Maybe we just need to give the player a bit of background?

One would hope that the whole online leaderboard/achievement culture, combined with the interest in retro gaming would help people understand the idea of playing for score/1cc.

[gs68]

"ALL Clear...but try to use less credits next time!"

Hell, even something like that would come off as a grave insult to newcomers. >:

[t0yrobo]

There's plenty of games that destroy your score when you continue. Although since people don't even consider even their personal hs board that much it's not a very significant punishment for playing that way. Whatever happened to games that made you earn more credits through play time?

[gs68]

I've found that most people, especially Touhou fans, don't care for score. They'd feel more proud of 1CC'ing DeathSmiles on level 1/1/1/1/1/1 than getting 9-digit scores.

[drunkninja24]

Whatever happened to games that made you earn more credits through play time?

Then all you end up with is the same whiners going "OMG WHY CAN'T I CONTINUE I DON'T WANNA PLAY THESE SAME LEVELS A MILLION TIMES TO GET FURTHER!!!"

Seriously, you can't win if you limit continues, and you can't win if you have them available from the start.

[Obiwanshinobi]

You can win if you give people the stage select option for training purposes just the way Raiden III does (you can start each stage - bar 1 - with your weapons of choice). Gradius V begs for it (beginning a stage without options and powerups isn't something you normally do during a regular run).
P.S. Senko no Ronde Duo review is up on Eurogamer.

[Kyle]

Then all you end up with is the same whiners going "OMG WHY CAN'T I CONTINUE I DON'T WANNA PLAY THESE SAME LEVELS A MILLION TIMES TO GET FURTHER!!!"

Yep, these games punish us casual players (Psikyo).

I would rather have a screen at the end of the run that said "You continued 5 times. Try harder next time." This would give people more of an incentive to reply. The actual ending could be concealed until you beat the game at X difficulty with X number of credits.

I'm a guy with a job and a kid. Shmups are my favorite genre of games. The last three new games I bought were Deathsmiles, Espgaluda II and Mushi Futari. That being said, I'm lucky to get an hour of play in on a good day.

I would rather credit feed my first few runs and gradually get better. The first time I played DS I'm sure I put a dozen credits in it. Now I'm down to about 3. That gives me far more satisfaction than replaying a level like with Dragon Blaze on PS2. That felt like a grind.

[Bananamatic]

I've found that most people, especially Touhou fans, don't care for score. They'd feel more proud of 1CC'ing DeathSmiles on level 1/1/1/1/1/1 than getting 9-digit scores.

Touhou scoring is horrible and it doesn't reward you in any way - most of the games have a different extend system and the score based extends are hilariously easy to get.

Back when I played the games I didn't care about scoring one bit, once I started playing arcade shmups I became atleast somewhat interested in scoring better, if only for the extends.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

That DS review is quite good. Is it me or are many of the review sites starting to get their act together when it comes to reviewing shmups? Maybe the complaining about the standard of shmup reviews is having an effect. (or the fact that its a hori)

Plus i totally agree that shmup devs and the wider comunity need to spread the word on the proper way of playing these games. Luckly for me when i first redescovered shmups (ite7s 20 best doujin shmups video), I imediatly found this forum thus I saw the light so to speak and totally fell in love with shmups, with both the games themselves and the whole shmup philosophy.

Maybe If i hadnt found this forum as i first began to play shmups things might of turned out more like so many others -

(Scenario 1) Joe Blogs Gamer discovers shmup, Plays shmup and is wowed by the gameplay, explosions and other 2d eye candy etc but after credit feeding to the end 2 or 3 times and due to approaching the shmup just like he would anyother game he quickly gets bored, gives up and goes back to playing TF2. Gamer thinks of the expeirence as a fun but shallow diversion from his FPS, RPGs etc (also if he shelled out $60 or whatever he might even feel ripped off)

(Scenario 2) Joe Blogs Gamer discovers shmup, Plays shmup and is wowed by the gameplay, explosions and other 2d eye candy etc and because he finds out about the whole shmup theory (either from reviews or even the game itself) totally falls in love with the genre, becomes a total shmup nut, visits this forum, starts a new thread asking a dumb/ repeated question thus pissing off half the residents here lol.

[gs68]

I just don't credit-feed, unless it's a checkpoint-based game (like R-Type or Ninja Gaiden), or a light gun game. Credit-feeding messes up my mindset and now my efforts to finish the game revolve around bombspamming and creditfeeding instead of trying to survive.

[Exarion]

A meme only Touhou fan attempts to play the games. He finds them excessively hard, even on easy. He asks for help. The rest is here. It goes on until the bottom of page 57, at which point our newbie (implicitly) decides to abandon the games. The whole discussion is basically someone on the outside stating why the genre is niche. There's too much to post here, even if I cut it down a lot, so you'll have to read it there.

[ryu]

The discussion itself doesn't even seem to matter. That person's just bitching around for the sake of bitching around.

He doesn't even want to like them.

[gs68]

There is really no shame in bombspamming or using Easy modes. If I recall, Futari Novice was well-received here.

Twiddle, who nailed 130 million on RFJ [360->Normal], bombspammed the fuck out of the TLB.

As for dumb mistakes, everyone has them too. Though in the case of games that aren't Raiden Fighters, sometimes I'll just bite the bullet and keep going, and find my "ffffffuuuuu" run turn into a record run.

[iluvmonsterz]

Whoa, missed some posts.

good shmup players are bad for arcades

...What? What kind of logic is this? These people do not stop playing for at least months. Even good players will still credit feed for the heck of it sometimes.

blahckberry nonsense

HURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

(Y00T00B-CLASS COMMENTS... ON A BLACKBERRY)

OH LOOK, SEAGULLS

...DURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

i wrote neither of the above "quoted" statements. if youre going to quote someone make sure its an actual statement..or else its not a quote..

[Lok]

A meme only Touhou fan attempts to play the games. He finds them excessively hard, even on easy. He asks for help. The rest is here. It goes on until the bottom of page 57, at which point our newbie (implicitly) decides to abandon the games. The whole discussion is basically someone on the outside stating why the genre is niche. There's too much to post here, even if I cut it down a lot, so you'll have to read it there.

That guy was clearly broken mentally by Touhou lol. However, despite everyone saying they would help him out, he kept making excuses and blaming the fandom. It is a shame that he probably isn't a minority in his opinion but at the same time, casual players that enjoy the genre tend to get ridiculed or heckeld (though sometimes playfully) by the score savy fans. Even then, getting a 1CC on Deathsmiles for ex, tends to lead to remarks that downplay the achievement. Same with a 1CC on MF: BL.

On an unrelated note, after going to that tvtropes link and going on tangents and a click-fest, I came upon this gem in relation to Deathsmiles.

"# Fan Dumb: Mainly amongst those who already own the Japanese version, thanks in part to Aksys's questionable-quality localization. Some say the game never should have been localized. "

I seriously had to laugh cause I'm sure MachineAres 1CC lended heavily to that.