the mysterious worlds of shmups

professor ganson · Post by **professor ganson** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 2:49 pm

I suppose my main draw to shmups is the hardcore challenge, but I also really like the strange otherness of the worlds represented.

To what extent, if any, are you drawn to shmups because of their science-fictional or fantasy settings? (I suppose I'm thinking here of space and fantasy shooters, not military ones.)

Which shmups draw you in for this reason?

dpful · Post by **dpful** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 2:53 pm

I really like Blazing Star.
That first level background is really great in particular. A crashed ship, a huge skidmark, and a giant gravestone...... That gets smashed by the boss!

JBC · Post by **JBC** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 2:54 pm

Gradius and R-Type most dubiously.

I would give just about anything to fly around space blowing up wierd Moai heads or gigantic wierd rat fetuses.

Y'know - if everything is infinite then somewhere out there something like that is actually happening.

Ganelon · Post by **Ganelon** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 2:58 pm

Well, Winds of Thunder has an appealing background and atmosphere. I can hardly recall the backgrounds of most sci-fi verts. That's all I can remember at the moment...

JBC · Post by **JBC** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 3:08 pm

Seriously, one of my favorite things to daydream about is flying around in my R9 blazing through a horde of biomechanicle death machines. I just sit there staring forward listening to my headphones and imagining that alot.

I always end up blowing up the creature or planet i'm inside and escaping just enough to get away from the explosion - but not enough to save my ship. I drift out into deep space - exhausted... running out of oxygen... fading away...

As my eyes close thier final time i let out a sigh and crack a small smile. But it is a good smile... a victory smile.

Then Milla Jovovitch is floating naked outside the cockpit in a protective bubble and i... uh, sorry. You get the idea.

Klatrymadon · Post by **Klatrymadon** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 4:18 pm

Seriously, one of my favorite things to daydream about is flying around in my R9 blazing through a horde of biomechanicle death machines. I just sit there staring forward listening to my headphones and imagining that alot.

Haha, I do the same. It's a good thing. To me it suggests you have the capacity for free thought, a quality that should be basic and rudimentary, but is sadly lacking in our societies. I certainly don't think this kind of dreaming is odd. Hell, working 9 to 5 and caring about nothing but money or a weekend booze session is odd.

To answer the question, aye, the art direction of a lot of shooters is partly what draws me to them. I'm sure many will disagree, but I think the art (coupled with music) is just as important as any intricacy in the scoring system. DoDonPachi has quite a singular visual style and a superb musical score, and from the opening level you really feel like you're a part of some huge and unusual war. I'm particularly fond of the more odd, maudlin or macabre stuff, too. X-Multiply, Salamander, certain levels of R-Type and a few others have this genuinely bizarre quality to them and a dark suggestive horror that their imitators have never succeeded in capturing. I love that. I just love imaginative design in general really, and I especially appreciate games with an art direction that completely ignores the shallow whims of the market at large.

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 5:26 pm

X-Multiply, yummmm......

I really like the environments of Parodius games... especially the shower/bathtub levels. Yum yum!!

ST Dragon · Post by **ST Dragon** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 7:05 pm

The Heroic Fanatsy Theme of the levels in Lords of Thunder.
The Cave, the underwater level, the enchanted Cathedral, the Mechanical level & the sky level where you fight the Bosses in a row in Gynoug, all make up a perfect experience indeed.

The 5th level in Thunder Force V, where you brake free from the earth's gravity, face the judgment fleet around earth's orbit, witness the battle & the explosions in the background, while 2 gigantic battle ships collide & explode, are some of the coolest moments I've witnessed in a shooter.

The half sunken world of "In the Hunt" is a perfect example of futuristic pessimism, as you travel across sunken war factories, cities, Olympic stadiums for a final confrontation in the enemy's sunken naval base. Let's not forget the vertical accession in the procataclysmic tower as the Ekatondahir chases you upwards.

