Why shmups are such a niche genre

[Herr Schatten]

You could probably put in some vector graphics, ambient music, and deep message about something or other and sell it to a certain crowd if you want to go that route. Otherwise, as an actual shmup, it's perfectly reasonable that rewinding time could also rewind your score. Alternatively, it could even be a big part of scoring: allowing newbies to rewind mistakes and advanced players to rewind difficult score heavy sections. A recharging gauge, ideally with a risk element to charge it at a decent rate, would prevent abuse.

This actually sounds like a great idea. Someone make a shmup like that, please.

[Kaiser]

You could probably put in some vector graphics, ambient music, and deep message about something or other and sell it to a certain crowd if you want to go that route. Otherwise, as an actual shmup, it's perfectly reasonable that rewinding time could also rewind your score. Alternatively, it could even be a big part of scoring: allowing newbies to rewind mistakes and advanced players to rewind difficult score heavy sections. A recharging gauge, ideally with a risk element to charge it at a decent rate, would prevent abuse.

This actually sounds like a great idea. Someone make a shmup like that, please.

And of course, have a negative score bonus for the number of rewinds just like Hitogata Happa has negative bonus for non-suicide bomb deaths.

[Danza]

Braid + shmup = do want

[Udderdude]

Braid + shmup = do want

Most active topic: I'm drunk thread!

[gs68]

I've started to slap a "Not safe for noobs" disclaimer on superplays of sufficiently difficult shmups that I link to (this forum being an exception to me imposing the NSFN warning, of course). Same for difficulty in other genres.

A friend of mine's got turned off from playing DJMAX Technika because she saw a skilled player tackle one of the harder songs. It only reinforces my belief that showing off a game at its hardest is not the way to get people into that--sure, they may think it's impressive, but they'll think it's some crazy eldritch abomination of a game that you'd have to be lacking in sanity to give a try.

On another note, my #1 gaming pet peeve (and I am not exagerrating when I say it makes me want to bitchslap or even punch the offending person) (also excuse my language): Saying that something I'm struggling heavily with is easy. Yes, it may be easy to YOU, you elitist piece of shit. But at one point, it wasn't, and you had to practice it to get to where you are right now. I mean, I'm sitting here, having trouble trying to 1CC So And Sohmup for the past month, and you come along and say that it took you two fucking tries to do that. Way to fucking denigrate all my efforts and make me feel like a goddamned idiot. This sort of attitude is what makes some noobs think that higher-end shmup players are nothing but arrogant assholes.

[Exarion]

Something on a mainstream forum made me realize that now would be a very easy time to get someone interested in shmups. Currently, we have:

CAVE releases in the US and Europe
The Virtual Console opening up a lot of past classics
A few good shmups coming from the indie community
A few HD remakes of older shmups
MAME quickly gaining more shmups, though there are plenty of gamers that won't like this

There are people out there that would like shmups if someone were to show them what they actually are rather than having them find out by watching a video of Futari Ultra/ having them credit feed.

[Despatche]

I've started to slap a "Not safe for noobs" disclaimer on superplays of sufficiently difficult shmups that I link to (this forum being an exception to me imposing the NSFN warning, of course). Same for difficulty in other genres.

A friend of mine's got turned off from playing DJMAX Technika because she saw a skilled player tackle one of the harder songs. It only reinforces my belief that showing off a game at its hardest is not the way to get people into that--sure, they may think it's impressive, but they'll think it's some crazy eldritch abomination of a game that you'd have to be lacking in sanity to give a try.

i.e. "being good at video games"

On another note, my #1 gaming pet peeve (and I am not exagerrating when I say it makes me want to bitchslap or even punch the offending person) (also excuse my language): Saying that something I'm struggling heavily with is easy. Yes, it may be easy to YOU, you elitist piece of shit. But at one point, it wasn't, and you had to practice it to get to where you are right now. I mean, I'm sitting here, having trouble trying to 1CC So And Sohmup for the past month, and you come along and say that it took you two fucking tries to do that. Way to fucking denigrate all my efforts and make me feel like a goddamned idiot. This sort of attitude is what makes some noobs think that higher-end shmup players are nothing but arrogant assholes.

