How did the danmaku genre reach such ascendancy?

[Skyknight]

The main thing that baffles me with regard to this is that the kind of bullet density typically seen in Dodonpachi, Touhou, ESP Garuda, etc. seems to contradict one of the main appeals of shmups (well, at least with regard to me): freedom of movement. No being bound to platforms et al.; as long as there's no bullet, wall, or at-least-airborne enemy there, you can safely move there (just make sure you have a way to move OUT when the need arises). But the kinds of bullet clouds that danmaku seems to specialize in pretty much interdict that. You certainly don't get much room to bait bullets to where you want them to go, like you can with Raiden, Bakraid, etc.

Is there something I'm missing as to how Dodonpachi-style won out over Raiden-style? All that's coming to mind is some sort of increased bragging rights. Not something that makes much sense to me, since I consider glory to be hollow and pointless...

[Despatche]

ESP Garuda

Oh, come on.

[EllertMichael]

ESP Garuda

I guess I'm looking for the opposite. I wanna ::tap tap:: squeeze through super tight spaces that look impossible to navigate and come out shooting.

[BPzeBanshee]

YOU SPELT DIS WRONG? AAAA BLASPHEMY I KEEL U



In all seriousness, some of the negative aspects of the older games are nonexistant in danmaku games, ie getting extremely frustrated by being clipped off by some bullet that didn't even appear to hit you.

I thoroughly believe that when it comes to shmups, the Raiden games are the absolute standard which any game should be a derivative of. However even Raiden is not flawless, its scoring system is rather simplistic (I'm talking up to Raiden II here, the newer games add some level of scoring complexity) and is a great way to get irritated to the point of throwing a controller through a TV with its use of sniper tanks.

I think the main reason for bullet-hell's popularity is quite simply Cave. There's other entities that started in bullet hell within the 90s but I think Cave were the most successful of the lot. They did things in a more aesthetically pleasing and *new* method and as time passed attempted to make each game unique, although how successful they were in doing this is debatable.

Still, I wouldn't say it's really "won out". You can still see even in the newer Cave games the ancestry of the old. I watched a video of the first stage of Mushihimesama Futari the other day (the emulated in Demul vid) and I could've sworn Raiden II and Telletubbies or some children's show had a child. Even the music sounded similar. I like to think of my main reason for liking most of Cave's games is just how genius the idea of a shmup has evolved. When I introduce people to the genre I tell them of the older styled games such as they used to play in the arcades when we still HAD arcades where I lived, and how Cave has primarily changed that. We always come the same conclusion that making the game appear more enjoyable and use innovative trickiness to trick the player in some regards (though not in the same punch-in-the-eye way that Raiden can);

"Wow, all these bullets coming out from everywhere and I swear my wing's hitting them all and I'm not dying!"
"Ah, there lies the trick. The game makes you think there's less space than what there actually is due to only dying when your cockpit is hit."

By the way, don't be too surprised if loli/sex appeal and candy and better graphics serves as the main backlash on you Skyknight. That too, however silly, is a reason for some people's interest. Military-themed games aren't good sellers these days, it's all about the weird and wonderful.

[Skyknight]

{sweatdrop} I included Dodonpachi for a reason. I'm not thinking in terms of the aesthetics, just the mechanics and gameplay emphases. More like "where are all the new, non-fanmade non-danmaku shmups?". (And never mind just the two "base" styles; I'm wondering when-if we'll see someone try to resurrect the same sort of power-up acquisition style that existed in Gondomania/Makyou Senshi. Might be difficult to do with a more fast-paced game, though. And how do I get such sharp attention just because I fixed Cave's romanization slip-up? Imagine the giggling that must have floated up from the India portion of the fanbase...)

[ncp]

i would make the case that the tiny hitboxes and general lack of environmental walls give you a larger degree of freedom of movement

[Never_Scurred]

The main thing that baffles me with regard to this is that the kind of bullet density typically seen in Dodonpachi, Touhou, ESP Garuda, etc. seems to contradict one of the main appeals of shmups (well, at least with regard to me): freedom of movement. No being bound to platforms et al.; as long as there's no bullet, wall, or at-least-airborne enemy there, you can safely move there (just make sure you have a way to move OUT when the need arises). But the kinds of bullet clouds that danmaku seems to specialize in pretty much interdict that. You certainly don't get much room to bait bullets to where you want them to go, like you can with Raiden, Bakraid, etc.

Is there something I'm missing as to how Dodonpachi-style won out over Raiden-style? All that's coming to mind is some sort of increased bragging rights. Not something that makes much sense to me, since I consider glory to be hollow and pointless...