The Fantasy worlds in Agony are probably the most memorable ones in a shmup. You fly through seas with serpents & Viking ships, swamps with dragons, scourged lands of fire & lava & haunted citadels.

Apidya shares a similar theme. The meadows edge, the swamps, the sewers & the techno city with it's kick ass techno soundtrack.

Project X with its awesome sci-fi land scenery... probably the best graphics money could buy back in the day.

Klatrymadon · Post by **Klatrymadon** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 7:09 pm

Hear hear. Agony makes you feel proud to be English.

Not in a nationalist way, before anyone starts.

ST Dragon · Post by **ST Dragon** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 7:18 pm

Well it is pretty obvious, that the levels of Agony are set in an Anglo-Saxon Heroic Fantasy world similar to the one in Lord of The Rings.

But were the producers also English?

kidneythief · Post by **kidneythief** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 7:19 pm

The ESPrade story/setting is fairly intriguing, if for no other reason than because the whole SENTAI thing is hilarious to me.

Klatrymadon · Post by **Klatrymadon** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 7:20 pm

But where the producers also English?

Yeah, I was referring to them rather than the theme of the game, hehe. Psygnosis originated (and are still based) up here in Liverpool.

...Unless they didn't make it at all... I do have a bad memory.

ST Dragon · Post by **ST Dragon** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 7:20 pm

kidneythief wrote:The ESPrade story/setting is fairly intriguing, if for no other reason than because the whole SEKAI thing is hilarious to me.

What's the "SEKAI" thing?

ST Dragon · Post by **ST Dragon** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 7:26 pm

Bal-Sagoth wrote:
But where the producers also English?
Yeah, I was referring to them rather than the theme of the game, hehe. Psygnosis originated (and are still based) up here in Liverpool.

...Unless they didn't make it at all... I do have a bad memory.

Hence, where the game theme originated then...

I loved the Owl sign of Psygnosis. It’s still one of the coolest company Logos to look at even today.

kidneythief · Post by **kidneythief** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 9:12 pm

ST Dragon wrote:
kidneythief wrote:The ESPrade story/setting is fairly intriguing, if for no other reason than because the whole SEKAI thing is hilarious to me.
What's the "SEKAI" thing?

Super Sentai, a television series from japan which eventually spun off into the american-produced Power Rangers series (which actually used similar footage)

Granted the ESPrade dudes don't ahve multi colored suits, and theres only 3 of them, they seem like the fit in the genre to me.

ST Dragon · Post by **ST Dragon** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 9:25 pm

Yes you're right.... I remember that series. I used to watch that when I was young. I thought I was the only one who knew about it.

It was much better than the lame Power Rangers. The Huge Robots were so cool back then.

But I can't say it looked any similar to Esprade... I can't recall the guys in Super Sentai having magical powers like the Esp series.
The nearest thing I know of to Esp series, is Shikigame No Shiro.

Unless we're talking about a different thing of course…

kidneythief · Post by **kidneythief** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 9:31 pm

Youre right it's not like a parallel to sentai or anything, I just feel it's the same genre... like the ESP kids could probably find themselves on a FOX tv show produced by saban fighting giant styrofoam monsters every week ;p

edit: ESPOWER RANGERS

Zweihander · Post by **Zweihander** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 9:36 pm

For me, the most "otherworldly" games would have to be the Darius series, and in particular Darius Gaiden and G-Darius, the games which set it apart from the rest. (Before that, it was just giant fish, but Gaiden and G-Darius took the necessary steps to make the series totally unique)

ST Dragon · Post by **ST Dragon** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 9:42 pm

I definitely agree on G-Darius & Darius Gaiden.
Some of the level are incredible, almost as if they were taken directly from a Ray Bradbury or Isaac Asimov Sci-Fi novel.

JBC · Post by **JBC** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 10:30 pm

first level - I love fighting the Golden Ogre against the backdrop of that city in Darius Gaiden - with the sky glowing red/purple... Too bad the battle is so short. I love to use a black hold bomb there cause it looks so cool in that setting - but it almost totally destroys the fishy.

