Which shmup killed "shmups"

[KAI]

Which company killed "shmups"?

[Squire Grooktook]

I completely agree with everything that squire has said in this thread. I seriously sometimes just read your posts with my jaw open, smiling. It's amazing how close our views are

Thanks Squire for taking the time to go into detail; I admittedly quick-read over most of it; will go back and read thoroughly though.

First of all, I agree with a majority of the issues you raised in relation to why shmups don't do well commercially in general these days. However when it comes to Cave or Bullet Hells overall; there are other factors that come into play that I've noticed. For instance; the friends I have over to play range from mediocre to hardcore when it comes to gaming- they're a small mix of range when it comes to gaming. None of them are solely CoD commercial gamers and none are turned off by the DIFFICULTY of games.

It's more than just the difficulty or even the complication of game mechanics. When it comes to cave I've noticed them griping about how they all feel the same...and even though the bullet patters are varied in size, speed, layers, etc it is still a game full of only(mostly) pink and blue bullets coming at you stage after stage. The design's of enemies and bosses is interesting and appealing; but the only variety of attack is the same. It's just not as fun for some people. Dodging vibrant colored bullets over and over again just isn't as appealing as dodging missiles, bullets, lasers, etc...it's not just Cave u could say the same about Ikaruga but the polarity mechanic saves it in that regard.

I mean Garegga, Bakraid, APB are no walk in the park difficulty-wise; but they are much more enjoyable and appealing to my friends. Maybe it's a mix of variety, gameplay, and aesthetics idk for sure. They also love Gradius; there is just multiple aspects of Cave shooters that aren't appealing to some.

Now I'm not bashing Cave; I own several Cave games and enjoy most of them. They do seem a bit redundant to me though on several levels. I think there is still a place for shmups on the gaming scene in the west; I just feel like to be successful here they cannot follow Cave's blueprint. To be fair, it's not the fault of Cave that they are putting out a majority of the shmups recently; I'm glad they have. .

Yes, this definitely seems consistent with what I've also experienced with friends, as several of them have made the same complaint. Even though there is nothing wrong with bullet hell gameplay wise, they are perhaps more difficult to market to newcomers due to what you mentioned.

When I'm going for a Lunatic 1cc or am trying to get a perfect score so I can reach the second loop, the patterns don't feel same-y at all. Each one has its own unique strategic flavor, it forces me to move differently and even process information on screen differently. However, this is just for me, the dedicated player. If you're just picking up the game casually and playing on an easier difficulty setting or are not playing for score, than you're simply not being involved enough to have to deal with that strategy and be forced to recognize the inherent variety in the patterns.

I would actually set up something like Armed Police Batrider (which you mentioned) as an example of what might be a great compromise that should be appealing to both shmup fans and casual players as well. A mix of complex bullet patterns and unique and varied boss gimmicks like flame throwers, missiles, rocket propelled chainsaws, etc. and other awe inspiring outlandish attacks would be appealing both to me as a hardcore shmup player (BECAUSE I FUCKING MISS THAT DARIUS/GRADIUS SHIT) and would seem more immediately varied to onlookers.

Now I'm not bashing Cave; I own several Cave games and enjoy most of them. They do seem a bit redundant to me though on several levels.

Yes, I agree also. As much as I enjoy Cave's output, Ikeda's productions are very formulaic, even compared to other games of the danmaku sub-genre. I don't think bullet hell is stale though, as games like Eschatos, Ginga Force, Kaikan, Astebreed, Hellsinker, Akashicverse, and others show that there is a massive amount of potential for games that feel fundamentally unique and different even while embracing the core components of the bullet hell sub-genre (small hitbox, lots of stuff on screen).

I have, but not since catching the...danmaku 1cc bug, I guess I will call it. I did have fun, but it was more like co-op in other genres and was not as exciting or rewarding as clearing a game on my own, not in the least bit. Even if you clear a game, what kind of record is that? You could have done 30% and the other guy did 70%, so how much is your record now worth?

To each his own I guess, to me it's not much of a difference. As for the last complaint though, that really more depends on the design of the game. One player doing borderline nothing might not even work, especially if both of them have to work together or even simply survive patterns in order to optimally score or clear the game.

