Would a AAA-like shmup be feasible?

[riccyjay]

Been playing Sine Mora Ex and, wow, that game just looks so good. Got me thinking, could you ever see a AAA-like shmup being made? Wouldn't have to be from an actual AAA studio - I just mean something with the length, graphics, story etc that's associated with those games.

Obviously a major issue would be the fact that most shmups are designed to be replayed and so can't be overly long - but I think this could be overcome by making each chapter kind of like an individual game. Say you had seven chapters, and each one was about the length of a Psikyo game with each chapter then further divided into seven stages. Could even have different 'genres' (vertical, horizontal, bullet hell) for different chapters, but all tied together with a coherent story, cutscenes etc (all skippable, of course, in an arcade mode).

I'll answer my own question and say, while I personally think it would be great, I don't see it ever happening. I'd love it if someone really big gave it a go though - eg if Nintendo adopted its Starfox franchise into a shmup or something.

[Shepardus]

what is AAA
what is shmup

[Xyga]

AAAH !

[NTSC-J]

Ah, yes, the impetuousness of youth.

[qmish]

Sine Mora is criticized for gameplay flaws, dunno how EX version is improved.

But honestly i'm curious too see modern shmup with AAA like production values, too. Just as en experiment of sort.

[riccyjay]

what is AAA
what is shmup

Well, yeah, I guess neither have completely clear definitions, but I think we all know what they mean in general. Like I said, doesn't have to be an actual AAA type studio, I just mean a longer game, possibly with a cut scene driven narrative, and some next-gen bells and whistles.

[qmish]

Only if cut scenes dont get into way of game. See Raiden V's attempt on adding plot in shmup using chat

Btw have you played Astebreed? It's doujin/indie, but looks as good, and weapons are satisfying.

[Shepardus]

Btw have you played Astebreed? It's doujin/indie, but looks as good, and weapons are satisfying.

Was going to mention that myself. By some measures "AAA-level shmups" already exist, depending on how far you're willing to stretch the definitions of "AAA" and "shmup."

[Xyga]

What was the name of that absolutely stunning hori that got cancelled? The visuals were off-the charts.

My memory's fuzzy but iirc it had some TFV-like atmosphere and the demo featured some action in a futuristic dome-city or something.

EDIT: oh yeah Heaven Variant, kinda Einhänder-like also.

[riccyjay]

Only if cut scenes dont get into way of game. See Raiden V's attempt on adding plot in shmup using chat

Btw have you played Astebreed? It's doujin/indie, but looks as good, and weapons are satisfying.

I liked Sine Mora's way of doing things. There's a story mode in which the 'cutscenes' (mainly just bits of dialogue) play automatically or an arcade mode in which you just start shooting. One problem I had with that game, though, was that there are still rather long show-offy sections which, although they can be fast forwarded through, still take up too much time on repeat plays.

Just had a look at a video of Astebreed. Hadn't heard of it before so might well check it out. Cheers for the suggestion!

[qmish]

Speaking of visuals, its just that arcade shmups of 80s and 90s were pretty much kings, yeah we remember

Hey, i'm thinking about levels of details something like Dimahoo has, not sure if such attention was reached in 3d ones.

Hadn't heard of it before so might well check it out

Be sure to check out their previous game too, called Ether Vapor. It's older one, some say its better.

[Bananamatic]

no

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Having multiple courses is the smart way to implement an extended game experience with storytelling without it being an exceptionally long game akin to Gradius V (which is fun, but a definite endurance test). This is already used in some games to great effecr, for instance:

• Strania had a DLC pack that is literally a complete, second, except told from the side of the enemies you were fighting. Assets and setpieces were reused, but the DLC "Side Vower" is essentially a sequel at a bargain price.

• Course selection is a staple in the Darius games.

• Touhou games usually have an "Extra" course which is basically a long single stage and boss fight as an unlockable bonus.

The reason shmups are usually short though is because well-designed levels take lots of time to playtest, and it's better to have a tight 5 stage game experience than 10 relatively mediocre ones. Shmups are also historically seen as a "hardcore" genre which means they will always get limited, niche market appeal, so a big developer normally won't waste their time (unless it's their specialty or they have other successful franchises to bank on, such as with Konami).

[LordHypnos]

I kind of liked the way that Sturmwind did it. That was a indie Dreamcast game released in... 2014, IIRC? So not exactly a AAA game, but pretty visually impressive for being developed with KallistiOS (homebrew dev kit). Gave you a huge number of stages that could be played one at a time or in sequence if you want an endurance test. Then it had an "arcade" mode that was just a selection of 6 of those other stages that had to be played in sequence. It also had multiple difficulties. Was pretty fun too, if euroey. I think that format made it much more appealing to casuals than your average shooter. Alas, I lost Sturmwind and quite a few other DC games last time I moved I did back it up, IIRC, but still.