MovingTarget · Post by **MovingTarget** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 10:36 pm

They especially mysterious when the developers leave you in the dark about the story most the time! I like that though, imagining what kind of world it really is, letting the ship and background design spark my imagination etc. Although the weapons are quite hard to imagine irl somtimes heheh

kidneythief · Post by **kidneythief** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 11:43 pm

anybody want to enlighten me on exactly what the plot of the twinbee games are? Because I just do NOT get it. Some crazy mix between Aura Battler Dunbine and Alice in Wonderland?

ST Dragon · Post by **ST Dragon** » Sat Sep 24, 2005 12:20 am

I was wondering about the exact same thing also...

I only know what I think is the story behind Twin Bee Yahoo!

A strange game where the Twin Bees fight against different popular web pages, culminating in a final battle with the Yahoo search engine.

One more shooter with a very strange otherness of the worlds represented, is Saint Dragon by Jaleco.
Especialy the 1st level (Waste land) & the Mecha Bull & the Pleiades Stage with the cool blue & purple stars.

The leading cyborg dragon himself, is a very strange beast similar to the theme of Agony, Apidya & Gynoug.

popawell · Post by **popawell** » Sat Sep 24, 2005 3:25 am

The gradius series always has me thinking about the story.
It always makes me think about how the big cores are created. As the backeriods (Is that spelled right?) are all organic organisms, no matter how machine they seem. The design of the big cores are really exposed, thereticaly for cooling purposes because the core is an organic sun, but that also may have another purpose. When the colors of a magnetic storm appear, the "creating" of the cores begins (WHERE DID THIS COME FROM IN MY MIND?)

. Now think of those plates on the front of the cores as clothes. Well you get the idea. And a vic viper flying around one of these sessions in progress is going to get A LOT of bullet spam.

JBC · Post by **JBC** » Sun Sep 25, 2005 12:23 am

I mostly think about the Moai's when contemplating Gradius. I love them because they are well... y'know? They're real - and we don't know exactly how they got there. One day those Moais are gonna wake up and Destroy Our Core!

Leandro · Post by **Leandro** » Sun Sep 25, 2005 10:06 am

Bio-Hazard Battle is very atmospheric... I like this

Randorama · Post by **Randorama** » Sun Sep 25, 2005 12:51 pm

Let's not forget the sublime sense of "space, the last frontier" summoned by Tatsujin and sequel, and the the other excellent series by Taito, Rayforce (and sequels). When i was a kid, i liked more the "distant other worlds" theme, i'd add. Too much Star Trek...?

professor ganson · Post by **professor ganson** » Sun Sep 25, 2005 1:15 pm

Randorama wrote:When i was a kid, i liked more the "distant other worlds" theme, i'd add. Too much Star Trek...?

Yeah, I would get bored with Star Trek when it was all about military struggles with the Kling-ons or whatever--- I wanted to see them explore new worlds as scientists in every episode. A new shmup, for me, is just like this: a new world that must be investigated, with high-powered weapons, of course.

Klatrymadon · Post by **Klatrymadon** » Sun Sep 25, 2005 1:28 pm

Yeah, I would get bored with Star Trek when it was all about military struggles with the Kling-ons or whatever--- I wanted to see them explore new worlds as scientists in every episode. A new shmup, for me, is just like this: a new world that must be investigated, with high-powered weapons, of course.

You need Super Metroid.

professor ganson · Post by **professor ganson** » Sun Sep 25, 2005 1:43 pm

Bal-Sagoth wrote:
I'm particularly fond of the more odd, maudlin or macabre stuff, too. X-Multiply, Salamander, certain levels of R-Type and a few others have this genuinely bizarre quality to them and a dark suggestive horror that their imitators have never succeeded in capturing. I love that. I just love imaginative design in general really, and I especially appreciate games with an art direction that completely ignores the shallow whims of the market at large.

Just want to say, Bal-Sagoth, that I really like what you wrote here, and that Super Metroid kicks ass.