Also I think if Cave would have concentrated more on a co-op mode then there would have been less time for the 1P mode and then the part of the game I care more about would have been not as good. And if it would have dragged the games more in that direction yet kept them alive, I'd rather have what we have now than twice as many games that were only half as good. It's only that they put every minute of production time they had into the 1P modes that they turned out as polished as they are.

Considering most of the Cave console ports we all know and love have 3 or more extra arrange mode and novice modes should say that simply making an extra mode with a few level design and mechanic tweaks for co op shouldn't be such a tremendous undertaking design wise.

Anyway I believe this is simply a place where shmup devs are going to have to go the extra mile if they wish to make the genre at least niche instead of super ultra niche. Having to balance single player development time with multiplayer development time is something many games of many genres have to deal with, and given the more simplistic nature of shmups it should not be nearly as tremendous an undertaking. There are also many other examples of the classic "quality vs quantity" argument in hardcore gaming. Fighting game developers constantly have to perform a balancing act between number of playable characters and how well those characters are balanced.

You don't have to have integrated co-op to have social aspects in a game. Some of the most popular ios games don't.

Different games have different needs. Farmville not needing integrated co-op doesn't have much bearing on whether a hardcore action game doesn't need integrated co-op.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Wow there's actually people who prefer SDOJ? I'm genuinely surprised about that to be honest. Well sure, to each their own i suppose. Just couldn't get over things like annoying input delay

I'm not even sure there IS input delay, at least not in the latest update patch. I think in the SDOJ, it was discussed not that long ago that the 'input delay' symptom people were seeing was just people not being used to the hitbox being much larger than in previous entries or other Cave games (which means you do need to dodge a bit earlier).

The 360 Mode is also one of the best arrange modes of a Cave game ever, it's a fantastic scoring system that epitomizes risk vs reward.

[Squire Grooktook]

Just one small nitpick of something I missed earlier.

Thus, in order to write a game that these types of people will laud... you have to have played several types of shmups at a very high level...

As far as I can tell, this is not true. Almost all of the most respected shmup developers and designers always say in interviews that they only have "modest scores" and aren't nearly as great as the people who have taken their games apart. You do have to understand the genre mechanics, but you definitely don't have to be a superplayer.

[Lilium]

Wow there's actually people who prefer SDOJ? I'm genuinely surprised about that to be honest. Well sure, to each their own i suppose. Just couldn't get over things like annoying input delay

I'm not even sure there IS input delay, at least not in the latest update patch. I think in the SDOJ, it was discussed not that long ago that the 'input delay' symptom people were seeing was just people not being used to the hitbox being much larger than in previous entries or other Cave games (which means you do need to dodge a bit earlier).

Yeh, that may be true. I really don't like claiming input lag in these sort of things because if i'm the only one feeling it, it'll just seem like me being a sore loser I don't have any evidence for there being any and it might well have been done away with in a patch. I can't say since i haven't played it in a long while. Guess I'll draw that point back. Its not debunking all the arguments i may have against the game but my feelings towards SDOJ isn't in any way relevant here so I'll just pull out now and not debunk this any further

[Squire Grooktook]

The fact that your ship keeps on moving after you pause the game, let go of the stick, and unpause seems pretty strong evidence for input lag.

I don't think I got any patch

[Bananamatic]

if you want to see input lag in sdoj, play the st5 boss on expert and try to dodge the honeycomb attack
the lag is way more apparent when the game slows down

[gs68]

Two pages back, but:

Wall of text, starting at the point where he calls KAI an idiot

I think KAI was being sarcastic with his Touhou comment; it was a response to the "eww fujoshibait" post. Sexist double standards are gross and anyone who bashes fujoshi-targeted fanservice while being part of a loli-themed tournament team needs to reevaluate themselves. (Unless that post is being sarcastic too.)

To get back on topic, I find it ridiculous that a single 2D shooter is the cause of death for the genre. I blame it more on shifting trends in video games, especially the bias for games that have more content and narrative that has persisted since the mid-90's or so.

[Lord Satori]

I like how this thread (and the other one too) is pretty much just [insert game I hate here] as the universal cause of the shumps downfall.

