Most Influentual Shooters in History

[ThirdStrike]

What shooters do you think changed the SHMUP history beyond anything imagined.

To me it goes by 4 important decades. These are some of my highlights.

70's Space Invaders / Defender / Asteroids
80's Gradius / 1941 / Twin Cobra
90's Raiden / Strikers 1945 / Radiant Silvergun
2000's Ikaruga / Mushihime Sama / Ketsui


Talk amongst yourselves

[BUHA]

Just for discussion:

How is Mushi influential? I've never played it, I'm sure it's good and everything, but isn't it pretty ordinary?

[ThirdStrike]

Just for discussion:

How is Mushi influential? I've never played it, I'm sure it's good and everything, but isn't it pretty ordinary?

This game is influential in the fact it is releasing a SPIN off Puzzle game cell phone mini games and more extras MISC items (Dolls,Toys, Soundtracks) for sale then any other shooter in existence. It has one hell of a marketing scheme going for itself that is sustaining even the PCB's game price NEAR Ibara.

[BUHA]

Pac-Man had a lot more merchandise than Mushi.

[Rob]

Gradius has spin-offs that begot more spin-offs. And more merchandise than every Cave game combined. And none of it has to do with gameplay. So hell no at Cave's blandest game being influential. Any influence Cave has had on other companies has been and will primarily remain in the past (DP/DDP).

[ThirdStrike]

Pac-Man had a lot more merchandise than Mushi.

Pacman is not a shooter


And Games can be influential to the player not just other companies.

Obivously it influenced its OWN company Cave Company Limited into INVESTING many different ideas for it's product name.

[Rob]

Gunbird 2 influenced me to rotate my TV once.

[BUHA]

But what would it influence players to do? Buy little kiddie porn cut out dolls?

I'm not buying this argument!


What's so influential about Ketsui? Nobody's even PLAYED it! I don't even know what it LOOKS like!

[ThirdStrike]

Gunbird 2 influenced me to rotate my TV once.

Ikaruga,Espgaluda, Mushihime Sama make me rotate my TV just about every week.

[Rob]

But Gunbird 2 did it first.

[Specineff]

Choaniki!

[LAshujin]

Hmm, Silvergun influenced.....nothing after it. It was cool, but I don't see imitations everywhere.

I'd say DDP made the modern Manic shmup popular, maybe Garegga - I don't like it but I've heard shmup developers look back to it.

[Ord]

R-Type!

[SteevTee]

R-Type!

Yeah, that game pushed the boundaries of weapon systems and level to level variety.

[AAA]

Erm...

R-TYPE!

GALAGA!

[SteevTee]

Oh, I forgot to add my list:

Xevious
R-type
Asteroids

[SAM]

I thin the most influential Cave's shump is the DDP. Because..

(1) It defines the Cave's style of manaic shump.

(2) It is the most well know in the west.

[CIT]

1. Space Invaders
2. Defender
3. Xevious
4. Gradius
5. R-Type
7. Dodonpachi
8. Thunder Force III
9. Flying Shark
10. Twinbee

[BulletMagnet]

Off the top of my head...

1) DoDonPachi: Set the standard for the modern "manic" shmup, by most estimates.

2) Batsugun: Pioneered "manic-ism" even before DDP or its predecessor, and paved the way for the transition from "Raiden-esque" shooters to "DDP-esque" shooters being in the majority; the "Special Version" added in even more such characteristics (notably the smaller hitbox).

3) RSG: Few imitators since, but if nothing else it showed that shmups could be "epic," with a big, complex (and, imo, pretentious) plot, a whole bunch of gameplay and scoring mechanics to tinker with, and lots of space to cover. Also showed just how expensive shmups could get, heh.

4) R-Type: The original "memorizer" shmup, all others since are inevitably compared to it.

5) Layer Section: The origin of the "lock on" mechanic, which many have tinkered with and ripped off since.

Those are the ones that come most immediately to mind...

[Icecap Veiwin]

Uh...Mercs was the start of a very good subgenre of shmup..

[Afterbirth]

1980's - as stated although i'd add Xevious and 1942 (and maybe Atari's Sky Raider as the first Vert shmup - in 1978!!!).

Not sure about Mercs though. It didn't really do to much to add to already existing genres.
Gunsmoke and Commando were true predecessors to that.

