What exactly are non-bullet hell shooters called?

[Captain]

Ya know... Thunder Force, Zero Wing, Out Zone, R-Type, Gradius, Darius, Pulstar, Blazing star...those kinds of games.

They can't just be called non-bullet-hells, can they?

[broken harbour]

Shmups?
STG's?
Shooters?

Since all of the ones you listed are (I think) horizontal scrolling shooters, many here would say 'Hori's'

[Captain]

not aiming for the horizontality, but the lack of bullet hell, and bullet hells are shooters as well.

[shmuppyLove]

http://youtu.be/IQW-NZI-IV8

[CIT]

Bullet hell shooters are just a subset of shooters. Therefore games not in this subset would be refered to as "shooters".

[Kollision]

oldskool?
methodical?
tomatoes?

[KAI]

I call them non-danmaku. Bullet hell sounds soooooo stupid.

[Squire Grooktook]

I always called them "traditional shooters".

[professor ganson]

I always called them "traditional shooters".

Bullet hell became so pervasive that this nomenclature makes good sense.

[o1s1n]

'Better'?

[Furry Fox Jet Pilot]

Are you referring to games like Raiden, Flying Shark, Twin Cobra, and other early Toaplan games in which bullets are aimed directly at you, and enemies shoot a lot less?

[R-Gray 1]

I like "better"

-old school shmups
-classic shooters

[Captain]

Are you referring to games like Raiden, Flying Shark, Twin Cobra, and other early Toaplan games in which bullets are aimed directly at you, and enemies shoot a lot less?

basically.

[Squire Grooktook]

I don't think most bullet hell games use aimed shots any less TBH. Almost every Cave stage is chalk full of Zakos who pour aim shots at you from different sides of the screen.

[Eaglet]

I think unaimed bullets or patterns is more of a rarity than anything else in arcade games.

YGW games usually have the unaimed circular spinning things (Nose Lavagghin's twin turrets for an example) though.

[Captain]

derailing, it's not the aim type, its more how much the game allows interaction with the environment and hazards and how many bullets are there on the screen.
enemy shoots at your position=what you said
enemy shoots a giant pattern at your position=bullet hell.
also if the game has any walls you can hit your face on to die, it's usually not bullet hell.

[Laurel_McFang]

I was actually thinking in the opposite direction just today. Shmup have become defined by their bullet hells wether it's cave or Touhou, yet Aldyne, Twin bee! and other shmups I have been playing are more routed in enemy patterns, even r-type preferred interesting enemies to bullet patterns. So it really beckons a question why have enemies in shmups become more predictable (leave bosses out of this). And fire rates and bullet spread have become more of a central mechanic. I find the enemies in Twin Bee are amazing, but ESPgaluda II the enemies are fairly predictable and it's the bullets that matter.

[Formless God]

And fire rates and bullet spread have become more of a central mechanic.

- New scoring systems.
- Large obstacles and enemy patterns generally have to be fixed. This isn't the case for bullets.
- Scaling down the hitboxes give the player more space to move around in. In return, the object count needs to be increased.
- Throwing more things at the player is a legitimate way to make your game harder.

[Squire Grooktook]

I was actually thinking in the opposite direction just today. Shmup have become defined by their bullet hells wether it's cave or Touhou, yet Aldyne, Twin bee! and other shmups I have been playing are more routed in enemy patterns, even r-type preferred interesting enemies to bullet patterns. So it really beckons a question why have enemies in shmups become more predictable (leave bosses out of this).

Play Eschatos. You'll thank me.

[DMC]

I've used old school to label these games but OP mentioned many games with a style that dominated approximately 85-95. If you call these kinds of games old school, then what do you call the pre-85 games like Space Invaders, Galaga, Defender, Sinistar or Asteroids?

Just reminded me. I co-hosted a Swedish STG tournament years ago in which we invited other gaming forums to participate. There was one arcade forum and one vintage games forum participating. We had one week that was called old school week, but some members from those forums were dissappointed to see that the old school games were from the 90's and instead they wanted games like Space Invaders.

...And I kind of agree, it feels a bit weird calling the games in the OP "old-school" when they are so different from the golden age games. I haven't seen anything better though old school.

[Laurel_McFang]

I was actually thinking in the opposite direction just today. Shmup have become defined by their bullet hells wether it's cave or Touhou, yet Aldyne, Twin bee! and other shmups I have been playing are more routed in enemy patterns, even r-type preferred interesting enemies to bullet patterns. So it really beckons a question why have enemies in shmups become more predictable (leave bosses out of this).

Play Eschatos. You'll thank me.

Just checked out the classic game room review and was a bit blown away. Might try it there actually is a wonder swan color for sale in my neighborhood ironically might try judgement silversword first

[Squire Grooktook]

I was actually thinking in the opposite direction just today. Shmup have become defined by their bullet hells wether it's cave or Touhou, yet Aldyne, Twin bee! and other shmups I have been playing are more routed in enemy patterns, even r-type preferred interesting enemies to bullet patterns. So it really beckons a question why have enemies in shmups become more predictable (leave bosses out of this).

Play Eschatos. You'll thank me.

Just checked out the classic game room review and was a bit blown away. Might try it there actually is a wonder swan color for sale in my neighborhood ironically might try judgement silversword first

Yeah, it's pretty fun. Qute really taking bullet hell in a new direction.

I might also recommend Cho Ren Sha 68k as another bullet hell shmup with more of an emphasis on keeping up with enemies and staying mobile.