So, would you say that this is the last hurrah?

[Jeneki]

I hate the loli thing in Anime, the dresses and shit and the sexulation of young girls (which is more or less the current trends of Anime/Okatu culture). I found it quite disgusting and annoying enough to not even play it.

Reminds me of every time someone looks through my 360 games and comes across DDP DOJ.

"Is this some kind of rape game?"

"Huh?"

"It looks like a gangbang aftermath or something."

[evil_ash_xero]

I hate the loli thing in Anime, the dresses and shit and the sexulation of young girls (which is more or less the current trends of Anime/Okatu culture). I found it quite disgusting and annoying enough to not even play it.

Reminds me of every time someone looks through my 360 games and comes across DDP DOJ.

"Is this some kind of rape game?"

"Huh?"

"It looks like a gangbang aftermath or something."

I kind of got a little girl loving up on a big phallus looking thing vibe.

Anyway, the problem I have with the girly things in shmups isn't really a moralistic veiwpoint. I mean, if you erased the girls out of Death Smiles, and out of Mushi for that matter, the stages, enemies, and everything else isn't girly. It's just done for marketing, obviously. However, it does make it embarrassing to play in front of friends. They just see the 11 year old Casper, and whatnot. I guess it's a different culture, but it ALWAYS raises eyebrows. Including mine. Rosa's fine though.

Still, I don't care for it, since i'm a guy and would like more cool things too look at. I would much rather have warlocks in DS, or a more hardcore looking chick in mushi(like princess monanoke or something). It's just a personal choice that I think a lot of other guys share. I guess it's the same reason every guy I knew collected Batman or Punisher and not Wonder Woman.

[spadgy]

Couldn't agree more evil_ash_xero. I got hold of the JPN Raiden IV secret files (like a PDF artbook on a DVD-R) and the idea is you print out your won covers. However, said cover looks like it's some horrid porn, and I was much to embarrassed to take it to a print shop and have them run one out in colour. As if they'd beleive me "Honest - it's about a videogame where you control a big touch space fighter"...

[gameoverDude]

I've not been playing shmups quite as much lately, but I've given some more time to other genres - gun games (i.e. Razing Storm & Time Crisis 4), beat'em ups, and 2D platformers (esp. the Turrican series).

It's not the last hurrah IMO. I'd like to see Cave give up on realtime 3D and go back to the pre-rendered sprites, or at least do a Blazblue combo (3D backgrounds with pre-rendered sprites). Death Smiles II just doesn't look as good as the first DS.

[Aru-san]

Think of all the arguing and shmupmeets ahead of us! On the shmup's doomsday clock, it's still early moringing, and I'm waking up late as usual...

...and I can already foresee in future STGTs that much complaining will come from the fact that there aren't any GOOD games to play in the weeks to come in spite of the fact that all of the GOOD games were used in previous STGTs. It also doesn't help when it feels like once you play a game on STGT, you can NEVER play it again on a future STGT.

I always ask myself this question regarding this...how many STGTs does it take for STGT to just...stop? My estimate is every shmup ever made divided by 5.

[RoninBuddha]

touhou ruined shmups

[TrevHead (TVR)]

touhou ruined shmups

I wouldnt say that is quite true but it isnt doing doujin games any good since most of comiket is all to do with touhou nowadays. And there are are crapload of touhou clones out there. Personally i would love to see less of these and more doujin circles start to mimic more traditional arcade shmups like crimson clover that in development atm. Circles should cotton on to the fact that many ppl (atleast in the west) regard Kamui as the finest doujin shmup out there.

But then again circles will always do what they love and everybody loves Touhou.

[Dave_K.]

Think of all the arguing and shmupmeets ahead of us! On the shmup's doomsday clock, it's still early moringing, and I'm waking up late as usual...

...and I can already foresee in future STGTs that much complaining will come from the fact that there aren't any GOOD games to play in the weeks to come in spite of the fact that all of the GOOD games were used in previous STGTs. It also doesn't help when it feels like once you play a game on STGT, you can NEVER play it again on a future STGT.

I always ask myself this question regarding this...how many STGTs does it take for STGT to just...stop? My estimate is every shmup ever made divided by 5.

Haha, great quote spadgy!

As for STGTs, I've herd nothing but complaining at EVERY STGT, regardless of game played, so I don't see much of a difference down the road. In fact, I like the idea that you can't play the same game twice if its already been played in a previous STGT. Its like a forcing function to expose more non-Cave/highbrow shmupping to the rest of the community.

[gs68]

The most revitalizing thing the 360 has done is remind me how important quality single player action games are in this hobby. You know, after playing so many games with Xbox Live kids.

but, but

One thing that is missing is multiplayer, though. Gradius let two players alternate turns, and Lifeforce had glorious co-op. ReBirth offers neither. The only communal aspect of the game is the online leaderboard for the score attack mode.

mainstream no likey games that don't have multiplayer

Anyways, I've been trying to uphold my tastes, but people believing savestating to be acceptable (and the not-use of it to be not) and difficulty to be a design flaw (while complaining about easiness is regarded as an invalid complaint) have deterred me from enjoying my hobby to the fullest.