[RNGmaster]

The main thing that baffles me with regard to this is that the kind of bullet density typically seen in Dodonpachi, Touhou, ESP Garuda, etc. seems to contradict one of the main appeals of shmups (well, at least with regard to me): freedom of movement. No being bound to platforms et al.; as long as there's no bullet, wall, or at-least-airborne enemy there, you can safely move there (just make sure you have a way to move OUT when the need arises). But the kinds of bullet clouds that danmaku seems to specialize in pretty much interdict that. You certainly don't get much room to bait bullets to where you want them to go, like you can with Raiden, Bakraid, etc.

Is there something I'm missing as to how Dodonpachi-style won out over Raiden-style? All that's coming to mind is some sort of increased bragging rights. Not something that makes much sense to me, since I consider glory to be hollow and pointless...

You are the undisputed king of GIFs.

[BPzeBanshee]

{sweatdrop} I included Dodonpachi for a reason. I'm not thinking in terms of the aesthetics, just the mechanics and gameplay emphases. More like "where are all the new, non-fanmade non-danmaku shmups?". (And never mind just the two "base" styles; I'm wondering when-if we'll see someone try to resurrect the same sort of power-up acquisition style that existed in Gondomania/Makyou Senshi. Might be difficult to do with a more fast-paced game, though. And how do I get such sharp attention just because I fixed Cave's romanization slip-up? Imagine the giggling that must have floated up from the India portion of the fanbase...)

The game's official name is ESPGaluda, therefore that's how it should be called. You don't see people spelling Raiden "Rayden" because it fixed Seibu Kaihatsu's romanisation slipup after all (by American pronounciation as opposed to Japan's anyway). As to how people replied to that, that's the fanboy trolling backlash I was referring to.

As to where the new non-fanmade non-danmaku shmups are, they're either:
1) Nonexistant cause the companies that made them died [Toaplan]
2) Nonexistant cause the comapnies that made them sold off the region licensing rights to companies that died [Tradewest/JoWood] > PAL Raiden Fighters Aces]
3) Nonexistant cause the companies that made them aren't big and therefore it never gets out of their corner of the world [Thunder Force VI etc]
4) Euroshmups [Tyrian (I like it but it can'tve sold that well since the company died and gave it away to make OpenTyrian)]
5) Consisting of gameplay so atypical that they're not really anything but weird crap [Zeit^2]

That's my view of things which I can think off the top of my head, I'm sure someone can come up with a better reason.

[EllertMichael]

Charlotte: Why do they switch the r's and the l's here?
Bob: Uh... for yuks. You know? Just to mix it up. They have to amuse themselves, 'cause we're not making them laugh.

[Sumez]

Actually there's plenty of room for freedom in Cave games, not counting the Donpachi games' strict chaining systems. Espgaluda as you tried mentioning yourself, is a great example that allows you to tackle each stage in very different ways, especially when utilizing kakusei mode to cancel bullets.

The dense bullet patterns don't limit your movement, they just punish you more severely for making bad decisions.

[MX7]

ESP Garuda

Oh, come on.

'Garuda' is the correct spelling of the mythical Buddhist bird creature that the game got its name from. 'Galuda' is just an engrishy misspelling.

[gray117]

Because they look impressive. Generally, this provides us compulsives with an attractive challenge - in a way it's implied barrier to entry (difficulty) provides an accessible impression of the status of play in these games.

Why else do we find enjoyment looking at screens, good controls and playing otherwise uninformative games?

To some extent its also a cultural expectation of 'old school' genres - they're reaction based games. By and large the ponderous strategy and rpg games of yester-year have largely been supplanted from popular conception if they ever even took root; it's a bias that companies like cave have had no real reason to counter... so far ...

[ave]

ESP Garuda

Oh, come on.

'Garuda' is the correct spelling of the mythical Buddhist bird creature that the game got its name from. 'Galuda' is just an engrishy misspelling.

And I thought he just wanted to point out that elitist correctionism with his "come on"...

It's Galuda because they called it like that, end of percussion! Same goes for "Batsugun" which most people will think it's a Batsu-machinegun.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

i would make the case that the tiny hitboxes and general lack of environmental walls give you a larger degree of freedom of movement

I totally agree, if playing for score the ship will be moving all over the screen, although some types of scoring gives the player more freedom then others (ie proximity over chaining). But even if the player is just playing for suvival. A decent player will be moving all over the screen using dodging techniques like strafing and U turns.

Watch this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4m08AeG ... re=related

Imo the only danmaku to really limit movement is Touhou and its clones, due to the games emphasis on boss fights and tap dodging.

[Sumez]

It's Galuda because they called it like that, end of percussion! Same goes for "Batsugun" which most people will think it's a Batsu-machinegun.

I never gave it much thought. What's a Batsugun then?

[ave]

Batsugun (Batsugoon) is Japanese for incomparableness or maybe "perfection", being immaculate and above it all.

But because of the "gun" part in it, I've often heard references to weapons and it being pronounced as "gan". What makes it even worse is that Toaplan/Banpresto (saturn port) never used the respective Kanji for it but Katakana.

