What is a shmup!!

[Wonderbanana]

A visitor at work saw my Zero Gunner 2 Naomi cart yesterday and asked about it.

He then said he also liked shoot em ups and the one he was playing at the moment was called Black Ops.

[Drachenherz]

A visitor at work saw my Zero Gunner 2 Naomi cart yesterday and asked about it.

He then said he also liked shoot em ups and the one he was playing at the moment was called Black Ops.

Yeah, why not.. You shoot em up in this game... But you don't dodge visible bullets, so it's a shooter and not a shmup.

(caution, there might be some sarcasm in this post)

[Hair]

harrihaffi- Your definition of "shmup" is way more narrow than mine, and more so than most people's I would guess. But that's fine, it's a loosely defined term. I just hope you understand that when some people say "shmup" they include games that you don't. Oh, and of course I love other genres, but shmups (in the wider sense) are my favorite.

Demetori- "Shooter" isn't really a genre. What I mean is "any game where there is shooting" is not a genre. That's like saying "any game where there is punching" is a "puncher". Most games have you destroying enemies, and "shooting" is a common way to do that. FPS and Shmups aren't really subgenres of "shooter", they are different genres completely. They just happen to both involve "shooting" in the most general, abstract, and unrelated sense. Shmups are the first games to be called "shooters" but as other genres came to be that also involved "shooting" in a different way, terms changed. Shmup is a genre with many subgenres. This is obvious; Ketsui and R-Type are both shmups but they are very different games. I find it odd that some subgenres of shmup are considered shmups by all, while other subgenres of shmup are excluded by some.

dpful- Wait, what else does shmup mean to you? It is "shoot em up" shortened. The term "shoot em up" existed first and "shmup" came along as a shortened slang for "shoot em up".

I don't see how one of the prototypical "shoot em ups" such as Robotron can be called "not a shmup". Kids these days.

Games like Space Invaders, Galaga, Centipede, Robotron, Defender etc... were shooters. They were different in many ways; some vertical, some arena, some horizontal, some would eventually scroll (Xevious goes up, Gradius goes sideways), some would later evolve bombs and powerups, 360 degree aiming while scrolling, scrolling in different directions in the same game, etc... They all had one thing in common that made them shooters. Enemies shot pellets at you, and you would dodge them and return fire with your own pellets. These are the common ancestors of shmups. As technology progressed, new games involved shooting in a much less... well... "pelletized" way, and offered more realistic scenerios and immersion. Specifically FPS and light gun games. These genres don't have an ancestor in the shmup world, and they do not work in the same way. This is why the "shoot em ups" term came into existance. I think all games that trace back to those common "shoot em up" ancestors are shmups today. Even in a real 3D environment like in Panzer Dragoon (offspring of the 2D rail shooter Space Harrier), you are still just dodging pellets fired at you (aimed) or spammed (in patterns), just as it has always been.

Thankfully, as technology progressed developers didn't abandon old school shooters, they evolved them. To me, any game that takes it's roots from the old school shooters is a shmup. There are a billion other ways to make a "game that involves shooting" in the most general sense, but when you are dodging pellets, it's a shmup. The term "shoot em up" or "shmup" didn't exist in '79 only because it didn't need to.

[dpful]

Yeah, id call anything a "shoot-em-up". But I only learned the "shmup" abbreviation in relation to "scrolling space shooters" or shmups as Talked about here on shmups forum. It's a pretty ridiculous word, and a pretty poor abbreviation, but a good word for that strict genre. In the US, no one would assume it means "shootemup" (hardly anyone even knows the word shmup) so it avoids a lot of confusion to use it. STG is synonymous. I'd hate to have to explain the fundamental differences between r-type, robotron, and panzer dragoon all the time. In the US, people would assume "shmup" is the sound of a toilet plunger being pulled from the toilet.

If shmup already means shootemup to you, you better switch to "stg's" to stay clear.

[harrihaffi]

hair- Shooter might not be a genre these days, but I'm pretty sure it was one back in the days... In SNK arcade classic vol1 both Last resort and metal slug where called shooters... The problem is (as you said before) you can shoot in just about every game today. So Shooter was a genre but isn't one anymore because it would inclued every freaking game. But then again there are allmost no pure genre today! Maybe some racing games, but mostly genre seem to begun to merge. Aspecially the rpg-genre.

In the old day(when the day walk with a cane:P) there where 5 genre: Beat em up, Shooter, platformer, racing and rpg.
Then the term shmups came along and I think this is where it when wrong! It replace Shooters instead of becoming a real subgenre.

About Metal slug? Is it still a shmup? Then what about Contra?