even though this paragraph makes you look like the arrogant one; you really should reread what you've said here a few times

[doctorx0079]

On another note, my #1 gaming pet peeve (and I am not exagerrating when I say it makes me want to bitchslap or even punch the offending person) (also excuse my language): Saying that something I'm struggling heavily with is easy. Yes, it may be easy to YOU, you elitist piece of shit. But at one point, it wasn't, and you had to practice it to get to where you are right now. I mean, I'm sitting here, having trouble trying to 1CC So And Sohmup for the past month, and you come along and say that it took you two fucking tries to do that. Way to fucking denigrate all my efforts and make me feel like a goddamned idiot. This sort of attitude is what makes some noobs think that higher-end shmup players are nothing but arrogant assholes.

You know what's even more annoying? When you are playing something, and someone says that while you are playing. Then you offer to let them play and they are like "naaah". Or they do try to play and they get their asses handed to them. In other words, when someone distracts you by saying it's easy, and they've NEVER EVEN PLAYED IT BEFORE. They just assume that Black Ops is teh challenge but those old-school baby games are EASY.

[power UP]

Why I think they are "niche":

They are really hard.
People think you have to credit feed to beat them.
People don't know how to properly play them, meaning never continue.
People overestimate the time required to get good at them.

Well pretty much what OP said.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Non shmuppers who try the "its easy" BS allways give me a chuckle when they try the game for themselves and see just how wrong they are.

In the end all they do is open themselves up for redicule, like the guy who said zillionbeats was easy just give him a week, ppl are still asking him 3 years later lol http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVWDnb0HYhA

[Taylor]

touhou is harder

[Lance Boyle]

Touhou has ruined the image of shooting games.

Which is a shame because as far as doujin shmups go...

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Touhou has ruined the image of shooting games.

Which is a shame because as far as doujin shmups go...

I suspect Touhou is a big reason why so many gamers know about shmups and has helped bring in new fans to the genre. Sure allot of these so called Touhou fans dont even play the original games and go for all the other weeaboo shite and to be frank are complete cheesy dickheads and an embarassment to us all. Still some fans are in it for the shmupping and are just like us (and imo probably hate the weeaboos just as much as we do). And these types of fans will buy other shooters aswell which translates to money for all shmup developers.

As those devs said in that Famitsu 360 article, "Community plays a big part of sustaining the genre" which if you think about it this forum is quite anti touhou which forces most touhou fans to populate the weeaboo sites or those that are here are closet touhou fans who genrally dont mention it in fear of been called a big jessie. Although I cant stand weeaboo-ness maybe if we were more open and attract the right sort of touhou fan and make them part of the community and "convert them to the correct religion" so to speak.

EDIT Or we could just keep doing what weve always dont and continue to keep using them as a punching bag, which tbh is one of my fav pastimes

[power UP]

Although I cant stand weeaboo-ness maybe if we were more open and attract the right sort of touhou fan and make them part of the community and "convert them to the correct religion" so to speak. :

This is how I got into the genre actually. I saw some awesome screenshots of a Touhou game and really wanted to play it for the challenge, then looked for more games and somehow ended up here.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Sure allot of these so called Touhou fans dont even play the original games and go for all the other weeaboo shite and to be frank are complete cheesy dickheads and an embarassment to us all.

If by "us all" you mean this forum members, I can't see any open Touhou fans being dickheads here. This forum being just as full of spoiled, angry manbabies as any other place on the internet, things going on here can be embarrassing enough for somebody who's getting into the genre without even knowing what Touhou is.
Are you people angry with them because you know about their existence, but they don't know about yours or what? I don't get where this perpetual slur comes from. It does look like some sort of obsession. Do you lurk on their formus, read their fanfiction and so on?