[Sumez]

Obviously a major issue would be the fact that most shmups are designed to be replayed and so can't be overly long - but I think this could be overcome by making each chapter kind of like an individual game. Say you had seven chapters, and each one was about the length of a Psikyo game with each chapter then further divided into seven stages. Could even have different 'genres' (vertical, horizontal, bullet hell) for different chapters, but all tied together with a coherent story, cutscenes etc (all skippable, of course, in an arcade mode).

I like this idea, and have been throwing around the same ideas before (with the segmented full game). In general a lot of the issues that segregate hardcore arcade games from casual-friendly spectacles can potentially all be broken down in elegant ways without compromising either IMO. It's a subject that has been debated to death around here, obviously.

The issue isn't so much "can it be done", as it is "why would anyone do it". You need someone with both the vision and the economy to pull it off, and even then it probably wouldn't be economically viable. And if your game is essentially 7 individual shmups stringed together, most people would prefer releasing seven individual shmups... indiviually.

[Shepardus]

Hellsinker and Cambria Sword (and Stellavanity IIRC) have modes where you only play a subset of the stages. This is especially important in Cambria Sword since a full playthrough's like 3 hours long.

[bigbadboaz]

It's not. Regular-budget shmups haven't even been feasible, really, for quite a while with the direction the gaming market has taken.

I would say the feasibility of this peaked in the late 32-bit era, when we got Silvergun and a company with the clout of Squaresoft even dove in with Einhander. And that game's feel and production were worthy of AAA status for the time. It's not going to happen again but there are certainly fond memories.

[Squire Grooktook]

Obviously a major issue would be the fact that most shmups are designed to be replayed and so can't be overly long - but I think this could be overcome by making each chapter kind of like an individual game. Say you had seven chapters, and each one was about the length of a Psikyo game with each chapter then further divided into seven stages. Could even have different 'genres' (vertical, horizontal, bullet hell) for different chapters, but all tied together with a coherent story, cutscenes etc (all skippable, of course, in an arcade mode).

I like this idea, and have been throwing around the same ideas before (with the segmented full game). In general a lot of the issues that segregate hardcore arcade games from casual-friendly spectacles can potentially all be broken down in elegant ways without compromising either IMO. It's a subject that has been debated to death around here, obviously.

The issue isn't so much "can it be done", as it is "why would anyone do it". You need someone with both the vision and the economy to pull it off, and even then it probably wouldn't be economically viable. And if your game is essentially 7 individual shmups stringed together, most people would prefer releasing seven individual shmups... indiviually.

I've had this idea for years. Odin Sphere's 6 "book" game format (wherein each one had its own mechanics and POV character) is a rough example of a similar concept, I think.

[Sumez]

Except Odin Sphere is six characters all playing roughly the same game

[Special World]

I don't think this would be desirable at all, honestly. Even disregarding whether a developer would be able to maintain and playtest high-quality gameplay over the course of a 7-hour shmup, there's the real question of whether anybody would really, honestly want to play that much shmup.

Breaking it into individual stages, sure. Ginga Force does a really good job of this, and it's a great game. But it's maybe only twice as long as a normal shmup, if that.

And the only developers with the knowledge to make such a "high-quality" game would be disinclined from doing it. "AAA" developers, whatever that means, don't want to make a shmup and don't have the skills to make a good shmup. Shmup developers don't have the finances to make a really long and really beautiful shmup. Basically you're asking for "a really long shmup with really good graphics," which is rightly something no developer wants to make, because it's really something no player has wanted or asked for. The only way it could possibly please anyone is if it was the single greatest shmup of all time. You'd have to create systems and stages so good that casual players would say "fuck, I could just keep playing this," and veteran players would say "I will be content to spend the rest of my life trying to be the all-time best at using the D-Type ship on stage 14 of this game."

I think what it boils down to is you'd need some sort of divine Chrono Trigger level task-force of amazing minds, or you'd end up with a long and pretty shmup that nobody wants to play for that long because it's really kind of butt when you get down to the nitty gritty details.

[Xyga]

Yeah a jrpg but with shmups levels instead of dungeons. Harder and longer as you progress of course. I think there's thread about that somewhere...

If you put mostly girls in it people might play it.