[Sumez]

Oh right, I read that somewhere else before. Similar to "Tatsujin" huh.

[ancestral-knowledge]

no!
batsu = punishment, penalty ...
gun = gun

punishment gun! of course, you see what i did there?

[moozooh]

The main thing that baffles me with regard to this is that the kind of bullet density typically seen in Dodonpachi, Touhou, ESP Garuda, etc. seems to contradict one of the main appeals of shmups (well, at least with regard to me): freedom of movement. No being bound to platforms et al.; as long as there's no bullet, wall, or at-least-airborne enemy there, you can safely move there (just make sure you have a way to move OUT when the need arises). But the kinds of bullet clouds that danmaku seems to specialize in pretty much interdict that. You certainly don't get much room to bait bullets to where you want them to go, like you can with Raiden, Bakraid, etc.

Is there something I'm missing as to how Dodonpachi-style won out over Raiden-style? All that's coming to mind is some sort of increased bragging rights. Not something that makes much sense to me, since I consider glory to be hollow and pointless...

That is a misconception. There's as much bullet herding to be done in danmaku games as there is in traditional shooters. Sometimes even more because there are more bullets (compare stage 5 in DDP to any stage from Raiden Fighters series, for instance).

Danmaku game design is merely an evolution of traditional game design. You can see it in many "crossover" games that were released in mid-90s: Batsugun, Battle Garegga, Radiant Silvergun, Raiden Fighters Jet, DonPachi had all adopted some aspects of then-emerging danmaku design: lots of bullets, screen-covering weapons, small hitbox, different hitboxes for different collisions, complex scoring systems, etc.. Some developers tried to remain conservative (Raizing, Psikyo), some went all-out (Cave, Takumi). Even Gradius went that way thanks to Treasure, but it's mainly evident at high loops.

It's not surprising this design paradigm has taken over since there's one very significant advantage to lots of bullets instead of "hard" obstacles: bullets can be shaped in any form freely, so it's a very tangible increase in game designers' freedom in several ways. You can make any obstacles out of bullets. And depending on how you do it these obstacles can be macro- or micro-dodged.

As for players' movement freedom, you should play these games more because you just seem to be afraid of them. In a superplay of Espgaluda 2, a game known for its near-solid walls of bullets among other things, player is spending most of the game time in the upper — the busier one — half of the screen. If that isn't a testament to its movement freedom, I don't know what is.

[Skyknight]

Not much good when just watching a bit of the superplay gives the watcher a sense of claustrophobia, even in a no-miss situation (I know some of those gaps, I probably never would have searched them out before I got shot)...Why would anyone WANT to ride on the ragged edge of disaster as a matter of course (granted this applies more to Garegga than anything else...)? I suppose it also has to do with my inability to see how graze mechanics are an attraction. The graze sounds never manage to tell me much beyond "You're too close to the bullets, you fool! GET AWAY FROM THEM!", whether or not I know I'm getting extra points from the accident.

Of course, this is also coming from someone who BACKED INTO one of Jabberwock's side salvos in Bakraid after he'd ALREADY flown past it. I'm not sure how much I can blame the low manual dexterity/reflexes that's usually attendant with my autism (I get the impression of both "legitimate concern" and "much too facile an explanation"). Then again, I have a tendency in that game to run my side right into bullets I literally didn't notice because I was concentrating so much on some other bullet swath, ESPECIALLY in the Railroad stage. (Either that, or constantly over-estimate how fast I am...quite a feat when my favored plane is the rather speedy Buster Lizard C...and for the record, I find the D version to be TOO fast.) Even though in an old arcade, I occasionally got into a pickle on Tatsujin-Ou because I actually got momentarily distracted by the adjacent Raystorm machine. I'd like my psyche to be at least consistent on whether I take in a lot of information or only a little...(And let the record show that even after about a ten year hiatus, I was able to get to late st. 4 of Sky Shark on one credit. Go figure...)

(As to the superplay...if you mean http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wb-_KzbD ... re=related, how did they survive at 5:08?! It certainly looks to me like the entire sprite was covered...)

[ncp]

he died

and he wasnt referring to a specific superplay

[Special World]

- More things to dodge
- Easily identifiable bullets
- Complex scoring systems means even lesser players can derive enjoyment with each successive play, gives competitive edge outside of 1CC
- Bullet patterns and scoring items are visually stimulating and impressive
- No kill-walls like certain horis have
- More diverse stages and settings, where most classic shooters are military spacecraft only
- Small hitboxes maximize the feeling that you're a gaming god
- Small hitboxes and slower bullets facilitate the idea that the game is "fair," i.e. your wing doesn't get clipped and you don't get sniped by blazing bullets before you can even process them

[moozooh]

Indeed I did not mean anything in particular, but if I were to choose, that 909 million video up on Super-Play.co.uk is probably the best example. I think it's down at the moment though.

