"Shmups 101" Racketboy Article - IT'S UP!!!

[Wenchang]

Wouldn't Herzog and Herzog Zwei be appropriate to mention in the hybrid section under strategy? They basically are a weird mixture of shooter and strategy. Those games also both have an interesting background, both were worked on by a lot of the same people who designed early Thunderforce games, and Yuichi Toyama of Compile and Raizing fame was the designer and one of the programmers on Herzog.

[Drum]

Sega just published Zaxxon, Gremlin developed it. I realise their operations were merged but they were still seperate entities.

I'll edit that in.

Rule of thumb: If it was game, in the 80s, and it is outstanding for its originality, and it has Sega's name on it ... it was probably not internally developed by Sega. With a few notable exceptions Sega was an assembly line for competent or sub-competent genre entries in the 80s - virtually all their creative muscle work was done by Alpha Denshi, Coreland, Westone or Gremlin.

I think Astro Blaster deserves a mention - first game with achievements!

Not 100 percent sure what you mean here...apparently there were a bunch of "hidden bonuses" to obtain, is that what you mean? [/quote]

Yessir.

Under the Nichibutsu section consider adding Chouji Meikyuu Legion. Though its influence/importance is negligible it was the first game ever where you could rewind time and that's gotta count for something.

I do remember the forum topic for that game, and tried it in MAME myself - it is neat, but as you say it never really caught on, so I'm a bit hesitant to make space for it here. Speaking of which, I think that the above-mentioned Astro Blaster had some kind of "time slow" mechanic...is that another first?[/quote]

It is a first, but I decided talking about two time manipulation gimmicks in one post was too much.

[Rob]

virtually all their creative muscle work was done by Alpha Denshi, Coreland, Westone or Gremlin.

AM2 schools all of these fools.

[Drum]

AM2? Aren't they the guys who did Space Harrier, Hang-On and After Burner? They would have been laser disc games if you could reliably put a laser disc in a amusement park horsie ride.

[BulletMagnet]

It makes me feel old saying it (because to me 1995 was like yesterday ), but bullet hell isn't relatively young... it's had some 15 years now which basically puts it midway in the timeframe of shmups and what the genre has predominantly survived on since then.

What you say is true, though when I say "relatively" young I mean in comparison to most of the other "styles", whose ties to the 80's or earlier are much closer...I guess it's more an effort on my part to establish bullet hells as the defining "modern" shooter style than anything else. Is there a better way you can think of to phrase it?

I think the phrasing "enduring popularity" and "certain markets" is quite derisory to Europe and Australia, where the SMS held firm with the 16-bit consoles. Fundamentally I agree, as the SMS was granted slim shmup pickings - but I basically want to make my own kind of little stand against the idea that the PAL market was entirely unimportant and the SMS was a complete failure. I think Power Strike and Power Strike II are worth a mention instead of dismissing the console entirely.

Heh, I didn't mean to sell anyone short there: as a USA resident I'm not particularly well-versed in how the market has developed in other markets, so I'll take any help I can get. I'm hesitant to make any "major" changes to that particular segment (as you acknowledge, the SMS's shmup library is not among the "elites"), but I'll tweak it a bit.

Wouldn't Herzog and Herzog Zwei be appropriate to mention in the hybrid section under strategy? They basically are a weird mixture of shooter and strategy.

Will look further into this.

Rule of thumb: If it was game, in the 80s, and it is outstanding for its originality, and it has Sega's name on it ... it was probably not internally developed by Sega. With a few notable exceptions Sega was an assembly line for competent or sub-competent genre entries in the 80s - virtually all their creative muscle work was done by Alpha Denshi, Coreland, Westone or Gremlin.

One more reason to (peeve Rob, and) not list them.

Yessir.

Hmm...maybe a quick reference is due, but I wouldn't take it much farther than that.

It is a first, but I decided talking about two time manipulation gimmicks in one post was too much.

That would be an interesting tidbit to mention, but I'm not sure it'll fit anywhere easily in the article as it stands.

[Deets]

The manual for the Fantasy Zone Complete Collection has interviews/articles by the designer and main programmer on Fantasy Zone, and it was most definitely designed internally at Sega.

[BulletMagnet]

The manual for the Fantasy Zone Complete Collection has interviews/articles by the designer and main programmer on Fantasy Zone, and it was most definitely designed internally at Sega.

Do you know if there's any mention of exactly what role Sunsoft's played over the course of the series? Some hard info on this front would be helpful if anyone's got it lying around someplace.

[Deets]

The blurb on Super Fantasy Zone just says that "the developers must have really loved the original Fantasy Zone!" (in regards to say, being able to play the game with the original arcade soundtrack) -- it wouldn't surprise me if there was more to it than that, however.

Super Fantasy Zone's credits are the typical 80s/90s pseudonym-fest, but they're Sunsoft pseudonyms: i.e. "Kodaka" and "N.Hara" for Naoki Kodaka and Nobuyuki Hara in the sound credits.

[BulletMagnet]

Thanks for the info: are you aware of any direct Sunsoft involvement in the first FZ? That's the one I refer to specifically in the writeup...