MVHH

[Hair]

dpful- So you consider "shoot em up" and "shmup" to be different things? That is an... interesting theory.

harrihaffi- I know "shooter" was a genre label, that was my point. I meant that "all games with shooting" is not a genre because FPS, light gun games, and shmups are really not related and do not share a parent genre called "shooter". Shmup is not a subgenre of "shooter" where FPS is another subgenre. Shmup *is* the classic "shooter" genre, and it is its own genre not a branch on the same tree as FPS. I think we agree on most of that, I just wanted to clarify my thoughts.

Contra is a shmup just like Metal Slug. It sure isn't a platformer like Mario. Contra features a hell of a lot of shooting and dodging, just like any shoot em up.

I think I've made my point clear, and hope you can see where I am coming from but I probably won't change your mind.

This debate could go on forever, and it isn't the first time it has come up. There are simply two (or more?) camps. Some include arena shooters, rail shooters, tube shooters, run-and-gun shooters etc... and some do not. But I think it is always a good discussion to have.

Shmups are still evolving, so it's a good thing for a forum like this to reevaluate the definition of a shmup over time, even if we don't all agree.

I think almost every shmup fan has known for a long time that the are some stricter and some more general ways to use the term "shoot em up" or shmup.

[Hair]

I know Wikipedia isn't law, but here are a couple wiki links that are good reads for anyone interesting in "what is a shmup".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoot_%27em_up
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooter_game

I don't agree with 100% of what is said in these links but they more or less agree with my position. That doesn't make me right. I'm simply posting them for discussion. I think that what this forum comes up with as a definition of "shmup" is more accurate that what a few authors on Wikipedia come up with.

Edit: Here is a doujin shmup that has a jump button but plays like a danmaku:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRvVJkJp ... dded#at=31

[EinhanderZwei]

I know Wikipedia isn't law, but here are a couple wiki links that are good reads for anyone interesting in "what is a shmup".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoot_%27em_up
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooter_game

I don't agree with 100% of what is said in these links but they more or less agree with my position. That doesn't make me right. I'm simply posting them for discussion. I think that what this forum comes up with as a definition of "shmup" is more accurate that what a few authors on Wikipedia come up with.

Actually it's Wikipedia to blame for making me consider rail shooters a subgenre of shmups...

[Hair]

I would blame Sega (Space Harrier, Afterburner). Definitly not Rez though since you never actually dodge in that game. But a rail shooter is just like a vert or hori, but it scrolls away from the player (forward). Not much different from a tube shooter. Torus Trooper is a shmup right? View Point and Axelay (the vertical stages with a scrolling horizon) are shmups and they are almost there.

What about a rail shooter makes it *not* a shmup?

[Kollision]

If I can see my craft/ship/avatar in the screen of an inward-scrolling shooter I will consider it a rail shmup (After Burner, Space Harrier, , Rez, Panorama Cotton).

If I can't see my craft/ship/avatar in the screen I won't consider the game a shmup (Shadow Squadron, DarXide, After Burner III, Lattice). Where's your hitbox? Is it the whole screen? These are more in the vein of simulators.

[EinhanderZwei]

If I can't see my craft/ship/avatar in the screen I won't consider the game a shmup (Shadow Squadron, DarXide, After Burner III, Lattice). Where's your hitbox? Is it the whole screen? These are more in the vein of simulators.

But what about rail shooters where you're controlling a human (Time Crisis, Virtua Cop, Maximum Force, Elemental Gearbolt)?

[Kollision]

If I can't see my craft/ship/avatar in the screen I won't consider the game a shmup (Shadow Squadron, DarXide, After Burner III, Lattice). Where's your hitbox? Is it the whole screen? These are more in the vein of simulators.

But what about rail shooters where you're controlling a human (Time Crisis, Virtua Cop, Maximum Force, Elemental Gearbolt)?

I'm not familiar with any of these games you mention.
Do they scroll into the screen automatically and you can see their complete "bodies" (picture Space Harrier, Rainbow Cotton, Panzer Dragoon)?
If not, then they're no rail and no shmups either.

[dunpeal2064]

If I can't see my craft/ship/avatar in the screen I won't consider the game a shmup (Shadow Squadron, DarXide, After Burner III, Lattice). Where's your hitbox? Is it the whole screen? These are more in the vein of simulators.

But what about rail shooters where you're controlling a human (Time Crisis, Virtua Cop, Maximum Force, Elemental Gearbolt)?

I'm not familiar with any of these games you mention.
Do they scroll into the screen automatically and you can see their complete "bodies" (picture Space Harrier, Rainbow Cotton, Panzer Dragoon)?
If not, then they're no rail and no shmups either.

They are stuck on a rail, and move automatically at intervals. You control ducking in order to dodge shots, but not visible shots

Another good example would be House of the Dead. I do love Time Crisis 2

[ptoing]

I guess those kinda games could be called an On Rail FPS. That is what they essentially are.