[cave hermit]

To get back on topic, I find it ridiculous that a single 2D shooter is the cause of death for the genre. I blame it more on shifting trends in video games, especially the bias for games that have more content and narrative that has persisted since the mid-90's or so.

Agreed. When fighting games moved in they pretty much took over the arcade, and nowadays it seems like gameplay is taking a backseat to cinematic presentation and graphical quality.

[system11]

For the mainstream audience? probably the ones you love most.

When the bullet hell type games first started getting added to MAME I remember a lot of people bracketing them with the Mahjong games, as pointless pieces of software, completely impossible to survive, designed for no purpose than suck up coin after coin as quickly as possible. They seem to be loved a bit more than they were at the time, but back then people were slamming the team for wasting money on securing the boards!

That's also a viewpoint I'd heard in public years before.

I remember that too, a lot of the old school collectors and players had absolutely no interest whatsoever in bullet hell style games, while they'd still happily play at things like Daytona and modern gun games.

I think fighting games are a bit of a victim of that too, some of the newer ones I find totally incomprehensible so I'm glad the DOA series is still going - you can stick pick that up and have fun without knowing what a false roman cancel is. As soon as anything gets too hardcore it starts to become less attractive to new fans.

[Squire Grooktook]

I think, to appeal to less hardcore players, you have to walk a bit of a balancing tight rope.

The bullet hell aesthetic might be intimidating to some players, but at the same time I often find it's more palatable to newcomers than older games which often evoke a reaction of "that looks so simple, is that all there is to it?". The flash of bullet hell definitely adds quite a bit of appeal and also signals that the game has a lot of room for depth and mastery, which is attractive to many players outside the genre (again, not talking about the Call of Doody Bro Gamers or interactive movie fanatics).

Back in like...2007 when I first started to notice Touhou gaining internet fame, the terms "bullet hell" and "danmaku" were just all over the place on forums. People became so intrigued by the concept of these uber complex mind bending patterns that for a while it was hard to convince people that older shmups like Gradius and Darius also had value. Due to its flashiness and immediately apparent depth, Bullet Hell seemed to have become the standard, and anything seemingly less complex was inferior.

That may have worked back when everyone was under the mistaken impression that Touhou was free and that you could just pirate it and tell everyone you played it on a forum to look cool and hardcore. Now that these games are actually showing up on digital distribution services people are now realizing that these games aren't free, you actually have to pay money for them. And if you actually have to pay money for them, you need to get some mileage out of them. Which means putting effort into a hard game. Ironically players find themselves intimidated by the very thing that at an earlier time they might have found intriguing.

For every claim I once heard of "PFFFT, YOU THINK THIS IS HARD? TRY TOUHOU", I'm now hearing "WOW THESE GAMES LOOK SO FUN, BUT I'M AFRAID TO PLAY, I'D BE SO BAD AT IT."

This is why, I think a game like Ikaruga was a bit more approachable by more casual fans. It had a "wow!" factor with the dense bullet patterns, but at the same time the main mechanic meant you didn't have to sight read like a pro to get a basic clear. Say what you will about a lot of the guys who talk about Ika like it's the only shmup ever not going on to become "true fans" of the genre, but that's besides the point. As I said in my giganto wall of text, shmups shouldn't be trying to convert people to hardcore fans but rather give casual fans enough casual fun to make them feel like they didn't waste ten bucks.

Of course not everything has to have a polarity system to get that balance of appeals. Eschatos's shield mechanic gives you tons of great bullet dodging but also allows you to avoid getting walled by bullets. The mix of a slightly larger hitbox along with more outlandish boss gimmicks in Armed Police Batrider also accomplishes this, setting aside bullet hell moments as a rare treat to be savored rather than the main focus of the game. Other examples too but you get the point I think.

[mamboFoxtrot]

you can still pick that up and have fun without knowing what a false roman cancel is.

I honestly don't get why so many people think you have to know literally everything about a game to have fun with it. I've had plenty of fun with Guilty Gear and other complex fighting games and I can't even DP reliably. Granted, I guess it wouldn't be as fun if everyone I knew didn't also suck at fighting games, but eh.