I'm not sure how much I can blame the low manual dexterity/reflexes that's usually attendant with my autism (I get the impression of both "legitimate concern" and "much too facile an explanation").

I'm not sure of the specifics of your autism (besides, I don't have the first-hand experience), but it might be that in your case manual dexterity is more tightly connected to psychical comfort compared to a healthy person, so stress robs you of agility way harder. So if you're being intimidated by a bullet pattern — and many of them are intimidating by design, even if very simple to actually solve, like stage 5 boss in said Espgaluda 2 — you are already at a disadvantage more so than others. And if it is indeed so, then your gripe with danmaku is easily understandable. I would suggest practicing intimidating stuff over and over until you're comfortable with bullets passing close to your hitbox while you're in control of the situation.

[Skyknight]

That might help explain my Bakraid railroad headaches. Alarm at the descending bullets from the aligned train and tanks usually leads to my moving hard right--and right into a bullet being shot by a cannon on the train next door. And Bahamut's second phase...That flak storm ALWAYS frightens me a little (I'm not exactly pleased that I *always* find myself having to bomb to get the missile launchers out of my hair). For comparison, my usual order is Railroad/Desert/Seaside/Naval (that puts them in order from shortest to longest pre-boss section). Not even 4-Balrog and 5-Leviathan bug me as much as 3-Bahamut does. Bakraid and Raiden Fighters seem to be my (at-least-current) limit for bullet population before panic begins to set in (and even apart from shmups, I *know* I panic easily...). Maybe when I can consistently 1CC Bakraid Advanced (without scoring maximization shenanigans), I'll at least consider Ketsui...

(Note: The autism in question, by U.S./DSM-IV standards, is at the border between Asperger's and high-functioning autism/PDD, for anybody with experience in psychiatric diagnosis. The only thing keeping me out of Asperger's is my language development time having been delayed.)

[Jeneki]

The same reason why modern shmups have scores in the billions, instead of the thousands. More is more.

[Obiwanshinobi]

- More things to dodge

Dunno, when I think of shmups with many things to dodge, two flavours come to mind:
- shmups with plenty of snipers and "dogfighters" responding to your movements in intricate ways (I don't know a single bullet hell shmup particulary rich in those, at least in early stages)
- Dragon Blaze and Gunbird 2 (they pretty much form a micro-subgenre and neither feels like a bullet hell shmup to me).

- More diverse stages and settings, where most classic shooters are military spacecraft only

Not sure if it's true even in terms of percentage. There seems to be more classic non-military spacecraft shmups than bullet hell shmups in general.

[Despatche]

The game's official name is ESPGaluda.

Can someone tell me about this? Has CAVE ever "seriously" used this form, or have they always used the regular all-caps trademark or kana? I have a feeling it's actually "Espgaluda", since it's supposed to be pronounced as one word and is actually written that way this time (which ESP Ra.De. wasn't).

(Or you could just... I don't even know what you're on about anymore)

[BPzeBanshee]

The game's official name is ESPGaluda.

Can someone tell me about this? Has CAVE ever "seriously" used this form, or have they always used the regular all-caps trademark or kana? I have a feeling it's actually "Espgaluda", since it's supposed to be pronounced as one word and is actually written that way this time (which ESP Ra.De. wasn't).

You've been quite onto me these last few days eh Despatche.

I should've made this more clear in hindsight, though its usage of capitals was not my point of concern. If you go by the title screen its more like "espgaluda" (without the caps since the logo doesnt use caps at all), or "Espgaluda" as you call it (with correct noun usage at beginning, I also suspect this is the proper term though I have seen it in all capitals like "ESPGALUDA" as well) being pronounced as one word like you said. No spaces either.

I personally having started with ESPRade (and spelling it that way since its an acronym of something like Extra Sensory Perception: Raging Decision) call its predecessors as such, therefore I type it as ESPGaluda, and ESPGaluda II (going real fancy there with the numerals since the title has such in it).

My point was that it certainly wasn't "ESP Garuda", just like Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu isn't "Title revival of leader of angry bees" and Raiden isn't "Rayden" just because the English language is more popular and should be translated as such.

[MX7]

'Garuda' is the correct spelling of the mythical Buddhist bird creature that the game got its name from. 'Galuda' is just an engrishy misspelling.

And I thought he just wanted to point out that elitist correctionism with his "come on"...

It's Galuda because they called it like that, end of percussion! Same goes for "Batsugun" which most people will think it's a Batsu-machinegun.

Oh, I agree with you. I just wanted to point out the validity of the mistake, which is easy to make if you're already familiar with the word 'garuda'. I always think of the amazing Japanese porn film 'Dream of Garuda' whenever I read 'galuda', so I've spelt it wrong on occasion too