[stryc9]

Those type of games have always been referred to as 'Gun Games' because of the light gun required and I think it fits fine, Panzer Dragoon, Rez etc = Rail Shooters, they are not 'Shoot 'em Ups', which is what we talk about on this site. The games we talk about here on Shmups.com evolved directly from space invaders, Galaga, onto Xevious (first real scrolling shooter)? Metal Slug and Gunstar Heroes, Contra etc. are not an offshoot of the Shooter genre, they have more in common with Platformers gameplay wise, despite the shooting elements. I would call them 'Run 'n Gun' games. I would call Mercs, Ninja Commando etc. top down Run 'n Gun, they are the same genre, just displayed differently but fundementally the same. Metal Slug and Mercs are no different to one another (save for the element of gravity), IMO they are no different to each other than R-Type and DoDonPachi are different and here we discuss those two titles alongside each other. OK the fact of gravity and use of jump button in Hori R 'n G adds another element not present in games like Mercs etc. but you could argue it's no different to a Hori shooter having terrain to negotiate and a Vert generally doesn't, it's all about twitch. OK so Ninja Commando you fire forwards only for main shot and Mercs you can fire in all directions, does this make it a seperate genre? No, because the new G Rev game is multi directional fire and we ain't puttin that in a seperate class. I agree this can get messy though.

[stryc9]

I would blame Sega (Space Harrier, Afterburner). Definitly not Rez though since you never actually dodge in that game. But a rail shooter is just like a vert or hori, but it scrolls away from the player (forward). Not much different from a tube shooter. Torus Trooper is a shmup right? View Point and Axelay (the vertical stages with a scrolling horizon) are shmups and they are almost there.

What about a rail shooter makes it *not* a shmup?

Rail Shooters are only superficially similar to Shmups. Yo may have a dragon or an F-14 shooting lasers and missiles but the way you play these games is like night and day. I certainly don't think Panzer Dragoon and Time Crisis are the same genre though, they are distinct because of the presence of the gun. Time Crisis, Virtua Cop, Point Blank, Lethal Enforcers etc. - 'Gun Games', or 'Shooting Gallery Games'.

[dunpeal2064]

'Shooting Gallery Games'.

This makes me think of a target practice game though. What about Scrolling Shooting Gallery Games?

[stryc9]

I think thats splitting hairs, in a similar way to trying to subdivide the shmup genre into Manic, Bullet Hell, Oldschool etc. Nothing wrong with doing this but as a blanket genre, all game played with a plastic lightgun are Gun games or gallery games. Are you trying to tell me you would seperate Point Blank and Time Crisis just because one has (in a gameplay sense) superficial scrolling into and around the screen?

[Drum]

We need the mother of all shmup Venn diagrams in heah. Actually, that might be worth a new thread if someone with MS Paint skills wants to give it a go.

Take away from this thread should be: Don't expect words to get the job done when it comes to categories and stuff. Ironically, they are a pretty weak tool in a lot of ways for communication! And I'm not even sure I used ironically correctly there, which probably means something.

I am just going to continue to pollute the discussion and hype a game that is awesome and doesn't fit into the latest wave of problem games: Night Stocker (arcade, 1986). It's a light gun/drving game where you are always moving forward, but you have full control over you car. Awesome game, go MAME it now!

[stryc9]

Yeah, I knew this would get messy.

[ptoing]

We need the mother of all shmup Venn diagrams

Good luck with that. It would be super messy and confusing depending how you wanna go about it. I would suggest to just give it a rest with the compartmentalisation of shmups and might be shmups and whatnot and just enjoy the games.

[dpful]

"shmups" genre, as commonly meant on this forum---
Fly over grass with a road or a river, fight tank. Then to space. Drop bomb. Get spread shot (usually orange) or laser (often blue). Just joking, of course, but also making the point that messiness in genre definition pales in comparison to the bulk of near identical games in the "shmup" genre.

[harrihaffi]

dpful- So you consider "shoot em up" and "shmup" to be different things? That is an... interesting theory.

harrihaffi- I know "shooter" was a genre label, that was my point. I meant that "all games with shooting" is not a genre because FPS, light gun games, and shmups are really not related and do not share a parent genre called "shooter". Shmup is not a subgenre of "shooter" where FPS is another subgenre. Shmup *is* the classic "shooter" genre, and it is its own genre not a branch on the same tree as FPS. I think we agree on most of that, I just wanted to clarify my thoughts.

Contra is a shmup just like Metal Slug. It sure isn't a platformer like Mario. Contra features a hell of a lot of shooting and dodging, just like any shoot em up.

I think I've made my point clear, and hope you can see where I am coming from but I probably won't change your mind.

This debate could go on forever, and it isn't the first time it has come up. There are simply two (or more?) camps. Some include arena shooters, rail shooters, tube shooters, run-and-gun shooters etc... and some do not. But I think it is always a good discussion to have.