[drunkninja24]

Non shmuppers who try the "its easy" BS allways give me a chuckle when they try the game for themselves and see just how wrong they are.

Nah, then they just give the "well I haven't memorized the patterns yet" excuse.

[BPzeBanshee]

Although I cant stand weeaboo-ness maybe if we were more open and attract the right sort of touhou fan and make them part of the community and "convert them to the correct religion" so to speak. :

This is how I got into the genre actually. I saw some awesome screenshots of a Touhou game and really wanted to play it for the challenge, then looked for more games and somehow ended up here.

Similar story with me, but the game wasn't Touhou, it was the Raiden games, and as a result of searching for said series I found Xeno Fighters EX, and then the Remake discussion on this same forum last year or so.

[Drum]

@ People discussing time-rewinding mechanics/Braid: It's already been done. In 1987! Game is called Chouji Meikyuu Legion. I made a thread about it but barely anybody came to the party: http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... ji+meikyuu
It didn't explore all the ideas people are tossing around here (score rewinding etc.), but it's there.
What I find so weird about it is that nobody knows about this game - not even on system11 - and it introduced what has become a pretty important mechanic in gameplay canon a decade and a half before the game most often credited with doing that. It doesn't have its own wikipedia page, or mobygames page - it doesn't have jack. It's a good game too with nice graphics, and it has a lot more going for it than the rewinding hook idea-wise. Probably its only crimes were being Japan-only and arcade-only. Doesn't help that the emulation is still spotty.

So many awesome game mechanics were introduced by shmups. The simplicity of the games make them an awesome testbed for novel ideas, and historically they have done more heavy-lifting game mechanic-wise than any other genre I can think of. By far. I agree and disagree that it's in a rut, but when due credit is given and more people are made aware of what can be done and has been done with the form, I'm not that concerned about its future. Developers just need to keep doing what they've always been doing, being mindful that genre conventions can be poisonous if followed too rigidly or arbitrarily but understanding that they can provide an excellent framework for creativity.

<3 shmups.

[gs68]

I had a friend who isn't even big on Touhou tell me that Strikers 1945 III's final stage looks like Touhou stage 1, that I should be able to 1CC S1945III easily because I play Touhou games regularly.

Fortunately I wasn't alone in disagreeing.

[R-Gray 1]

I think people who were born before 1986 have really good luck to play many shmups
( Arcades, nes, snes, sega consoles, ) specially because we really liked the challenge to start again a level after a death.
we lived that frustrations
and the satisfaction of beat different hard bosses or levels

that is the essence of videogames

shmups always are popular...hmm or maybe until now.
( sorry for my english)

[Reaper gI]

Although I cant stand weeaboo-ness maybe if we were more open and attract the right sort of touhou fan and make them part of the community and "convert them to the correct religion" so to speak. :

This is how I got into the genre actually. I saw some awesome screenshots of a Touhou game and really wanted to play it for the challenge, then looked for more games and somehow ended up here.

I'm also here partly due to touhou, got introduced to the games by someone who came at it from the weaboo side.
Had played some shmups a while back, got me playing again.
Touhou, despite the sometimes appaling fandom, does at least limit credit feeding, or makes you restart the stage. It also encourages 1CCs, and perfecting specific boss attack paterns.

Bad points:
Score is often ignored totaly, only being directly linked to extends in 3 of the windows games, The Embodiment of Scrlet Devil , Phantasmagoria of Flower View and Mountain of Faith: of those only MoF has a normal system.
Often too many resources, scoreplay will be on low starting stock though.
Stages often too short/ boring.
The fandom, not much worse than for anything else, it's just huge so the crap becomes more visable. In this case to the point it obscures the original work.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

This forum being just as full of spoiled, angry manbabies as any other place on the internet

I wont argue with you there, its just a big clash of fandom nerdrage but thats the internet for you. Most ppl (I hope) dont take it all too seriously and are generally fine ppl in RL

The fandom, not much worse than for anything else, it's just huge so the crap becomes more visable. In this case to the point it obscures the original work.