It's more than just the difficulty or even the complication of game mechanics. When it comes to cave I've noticed them griping about how they all feel the same...and even though the bullet patters are varied in size, speed, layers, etc it is still a game full of only(mostly) pink and blue bullets coming at you stage after stage. The design's of enemies and bosses is interesting and appealing; but the only variety of attack is the same. It's just not as fun for some people. Dodging vibrant colored bullets over and over again just isn't as appealing as dodging missiles, bullets, lasers, etc...it's not just Cave u could say the same about Ikaruga but the polarity mechanic saves it in that regard.

Yeah, this is something that's always bugged me just a little about CAVE games. I haven't played all of them, but other than the bosses in Mushihimesama Futari I can't think of any instances of an enemy attack or projectile that isn't of the "energy bullet" variety. I guess the flower petals from Guwange's first stage boss, maybe. I hear Pink Sweets is better about this, but I haven't played it yet.

[nasty_wolverine]

Yeah, this is something that's always bugged me just a little about CAVE games. I haven't played all of them, but other than the bosses in Mushihimesama Futari I can't think of any instances of an enemy attack or projectile that isn't of the "energy bullet" variety. I guess the flower petals from Guwange's first stage boss, maybe. I hear Pink Sweets is better about this, but I haven't played it yet.

The YGW games and AK have quite good bullet variety. They have all kinds of bullet shapes from grenades to missiles, weird swirly thingies, ibara has flame throwers. All kinds of cool stuff. AK had them too even though they were prominently themed blue and pink, with the lasers red. Other than that ESPrade had good bullet variety.

But yeah, there main series games, DDP, Mushi, ESPgaluda, were all blue, pink or purple. all round or 4 blobs stuck together tumbling.

[Sakurei]

Two pages back, but:

Wall of text, starting at the point where he calls KAI an idiot

I think KAI was being sarcastic with his Touhou comment; it was a response to the "eww fujoshibait" post. Sexist double standards are gross and anyone who bashes fujoshi-targeted fanservice while being part of a loli-themed tournament team needs to reevaluate themselves. (Unless that post is being sarcastic too.)

To get back on topic, I find it ridiculous that a single 2D shooter is the cause of death for the genre. I blame it more on shifting trends in video games, especially the bias for games that have more content and narrative that has persisted since the mid-90's or so.

Yeah, I was 100% serious with my post Whatever made you think I wasn't I wonder.

Holy shit people don't understand sarcasm anymore. This thread is dumb as shit so I made a dumb as shit post to match it, that's all. Ketsui is a good game (albeit not my cup of tea) and the "fujoshibait" thing is about as as true as Touhou sexualizing its characters.

[Lilium]

Obviously it was. In a thread this silly I would honestly expect the majority of replies to be sarcastic.

[dpful]

What's silly and dumb as shit is that there were a hundred homemade games at PAX this year and last, and none of them were shmups.

[Squire Grooktook]

I think there's a legitimate point in the op. Say what you want about niche games being niche, but there's no damn reason why 2 hour long indie 8 bit platformers can outsell these games.

Also I think some of you are misunderstanding the op's question. He's not asking which shmup was so bad that it "killed the genre". He's asking what was the first financial loss in the genre that signaled to other devs that the genre was no longer profitable. Games like Gradius V and Ikaruga were being sold as full physical console releases just one or two console generations ago. You don't see that anymore.

[nosorrow]

I'm eagerly awaiting the post that will kill this thread and the similar ones polluting the first page. What was kind of funny at first has since become quite lame.

[nasty_wolverine]

what killed shmups is probably a very broad question. I can probably try and answer but, well lets see. I ll try to keep the events in chronological order, but probably not be correct.

PHASE 1
(1985 - 1990) - the FLOOD of mediocre or euroshmups during the early 90's, trying to jump on the success bandwagon of rtype, gradius and darius.
(1993 - 1997) - advent of danmaku, raising the already high barrier for entry even higher.
(1995 - 2000) - the inherent 2D-ness of the genre blocking it out of the PSone console era into the current gen. console outputs have been way less than the previous generations
(199? - 200?) - death of the arcade scene
(2000 - 2005) - hardly any localisation of games in the PS2 era

At this point, most people almost forgotten what shmups are. except a few that go "yeah those kinda games, those are old as shit. was pretty fun though". And a few, that have been with the genre for a very long time, and probably looked as crazy people who play outdated games.