Shmups are still evolving, so it's a good thing for a forum like this to reevaluate the definition of a shmup over time, even if we don't all agree.

I think almost every shmup fan has known for a long time that the are some stricter and some more general ways to use the term "shoot em up" or shmup.

hair- If you still here... I wasn't trying to argue with you about the shooter genre not beeing a genre anymore! I was merly trying to say that that probably is the orgin of the problem with the shmup-genre beeing such a randomly defined genre!

So what about megaman? The diffrense between contra and megaman is that you have to dodge terrain and bullets instead of just bullets. The walls don't kill you but in a way, this seem similar to the diffrense beween horisontal and vertical shmups.

Drum:

We need the mother of all shmup Venn diagrams in heah.

I would like to suggest Xeivious once again! I think I've heard somewhere that this was the first shmup with scrooling backgrounds...
And the gameplay is pretty basic when it comes to my defintion of a shmup... The groundattack is an exeption...
But if you don't agree with my defintion, then space wars would be my suggestion to you! It was the frist game ever and it plays like astroids, but with a blackhole in the middle and I think it was a 2player vs game only...

MVHH

[Hair]

I didn't think you were argumentitive, I just wanted to clarify what I was saying since "shooter" is an ambiguous term.

Megaman is a platformer, but is has shooting in it. In Metal Slug 99% of what you do is one of two things: dodge pellets or shoot enemies. The last 1% is jumping from platform to platform (as a test of skill in and of itself). Megaman is mostly platforming, and the "shooting" it has isn't shmup-like, it is platformer-like. Even Mario has projectiles. In Megaman and Mario you can almost always stand still, observe an enemy shooting pattern, and then either jump over it or run under it. You are given time to access the situation. In Metal Slug if you stand still with enemies on the screen they will overrun you.

Megaman is more about coming to a new situation and figuring out how to pass it. The tests of skill involve diffilcult platforming which requires timing but also allows you to take your time and set-up. I know that many true shmups have puzzle elements, or otherwise force you to figure out a pattern before you proceed, but at their cores platformers reward patience while shmups are about reflexes.

Metal Slug and Megaman look alike but play totally differently and take the gamer to a different place mentally. Megaman and other platformers are like golf, while Metal Slug and other shmups are like hitting a fast pitch baseball.

[Drum]

harri: Xevious was not the first scrolling shooter, and Spacewar! was not the first video game.

Wikipedia actually has an excellent summary http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoot_%27em_up and a summary is all you are gonna get (one thing though: they have Snap Jack listed as an early scrolling shooter and there is literally no shooting in that game at all - I think we can agree that that, at least, would disqualify it). There is no such thing as a definitive shmup. Your definition is dumb. Stop now.

[harrihaffi]

hair- I now see where you draw the line. Still I don't agree. I see basicly ever game that has gravity as a platformer. And when it comes to deside if a game is a platformer or a shmup. I prefer to draw the line with the platformers defintion hence it is more pricise. Never the less I know we have diffrent opinions on the subject and am willing to agree to disagree.

Drum- You ask, I answer! Now you're saying I'm wrong! Do you have the facts to back you up or are you just saying so cause you don't belive me? And no the defintion on winkipedia isn't that good. I will not agree to it! I have my definition and I sticking to it. People may say some games are shmups that I don't think of shmups, but I think few would argue that games I call shmups aren't shmups! Still I now understand that the word shmup isn't and will probably be a general defined word. I allso understand why or at least I have a teory of why that is. If my definition of shmups is dumb then it suits people in general. Cause if you ask me people in general are dumb and people in general don't play shmups. But then again you wouldn't ask me now would you!

MVHH

[Drum]

SOS, Phantom II, Ozma Wars, Defender, Scramble, Red Clash, Mars, Vanguard etc. etc. all came out before Xevious. Xevious had some lush bgs tho. Spacewars! was probably the first shooting video game, but there were quite a few video games before it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_video_game
Wikipedia again shows us the way.

I kind of don't care about your personal definition (if hating it doesn't count as caring about it). It is dumb to have personal definitions - especially when they are way, way, way more nonsensical and arbitrary than the stuff you are pouting about being nonsensical and arbitrary.
Also, I think quite a lot of people would disagree that Spacewars! is a shoot 'em up if you are running with that now. There is no 'em, just an it. For one thing.

[harrihaffi]

I see...My apologize..I was wrong...Spacewar wasn't the first video game and Xevious probably wasn't the first shmup with scolling backgrounds.(It now seems to be a question of what you define as background, but never mind)

No hating doesn't count as not caring! Hating actually count as caring quite a lot! Even thought it seems you have no clue to what my defintion is. Yes many people would say that spacewar isn't a shmup, I would be one of them!

MVHH