On further reflection, I agree with CMoon. What we're most interested in are innovations that were influential. So it makes sense to start a list of those features of shmups that have become central to the genre. From there we can try to determine which game first introduced each innovation.
So please list those features of shmups that are to serve as a starting point or tell us about the origins of those already listed. Many thanks!
(When I become less ill, I will hunt down previous threads discussing origins. I know we've already discussed the origins of proximity attacks in another thread.)
Lock On: I think Rayforce/Layer Section was the first to use that...
Deep Scoring: Hm, well, for one thing methinks you hafta define "deep"...Batsugun had some wonky scoring tricks going on back in (IIRC) 1993, but I think it was mentioned that most of 'em were actually stolen from earlier shmups...
Small Hitbox: Again, depends on how small...I'd probably guess Batsugun Special Version.
How about adding complex bullet patterns to the list?
Gynoug (a.k.a. Wings of Wor - Mega Drive, NCS Masaya, 1991) should atleast get a nomination. Make your way to the fourth boss and you'll see what I mean. Psychadelic patterns that twist and turn like if they were three-dimensional (ESP.Galuda-style).
Omega Fighter was released in 1989 and already had some kind of score system, which had multipliers based upon how close you were to the enemy when you killed it.
^ yeah, its like buzzing if you stretch your imagination really far... i love that game.
also, innovations. are we talking about things that have gone on to be standard features in shmups. if not, i have to say the gradius powerbar. at the very least i think it was the start (or near it) of a really customizable powerup design. and of course later in the series with full on powerup edit.
edit: question as well, was donpachi the first to use two fire buttons, in the way cave would become famous for? tap for rapid fire and full speed, hold for slow movement but strong fire.
Shatterhand wrote:Omega Fighter was released in 1989 and already had some kind of score system, which had multipliers based upon how close you were to the enemy when you killed it.
Darius (1986) had a scoring system (shoot down a shoal of fish for bonus points).
I believe super bombs were first done in either Defender of Tempest - whichever of those two games came out first. I tried looking it up a long time ago and never really found out which one predates the other.
You're arguing for a universe with fewer waffles in it. I'm prepared to call that cowardice.
Fighter17 wrote:Salamander/Lifeforce: The first shmup with both verical and horzi. stages on one game.
An evolutionary dead-end.
captain ahar wrote:
was donpachi the first to use two fire buttons, in the way cave would become famous for? tap for rapid fire and full speed, hold for slow movement but strong fire.
Although I think you could argue that the charge shot in R-Type games allowed you to use the shot button in multiple ways, proceeding Cave, a more analogous example would be Batsugun where Iceman has two different kind of shots depending on whether you hold or tap the button.
zinger wrote:How about adding complex bullet patterns to the list?
Depends on what you mean by complex bullet patterns. The whole 'bullet maze' thing definitely feels like a 90's phenomena to me. Batsugun may be manic, but I don't feel these patterns are in any way a predecessor to Dodonpachi.
Randorama wrote:ban CMoon for being a closet Jerry Falwell cockmonster/Ann Coulter fan, Nijska a bronie (ack! The horror!), and Ed Oscuro being unable to post 100-word arguments without writing 3-pages posts.
Eugenics: you know it's right!
Skull Fang featured a throttle mechanic that allowed you to speed up or slow down the flight speed (not the movement speed) of your ship. Doing this could get enemies behind you or in front of you and it was especially useful in boss battles. Other than that throttle mechanic it's a pretty unremarkable game.
Have any other shmups done something like that?
I know it's not central to the genre, but it may have influenced a couple other games at least.
You're arguing for a universe with fewer waffles in it. I'm prepared to call that cowardice.
I believe SNK's Sky Adventure was the first shmup to have multiple ships to choose from that each had their own abilities (their speed/weapons/etc. could be upgraded seperately too).
benstylus wrote:Skull Fang featured a throttle mechanic that allowed you to speed up or slow down the flight speed (not the movement speed) of your ship. Doing this could get enemies behind you or in front of you and it was especially useful in boss battles. Other than that throttle mechanic it's a pretty unremarkable game.
Have any other shmups done something like that?
I know it's not central to the genre, but it may have influenced a couple other games at least.
Image Fight allready had that.
I don't like this feature.
I mean in real life it would be beneficial, but not for games, I'll take the speed up power up icons over that, or just let the ship have decent speed in the first place unlike Raiden 1,2 & DX.
Good thread.