[BulletMagnet]

One more "mini-edit" which hopefully addresses the most recent round of comments: last call for additional requests/corrections!

[Drum]

I was just thinking yesterday that Star Fire (1978) http://www.arcade-history.com/?n=star-f ... il&id=2613 might actually be the first game with rank. Enemies get harder with higher point values the more you kill, but drop back down to the lowest difficulty/point value when you get hit. I don't know if it counts as even a marginal case though because the game is basically a shooting gallery.

[BulletMagnet]

I was just thinking yesterday that Star Fire (1978) http://www.arcade-history.com/?n=star-f ... il&id=2613 might actually be the first game with rank. Enemies get harder with higher point values the more you kill, but drop back down to the lowest difficulty/point value when you get hit. I don't know if it counts as even a marginal case though because the game is basically a shooting gallery.

Hmm...that same source you linked also says that the game was the first one to feature a "high score" table. If true it definitely deserves at least a quick mention...maybe I could sneak it into the "rail shooters" section.

[Drum]

I am probably too late for this, but I was just dicking around on MAME and discovered that Starship 1 (1977) beat Defender to the punch with the smart bomb. Blew my mind when I noticed what I was looking at. Starship 1, like Star Fire, is a first person shooting gallery though but I still thought it was interesting.

[BulletMagnet]

Working on the final draft now - will check into this latest factoid before finishing up.

[Animaitor]

Can't wait to read the final article on Racketboy. Keep up the good work!!

[Vyxx]

Can't wait to read the final article on Racketboy. Keep up the good work!!

+1

[toaplan_shmupfan]

Astro Blaster had some kind of "time slow" mechanic...

Yes, they called it Warp, it slowed the enemy attack pattern down for 10 seconds (voice indicated Warp activated and counted down the 10 seconds).

Also it had Laser Overheat (firing too much/too fast), and a Fuel Gauge. Out of Fuel meant game over, no matter how many ships in reserve; however, IIRC the game also prompted to add coins for additional fuel when the fuel status reached critical. Secret Bonuses have also been mentioned.

A tribute game of sorts--but obviously lacking the Warp, Laser Overheat, Secret Bonuses, and there's no docking with the Mothership ever--can be found in Activision's Megamania for the Atari 2600.

[BulletMagnet]

As the thread title now says, IT'S UP!!! Thanks to everyone who offered their assistance in putting this thing together - RB's got one or two other shmup-related article assignments for me in the pipeline, hopefully we can make those just as good!

[Rob]

Still giving Sunsoft (any) credit for Fantasy Zone without proof. Tsk tsk. Here's a name ("coder of Fantasy Zone") from a recent Yu Suzuki interview.

[BulletMagnet]

Heh, it's not an ideal setup (while Sunsoft obviously made some contributions to the series, whether they had any direct influence on the original game by itself is, as you say, far from a slam dunk), but I couldn't find any other place to give them a mention, so I had to squeeze them in there.

[Bee Cool]

I'm really glad people are giving STGs more attention, good article dude.

[xavierjesus]

@Bulletmagnet, and of course all who chipped in, this piece is a blinder, fair play!

Just diving in to it now (stickin' it to The Man - on work time of course ).

Congrats all round, epic!

[mrsmiley381]

Aside from the little notes people have already mentioned at various points, that was a great article. Examining it from both a player and developer perspective made it quite insightful, even for some of the stuff I largely already knew. This article and HG101 are great resources for any developer, amateur or pro. Bonus points to all the forum members that helped with details.

virtually all their creative muscle work was done by Alpha Denshi, Coreland, Westone or Gremlin.

AM2 schools all of these fools.

Word.

[kid aphex]

What an amazing effort

[Rob]

Little error here

Space Invaders (Arcade), 1976

[Drum]

Word.

AM2 made stuff like After Burner and Hang-On in the 80s. By any reasonable use of the term, those aren't even games - more like activities. They certainly aren't creative.

EDIT: People should probably ignore this post, I could threadshit all day with my pathological disadin for AM2.

[Sapz]

Awesome write-up, man. I'll link this if I ever find myself needing to explain the appeal of shmups to people.

[Rob]

AM2 made stuff like After Burner and Hang-On in the 80s.

Space Harrier. OutRun. I realize they aren't Igmo or 4D Warriors, but...

[Drum]

Space Harrier is a genuinely terrible game, and I would easily put up games that I only like with half-serious ironic affection against it in absolute earnest. I could totally spend a thread arguing in great detail why IGMO and 4-D Warriors are better than Space Harrier, even though they aren't really great games (but I won't because people will just laugh at me. continue laughing at me.) Buck Rogers Planet of Zoom was a better game than Space Harrier, for real. Shit, there are sprite scaling games in the 70s with better thought-out gameplay than Space Harrier. It has some awesome monsters though - those one-eyed mammoths look like they're straight out of 4-D Warriors!

Out Run is ok, and has aged shockingly well, but it's just a car game. It isn't some minor miracle of game design or anything.

[Bloodreign]

In the article you listed the first Twinbee to also be known as Stinger, not the case, the first game never saw release in the US on NES, a later Twinbee I believe it was Moero, was called Stinger in the US. Too late to nitpick now I suppose.