[pandaphantasm]

All of my little "hmm, but what about..." lightbulb thought bubbles have been addressed in previous posts already, and I too now lean towards the school of thought that shmups are perhaps best served as the compact little firecrackers of hardcore gameplay that we've come to know them as. However, in the interest of keeping an open mind:

Yeah a jrpg but with shmups levels instead of dungeons. Harder and longer as you progress of course.

I'd be willing to give something like this a shot!

[shoryusatsu999]

I'm going to be blunt and say no.

Anything approaching AAA production values will be aimed at a AAA audience in order to maximize returns, and the AAA audience simply isn't interested in shmup gameplay. Even Sine Mora, the one modern shmup that had a chance of penetrating the mainstream (and that was mainly due to being developed and published by developers people actually recognize, like Suda51's Grasshopper Manufacture), only got about 250k players on Steam (including the couple thousand who only got the EX version), which is a miserable failure by AAA standards. Heck, with certain games, even millions of sales is still a failure.

Also, the rise of mobile gaming makes it really hard to sell full games meant to be replayed in short bursts over and over. Since many have their phones with them everywhere they go and the range of games on app stores is so broad, they're likely to go "Why pay 60 bucks for this game when I can play this similar looking and playing game for free?" And yes, different shmups play differently from each other, but the average consumer doesn't have that knowledge. At best, they might know about Space Invaders and Galaga, and they're similar enough that the average uncaring consumer would say they're identical aside from Galaga's capturing mechanic. Assuming they even know those exist, of course.

[gray117]

You're not going to see someone dropping COD money on a shmup. AAA is basically a genre based industry. That's not to say you can't make AAA money with smaller games... but... I don't think many people would see, say, rocket league as a AAA production.

What you're probably after is something like Hellblade, doing AAA appearances for not AAA money, and the thing is that's a pretty rare exception in the massively popular 3rd person action adventure genre... Which means you won't even get to match Hellblade spend+staffing for the shmup genre. So, ehat you're waiting for is basically for the stars to align: some AAA staff to decide they want to make a shmup, and find some co-workers in the same position.

It's similarly difficult to square the AAA box with stategy and sports games for example.

The last time I think any collective met that kind of curve in terms of relative AAA expectation and delivery was with Gradius V - and before that ikaruga - both reportedly pretty much the same people, and on that last outing backed by an established IP holder and publisher...What you want for someone to really push the bar on this kind of thing is for someone else to do it today - and it's just not likely.

The other problem is that whilst Hellblade has plenty of other contemporary references in terms of a AAA third person standard, which no doubt helped them keep to their remit + project on track, there's basically nothing to set a similar standard for shmups - so without other references you're immediately going to either decide to take a big risk with a certain dedicated direction, or commit to a degree of experimentation during development (which might be how you do a smaller game that hits it big like rocket league, but not a project like Hellblade).

The nearest I think we've really seen anyone try and update the traditional shmup experience, with new takes on fairly genre based tropes would be Astebreed ... and as admirable an effort it was I don't think turned any heads amongst the AAA crowd... and was largely criticised for the same stuff as all shmups - too short etc. etc.

[KAI]

A better question would be "Would a XXX-like shmup be feasible?"

[Shepardus]

A better question would be "Would a XXX-like shmup be feasible?"

Yes. Very much so.

[Durandal]

A better question would be "Would a XXX-like shmup be feasible?"

Stripteases get unlocked at 1-ALLs, beejays at 2-ALLs, and the full assortment of H-scenes gets unlocked if you 2-ALL NMNB the game.
Instead of chasing scores, you can get players to chase pussy.

[MathU]

"AAA" is completely synonymous with trash, why would anyone actually want it in their scrolling shooters? The whole reason AAA games are so garbage is because explosive development costs force developers (and the publishers they answer to) to avoid risks and pander in order to recoup the losses of development. When you pour millions of dollars on game development it is seen as an investment, and the investors demand a return on that investment.

Thus the feasibility of a quality AAA-like scrolling shooter rests on the idea of scrolling shooters ever achieving a gigantic Call of Duty-sized audience. Could that ever happen? And I'm not talking about dumbing down the genre and sacrificing challenge and replayability to make it like the content munchers people already love so much. Could the games as we like them ever rise to a level of mass appeal? That would be quite a paradigm shift.

[BrianC]

There was going to be a Game Boy shmup named Triple A at one point. It was reviewed in NP, but very little information is available. The publisher was going to be IGS and the lone screen shot looks very similar to Vattle Giuce.

[XoPachi]

Sine Mora is criticized for gameplay flaws, dunno how EX version is improved.

I have it. It's still garbage.