Another good gimmick; the shield thing that happens when you collect a bleu P icon in Shienryu, could be compared to shields as in Darius......But in Shienryu it's almost ...... hidden
D wrote:
Image Fight allready had that.
I don't like this feature.
Um, no, Image Fight didn't already have this feature. Read benstylus's post again and play Skull Fang. Image Fight just had the regular ship movement speed select (was it the first? I'm not sure). Skull Fang had a screen scrolling speed select that could in effect enemies up and down the screen depending on the speed.
Shatterhand wrote:Omega Fighter was released in 1989 and already had some kind of score system, which had multipliers based upon how close you were to the enemy when you killed it.
Darius (1986) had a scoring system (shoot down a shoal of fish for bonus points).
The first real knowledge-based scoring system I recall is Galaga's, which awards you bonus points for wiping out 3 bugs of a certain type in formation rapidly (chaining), and other enemy ships are worth different points depending on whether you shot them when they are idle or while they are in their attack run. Rounding off the scoring system are the challenging stages which are all about perfect accuracy for big scores.
Galaga's double shot was also the origin of the shmup weapon power-up.
"Thunder Force VI does not suck, shut your fucking mouth." ~ Shane Bettenhausen
Zanac was the first shmup with the "numbered" power-up system wasn't it?
And I think Stargate pioneered "warping" ahead to different stages.
Zaxxon first 3-D, 3/4 view (or whatever it was called) shmup.
benstylus wrote:I believe super bombs were first done in either Defender of Tempest - whichever of those two games came out first. I tried looking it up a long time ago and never really found out which one predates the other.
Both were released in 1980, though I have not been able to find any information on the specific month or day of either of them.
According to Wikipedia, Tempest was the first game to allow players to continue - something that has become a standard in pretty much all of today's games, shooters or not.
You're arguing for a universe with fewer waffles in it. I'm prepared to call that cowardice.
zinger wrote:How about adding complex bullet patterns to the list?
Depends on what you mean by complex bullet patterns. The whole 'bullet maze' thing definitely feels like a 90's phenomena to me. Batsugun may be manic, but I don't feel these patterns are in any way a predecessor to Dodonpachi.
I meant what I said in the same post, about Gynoug's maze-patterns in its later levels.
A few more innovations that I'd like to see the origins of:
- Selecting between different ships/characters with different atrributes
- Reflect/absorb attack (a la the Takumi games)
- "Transforming" into another form at will - like Espgaluda, Chaos Field, etc.
- looping - which non-infinite game started it?
Fighter17 wrote:Salamander/Lifeforce: The first shmup with both verical and horzi. stages on one game.
An evolutionary dead-end.
Abadox by Natsume for the NES had a mix of vertical and horizontal stages too. Yeah, this game is apparently heavily inspired by Life Force with its organic look, but it had a feature I've never seen before in any shmup since: vertical stages that scroll DOWNWARD with your character firing downwards.
Ajax had a mix of vertical stages as the helicopter and 3D third person view stages as the fighter jet.
Turtle Ship also had a mix of horizontal stages and vertical stages.
Area 88/U.N. Squadron is the first shmup I can think off where you can make several passes on a boss, actually changing directions of scrolling, flying, and shooting.
Actually Darius II has multiple passes on the boss if you don't destroy the "ball" in time. Sidearms has "downward" stages but you're not shooting as does SCAT, but in neither do you actually shoot down.
Twinkle Star Sprites comes to mind, but I'm thinking Space War started it.
-Enemy Capture and Linear Beam Cannon Struggles-
Darius Gaiden started the enemy capture thing and I think Metal Black started the beam struggles.
-Togglable Speed Levels on a Whim-
I'd say Einhander, but...
-Grazing/Scraping-
Need some help on this one. Basically where you have your ship model/sprite come into contact with something that can kill you, but doesn't touch the hitbox.
1942 introduced "red plane formations leave power-up". Toaplan took it over in Flying shark, Ghost Pilots has it as well, and Psikyo changed the formula to "the one red plane in a formation".
Deep scoring mechanisms are already present in Vulgus. Optimizing weapon usage and picking up all rank-increasing items improves scores significantly.
Chain system was probably introduced in Pacman.
Terra Cresta has a feature of two switchable (one of them limited) weapon modes. In one mode, with stronger weapons, the ship can die from one hit, in the other mode, a hit only causes it to lose all power-ups. This recurs in modern auto-bomb features like those of ESP Galuda, Bike Banditz or Mushihime-Sama arrange mode. Another thing Terra Cresta introduced which wouldn´t return until much later are really slow bullets.