PHASE 2
(1997) - War was beginning. Malc founded "the shmups forum".
(2000) - Mame comes around, apparently a lot of shmups were added around 2000, include battle trilogy, ddp, batsugun and a few others.
(2002) - Touhou comes around, embodiment of the scarlet devil was released around 2002, and lots more fanmade and canon games to come.
(2004) - Gradius V for the PS2. Gets on mainstream rankings, which only Ikaruga had the privilege to.
(2007) - THE HARDEST BOSS EVER video
(2008) - Ikaruga on XBLA
(2009) - first of the CAVE localised games, Deathsmiles. Bunch more to follow, with some being region free.
(2011) - Jamestown released. probably the first good euroshmup that was moderately successful.
(201+) - lots of shmups being localized. We got crimzon clover. then around 2013 shmups started getting on steam. good number of western indie game devs getting in on the action. we got resogun on the PS4, as a free gamefor PS+ members. other companies taking interest in shmups like Qute who made ginga force and eschatos. we got caladrius.

So, shmups didnt get "killed". it just moved underground. you will find a good game if you know where to look. and, we are getting a small but steady supply of new games too.

edit: do let me know if there is something you want to add or correct to the timeline.

[Lord Satori]

I could really go for some churros right about now.

[DoomsDave]

I think the Ginga Force model is one that would really appeal to casual players. It has a story, 3D graphics, upgrades/unlockables and the stages are separated with 3 lives per stage and 3 levels of difficulty. Every run you earn credits that can be used to unlock stuff so it gives the player the impression that they've progressed even if they fail a stage. They can retry individual levels and progress rather than credit feeding or retrying from the start. I think all of that would appeal to casual players or people who criticize shmups for being "too short" or "lacking depth."

It's a shame it's Japanese only and hardly anyone outside of the shmup players know its exists. It doesn't even have a wiki page.

[nasty_wolverine]

It's a shame it's Japanese only and hardly anyone outside of the shmup players know its exists. It doesn't even have a wiki page.

Its region free. Story and menu translation are on the farm somewhere.

[DoomsDave]

That's my point. It's region free and people still don't know it exists. Casuals are not going to go out of their way to import an obscure shmup and playing it with translations open on another screen. I think a publisher could do well localising it and putting it on digital platforms for a reasonable price.

[nasty_wolverine]

Casuals are not going to go out of their way to import an obscure shmup...

...even if all the menu and story scripts were to be in English.

[jepjepjep]

Yeah, this is something that's always bugged me just a little about CAVE games. I haven't played all of them, but other than the bosses in Mushihimesama Futari I can't think of any instances of an enemy attack or projectile that isn't of the "energy bullet" variety. I guess the flower petals from Guwange's first stage boss, maybe. I hear Pink Sweets is better about this, but I haven't played it yet.

The Yagawa-designed games are better about having bullet variety, especially Ibara. Too bad it wasn't brought to 360.

[Squire Grooktook]

Casuals are not going to go out of their way to import an obscure shmup...

...even if all the menu and story scripts were to be in English.

Importing is the big word. It:

-Makes buying it expensive
-Makes buying it weird and scary (if you've never imported before, which very few actually have)
-Makes hearing or learning about it more difficult and unlikely

Ginga is definitely a step in the right direction. We just need more shmups following the lead world wide.

[Pretas]

I think the Ginga Force model is one that would really appeal to casual players. It has a story, 3D graphics, upgrades/unlockables and the stages are separated with 3 lives per stage and 3 levels of difficulty. Every run you earn credits that can be used to unlock stuff so it gives the player the impression that they've progressed even if they fail a stage. They can retry individual levels and progress rather than credit feeding or retrying from the start. I think all of that would appeal to casual players or people who criticize shmups for being "too short" or "lacking depth."