I don't mind the occasional character-based shmup, or the occasional gothloli shmup, but come on! I'd like to see actual ships make a comeback. Allow me to present my argument.


pay no attention to what game rynex-r is in

[Taylor]

touhou ruined shmups

I wouldnt say that is quite true but it isnt doing doujin games any good since most of comiket is all to do with touhou nowadays. And there are are crapload of touhou clones out there. Personally i would love to see less of these and more doujin circles start to mimic more traditional arcade shmups like crimson clover that in development atm. Circles should cotton on to the fact that many ppl (atleast in the west) regard Kamui as the finest doujin shmup out there.

But then again circles will always do what they love and everybody loves Touhou.

I do notice every video and article pertaining to shmups, or sometimes even just hard games, must have a "if you think this is hard, see Flandre Scarlet!" style comment by law. TV Tropes is particularly notable because they're all written like they’re revealing some secret treasure to you, opposed to the most popular doujin ever with a whole Big Sight packing convention devoted to it. Additionally, they always read like the poster in question plays them, opposed to just collecting images of the characters in various states of undress and copulation, which seems statistically improbable.

I'm not really saying it's a bad thing though. Like you say if touhou didn't exist all the circles making touhou clones would be making clones of something else.

[gs68]

I kinda wish more people would associate danmaku with Cave first, instead of Touhou.
I wouldn't be surprised if there are players who think TH06 (or TH02, if they're savvy enough about the series) is the first ever danmaku game.

Some noob: "DoDonPachi? You mean that ripoff of Touhou?"
Me: "Ripoff this!" [hops into ship C-S, fires laser bomb at noob]

[320x240]

you'd expect them to take the route Capcom is doing right now (as you have mentioned) and just start developing for consoles in the near future

Hopefully that means they'll add inertia and a healthbar.

And start making arena shmups.
(That would have been interesting to see actually)

[spineshark]

I kind of got a little girl loving up on a big phallus looking thing vibe.

That's the PS2 cover, not the 360 one. Honestly, that's like my favorite cover/poster of all time though since it's so awesomely morbid. The phallic aspect is just icing.

[Mero]

Theres been 4 arcade stg releases so far this year with another 3 on the way(so far) and most if not all of them will surely be ported to 360 so its not over yet . Going on whats happened in the past Cave will probably announce something new in the next few months

[evil_ash_xero]

I kind of got a little girl loving up on a big phallus looking thing vibe.

That's the PS2 cover, not the 360 one. Honestly, that's like my favorite cover/poster of all time though since it's so awesomely morbid. The phallic aspect is just icing.

Strangely enough, I kind of like the cover too.

Now let me go ahead and have a look at this 360 cover....

update: she looks like strawberry shortcake.

[spadgy]

Think of all the arguing and shmupmeets ahead of us! On the shmup's doomsday clock, it's still early moringing, and I'm waking up late as usual...

...and I can already foresee in future STGTs that much complaining will come from the fact that there aren't any GOOD games to play in the weeks to come in spite of the fact that all of the GOOD games were used in previous STGTs. It also doesn't help when it feels like once you play a game on STGT, you can NEVER play it again on a future STGT.

I always ask myself this question regarding this...how many STGTs does it take for STGT to just...stop? My estimate is every shmup ever made divided by 5.

Haha, great quote spadgy!

Shame I can't spell morning!

[lgb]

touhou ruined shmups

touhou is one of the few things keeping shmups going, and some of the games are actually very good

[Dragoforce]

touhou ruined shmups

Can I try too?

Shmups.com ruined shmups.

[evil_ash_xero]

What's ruining shmups is the the lack of good companies making them.

I've never even played a Touhou game.

[EPS21]

Well if you're in the anti-loli camp, you'll be turned off rather quickly from the art (and ZUN's art is pretty lol in the first place) but if you get into them, there is a whole world of it to get into spanning 12 games, not counting the massive doujin comic/music scene associated with it as well(no need to start with the first, its an arkanoid clone).

[Momijitsuki]

Well if you're in the anti-loli camp, you'll be turned off rather quickly from the art (and ZUN's art is pretty lol in the first place) but if you get into them, there is a whole world of it to get into spanning 12 games, not counting the massive doujin comic/music scene associated with it as well(no need to start with the first, its an arkanoid clone).

13, if you include Shoot the Bullet, which is arguably one of the more fun games in the series.

[bucklemyshoe]

SCARLET WEATHER RHAPSODY <3

[Momijitsuki]

Well, then it's 16 games if you include the fighting games, but those aren't shmups