[zinger]

I'd say Garegga is very important because of the advanced rank mechanics and manic gameplay. This is what inspired Cave to make Dodonpachi, afterall. VERY good game too

I also agree about Layer Section, it's groundbreaking in many ways.

[CMoon]

To me it goes by 4 important decades. These are some of my highlights.

70's Space Invaders / Defender / Asteroids
80's Gradius / 1941 / Twin Cobra
90's Raiden / Strikers 1945 / Radiant Silvergun
2000's Ikaruga / Mushihime Sama / Ketsui

Well the first issue is this idea of influential versus popular (and whether or not a more obscure game can be influential.) Raiden (which I dearly love) almost doesn't deserve mention because it really doesn't do anything beyond Twin Cobras and Fire Shark, but it was so absurdly popular that everyone knows it, and subsequently everyone knows the play style of Toaplan, albeit vicariously.

As far as innovation (and hence influence), I would change your list:

70's Space Invaders, Galaxian
early to mid 80's: Xevious, Centipede, Gradius, Tiger Heli, 1942
Late 80-early 90's:
Taito: Darius series, Layer Section, Gun Frontier/Metal Black (not loved, but very influential)
Toaplan: The 'shark' games, Truxtons, Twin Cobra, and especially Batsugun.
Seibu: The Raidens
Technosoft: Thunderforce series
Irem: R-Type series
Psikyo: (how can I pick one game?)
(Probably other games I am forgetting)

Late 90's / early 00's: Battle Garegga & Souky (and other 8ing games), Radiant Silvergun & Ikaruga, Dodonpachi, Mars Matrix & Giga Wings.

[BulletMagnet]

Dang, I knew I forgot something, namely Giga Wing, as the original "overload" shmup.

Outta curiosity, though, why would you mention Psikyo's work as innovative? I'm not dissing them or anything, I just can't think of too much offhand that they did which no one else had.

[CMoon]

Outta curiosity, though, why would you mention Psikyo's work as innovative? I'm not dissing them or anything, I just can't think of too much offhand that they did which no one else had.

I think we have to consider companies that 'refine' ideas. If we only want to consider companies that 'invented' ideas in shmups, only precious few would be mentioned, and many favorites left out. There is certainly a distinctive psikyo style. Perhaps they invented the REALLY FAST bullets??? I think Psikyo offered a high challenge without taking the bullet-maze/bullet-spam route, and that _does_ deserve mention I think.

To be brutal about it though, I think you could list the MOST influential shooters without listing a game after 1989. Most everything after that is merely a refinement.

[Icarus]

There is certainly a distinctive psikyo style. Perhaps they invented the REALLY FAST bullets??? I think Psikyo offered a high challenge without taking the bullet-maze/bullet-spam route, and that _does_ deserve mention I think.

*cough* Raiden DX *cough*

[dpful]

MY most influencial personally

#1 some atari 2600 game that has asteroids and stuff flying down the screen- almost a proper vert shmup (don't know the name)
#2 Lifeforce NES
#3 Truxton Genesis
#4 Gigawing arcade
#5 Dodonpachi MAME
#6 Raystorm playstation

[zinger]

MY most influencial personally

How can this be subjective? Are these the shooters that have influenced YOU the most?

And oh, Dodonpachi wasn't originally in MAME (same goes for Truxton and Raystorm ports)

[it290]

#1 some atari 2600 game that has asteroids and stuff flying down the screen- almost a proper vert shmup (don't know the name)

Astrosmash?

Anyway, maybe not super-influential, but I feel the Darius series deserves to stand proud amongst the R-Types and the Gradius games.

[sven666]

ive always been a shmup-fan but the games that influenced me the most are proboably:

R-type delta - ive played this to death and back, its just soooo damn good, really rekindeled my love for shmups in a time when RPGs and crappy 3D action games were roaming the planet.

Ikaruga - the first game that totally consumed me, i was frantically chasing highscores for half a year and proboably played an average of 4-5hours a day...

AP batrider - discovering what i would call "the best game ever" also made me realise that crappy console ports just isnt enough anymore, i also totally found my style of shmups, sure i had played garegga and kingdom GP before but i never really realised how fantastic raizing were untill i got batrider...