The problem is that casuals don't want to keep retrying the same segments and over and over, experiencing slow but gradual improvement until they finally pass each barrier. That sense of progress doesn't offer enough instant gratification to keep them interested. They just want to plow through every obstacle the first time they encounter it without slowing down, like in a Diablo or Borderlands. This is why arcade games with checkpoints instead of instant respawns tend to be especially unpopular with casuals, because this prevents credit feeding from being a viable "strategy."

To true casuals, games shouldn't be ongoing challenges, they should be "content" to be "experienced" once or twice before being sold back to Gamestop.

Also, modern STGs are largely made to be solitary experiences. If they allow multiplayer, it likely breaks the game in some way or renders its most important systems invalid. Unless a single-player game is a world-spanning "epic experience" like Skyrim that can potentially last one well over fifty hours, it will be near impossible to get casual players interested in it.

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

Considering most of the Cave console ports we all know and love have 3 or more extra arrange mode and novice modes should say that simply making an extra mode with a few level design and mechanic tweaks for co op shouldn't be such a tremendous undertaking design wise.

Oh for the ports, yeah I agree with you. Usually when I get to talking about Cave I am only talking about the arcade games.

[Squire Grooktook]

I think the Ginga Force model is one that would really appeal to casual players. It has a story, 3D graphics, upgrades/unlockables and the stages are separated with 3 lives per stage and 3 levels of difficulty. Every run you earn credits that can be used to unlock stuff so it gives the player the impression that they've progressed even if they fail a stage. They can retry individual levels and progress rather than credit feeding or retrying from the start. I think all of that would appeal to casual players or people who criticize shmups for being "too short" or "lacking depth."

The problem is that casuals don't want to keep retrying the same segments and over and over, experiencing slow but gradual improvement until they finally pass each barrier. That sense of progress doesn't offer enough instant gratification to keep them interested. They just want to plow through every obstacle the first time they encounter it without slowing down, like in a Diablo or Borderlands. This is why arcade games with checkpoints instead of instant respawns tend to be especially unpopular with casuals, because this prevents credit feeding from being a viable "strategy."

To true casuals, games shouldn't be ongoing challenges, they should be "content" to be "experienced" once or twice before being sold back to Gamestop.

Super Meat Boy is basically based around grinding away at short 10 second segments endlessly till you memorize enough to clear them, and it seems to be strangely popluar with "casual players". Admittedly it has a mammoth amount of content, but most of it is just bite sized arrangements of the same theme.

Than again, as I said "true casuals" shouldn't be the aim of stg devs. They should simultaneously be targeting stg enthusaists with smart and deep design, along with other hardcore/niche players from other, similar genres who have enough of an in interest in dedicated/hardcore action games to take the plunge. Stg devs should work on making concessions to these guys, not the "true casuals".

Although that being said, I do think the ideal path for all non 1cc players is a balance between extra credits and restart points. I think Alien Soldier is a good model: It gives just enough credits to feel forgiving, but the recovery points on game over and the very limited number of credits still make it challenging even for experienced players. You can restart a stage a few times, preventing that frustration feel, but you'll get booted back to the beginning of the game after too many times preventing that repetitive "retry segment over and over" feel.

Also, modern STGs are largely made to be solitary experiences. If they allow multiplayer, it likely breaks the game in some way or renders its most important systems invalid.

As I said before, the fact that modern STG's have put zero effort whatsoever into exploring multiplayer is all the more reason that the very concept is ripe for innovation and exploration. Wanna see something new and interesting in the genre that hasn't been done before but doesn't interfere with the core tenants of an arcade game? A well designed and balanced co-op mode would be just that. Jamestown is a start and shows it can be excellent, now let's take it further.

Also it need not break the game in any way really. Just make co op a separate arrange mode or something.

Considering most of the Cave console ports we all know and love have 3 or more extra arrange mode and novice modes should say that simply making an extra mode with a few level design and mechanic tweaks for co op shouldn't be such a tremendous undertaking design wise.

Oh for the ports, yeah I agree with you. Usually when I get to talking about Cave I am only talking about the arcade games.

Yeah. I'm coming from the perspective of console and pc games. Shmups are probably still fair game for actual arcades, given it's their natural habitat and an easy place for them to extract regular income.