Wise words

And like others recent shmuppers here, I too got into the genre though Touhou. One day I was browsing through some you tube vids and came across some touhou playthroughs which along with Ites 20 best doujins vid totally bowled me over seeing ppl dodging all those complex looking bullet patterns and made me think "wow I wanna do that"

BTW is there anyone here whose first taste of the genre was that Hardest video game boss ever you tube vid? I just wonder what your initial reaction was, as something like that tends to scare ppl off

[gs68]

BTW is there anyone here whose first taste of the genre was that Hardest video game boss ever you tube vid? I just wonder what your initial reaction was, as something like that tends to scare ppl off

Nope. I got into shmups because my dad showed me and rented various shmups for me as I was growing up. I got into bullet hell after hearing about DoDonPachi from a friend, as well as seeing it mentioned on some website as a good score attack shmup; this was in 2004, a year before YouTube opened up.

[BPzeBanshee]

BTW is there anyone here whose first taste of the genre was that Hardest video game boss ever you tube vid? I just wonder what your initial reaction was, as something like that tends to scare ppl off

Nope. I got into shmups because my dad showed me and rented various shmups for me as I was growing up. I got into bullet hell after hearing about DoDonPachi from a friend, as well as seeing it mentioned on some website as a good score attack shmup; this was in 2004, a year before YouTube opened up.

That video is the #1 reason for my Imaginary Blacklist Of Stupidly Hard Shmups (TM)'s conception. I dont like how newer Cave games are made so you can't see the background, but that certainly didn't put me off bullet hell as a genre.

[stryc9]

Dam'n, you must have had a pretty cool Dad. Mine just wanted me to be an accountant.

[devilmanozzy]

Been reading this thread a little while now, debating if its even worth it to say anything.

The issues with the current Shmups and the industry:

• Since when has any Shmup got any real promotion? The NES and SNES barely promoted shmups back in the day, and sadly people are sheep.
• Most shmups lack interesting stories in this day and age. Start making shmups that have deeper stories to keep people interested.
• Make the Pilots interesting, show lots of they character in play. Put a human face on that ship.
• Make enemies that are looking to start a fight. Have them hail them like in Star Trek. Give them some one liners to say. Make them a jerk all the way.
• Ok cut the anime out! Most in the USA are playing FPS cause they look real. Time to give the same faceleft to Shumups.

[Blackbird]

I like the idea of having enemies that trash-talk you, in theory. However, shooters involve a great deal of repetition; it is not unusual to try the same stage over hundreds of times. Any voice acting would get annoying quickly if it occurred every time. I think a good solution would be to have a short scene of dialog that occurs once, and then does not recur again unless the player specifically decides to review it (by hitting an out-of-the-way button like the select button, etc).

I agree on most of your other ideas. Anime isn't inherently a bad thing, you just need the -right kind- of anime. Lolis creep Western audiences out, but lots of people love their crazy-haired Final Fantasy types.

[R-Gray 1]

shmups - videogames - Having Fun !!!

and an extra comment:

thnxxx japan for anime scenes in somes shmups.

[DragonInstall]

I also agree that shmups should have a little more life in terms of character. I always thought it was kind of cool in Progear where you choose a pilot than a gunner. The better you play the more the gunner likes you, which made your gunner stronger plus change the ending. Something so simple brought the game some life.

Also Espgaluda 2 did a good job of making the character and boss feel important / alive. Its partly due to the fact that they're people rather than machine and its a sequel, but still. I will always remember stage 4 boss with his crazy laughing head and upgrading tank. Kind of funny that you blow everything up except his head in stage 2. Also Seseri was cool because you fight her twice in Espgaluda 1 than she makes a showing in 2, than ass rapes you with bullets. Also the stage 3 boss weeping at the brother you killed in stage 1, was also a nice touch.

[gs68]

Speaking of characters, all I can say is: Sonic Wings series.