The Modern Problem with SHUMPS...

[VitaminX]

I don't think shmups will ever make a resurgence in the US nor the UK anytime soon. Most people are turned off by the high difficulty, or if the game gives you unlimited continues, they're turned off by the length because they'll blow through the entire game in 30 minutes. I wonder what the answer could be? Plus the fact that most shmups get bad reviews because of one or both, reasons which doesn't help either. I wonder what still makes the genre so popular in Japan?. I know many of the developers don't release their titles oversea's, realising there not going to sell.

[Coldguy]

See www.jerseygames.com on the article I hate smups, sums it up for you.

[guitargary75]

I love SHUMPS.

[Poofta!]

i love shmups, but each one i purchase, i fully to never beat it (due to difficulty) or beat it very fast (unlimited continues).

never the less, its will be a very fun night (or even several!) for my friend and i !

[klausien]

Anyone who loves shoot 'em ups wishes there were more released outside of Japan, and has a right to grumble about paying the big bucks to import them. Any wholesale hate for a genre is rarely justified, and never 100% right. People need to agree to disagree, especially when it comes to something as subjective as video games (or art, music & film), but this is America of course; Land of the "I'm right, you're wrong" mentality, and the yearly $50-60 roster update for the same old sports games you can play for free with a couple friends and a ball (hypocritical statement alert - admitted hater of "simulation" sports games, save any tennis game and arcadey sports like the NES Tecmo Bowls and the like). But I digress...

The World of Shmups underwent a sea change in the late '90's toward the so called "Manic" or "Bullet Hell" type of shooter, thanks to the stellar work of companies like Cave, Psikyo & Takumi, among others. The only worthwhile non-manic franchises still standing are arguably the Raiden & Gradius series. Also, the horizontally-scrolling shooter has all but disappeared due to the fact that the manic style tends to work best vertically (though anyone who has put some time in with Progear would disagree). This move towards more extreme, expert types of games has inflamed the already prevalent love/hate situation with the genre, feeding the requisite zealotry on both sides.

There is a push/pull going on in terms of US releases, as developers see the high prices paid for games like the PS2 Cave ports and want a piece of the action, but publishers who take the plunge rarely see the returns they expected on their investment (usually because they add 'enhancements" and leave out the necessary tate mode for vertical shooters, but that's an argument for another thread). What it all boils down to is the same niche fanbase purgatory we've been in since the death knell of the shmup in the US was felt at the end (some would say midpoint) of the 16-Bit age. The Duo was the last bastion of shmups in the US, and we all know how dreadfully it did in the marketplace under the weight of changing tastes and larger marketing budgets.

So, at least the shmup is alive and well in Japan, though the declining arcade business is beginning to cut that down to size as well. Regardless, I can't imagine that the "space shooter" will ever die, as it is one of the central cornerstones of the history of gaming, and one of the last ways to get that pure Zen meditative, adrenaline-rush dichotomy that all of the best pure video games of any genre have. No need to think about or learn complex controls. Just grab a pad or stick; one button shoots, one button bombs. That's where the beauty lies.

[Captain Wrong]

Wait a minute. In order to make a statement like "I don't think shmups will ever make a resurgence in the US nor the UK anytime soon," that would imply someone is trying to bring them back. That's not happening, nor is it going to. Shmups are a niche genre, even in Japan* and they aren't going to make a comeback nor is anyone trying for one.

* yes, I've been to Japan within the last year and being a huge shmup fan I was a bit suprised to find the conventional Western wisdom that this genre was still ruling the roost over seas was quite wrong. Sure, you still see them in the dark back corner of the arcades, alone and unplayed. And yeah, most game stores still stock a couple of titles. So you do see shmups more over there than over here. But this perception that shmups are popular in Japan is flat out wrong, at least in my experience. More popular than here? Yes. But still a small niche thing at best.

[TurboGenesis]

* yes, I've been to Japan within the last year and being a huge shmup fan I was a bit suprised to find the conventional Western wisdom that this genre was still ruling the root over seas was quite wrong. Sure, you still see them in the dark back corner of the arcades, alone and unplayed. And yeah, most game stores still stock a couple of titles. So you do see shmups more over there than over here. But this perception that shmups are popular in Japan is flat out wrong, at least in my experience. More popular than here? Yes. But still a small niche thing at best.

Quote For Truth…

[Cornelius]

I'm only a very casual fan of this genre, but reading this thread made me wonder if the switch to wide-screen TVs is having an impact, particularly regaurding horizontal vs. vertical. With the original Gradius as my primary experience with shoot 'em ups, I'd think wide-screen would lend itself to horizontal moreso than vertical.

[TonyTheTiger]

I'll tell you the #1 problem with Shoot-em-ups and why the genre is on life support at the moment.

Developers create very short games that are theoretically beatable in 20 minutes and then to simulate "value" they make the game not only absurdly hard but also a memorization fest. There's too many shoot-em-ups that require you to die in order to realize "Oh, so I have to move a bit to the left..." Then when you complete that it happens again 20 seconds later.

Shoot-em-ups are great fun. But for some reason the dev teams making them are obsessed with turning a 20 minute game into a 3 month exercise in route memorization. Sure, it looks cool to see 100,000 shots of the same laser blast fly around the screen like a spirograph but, frankly, if it takes that much work to progress through the game...it's just not worth it. People complain about games being too easy but it's also possible for games to be too hard. And, again, it's not a good hard where you die just because you weren't good enough. It's a WTF hard where you die because you aren't psychic.

[otaku]

I love em precisely because they're hard. I like to continously improve etc these games demand skill and are very addicting.

[TonyTheTiger]

Do they really demand skill? I'm talking the ones where there's essentially only one place to hide. There's one precise movement to make. That doesn't scream skill to me. Maybe talent as not everyone is capable of moving their fingers in such a way with such precision. But it definitely screams memorization of both the mind and the fingers. If it is skill it's not the same kind of skill that comes from something like fighting games where the execution of the moves isn't important but rather the use of them that is. I feel like the fewer viable options a player is given and the less time available to utilize those options the less skill that's involved because then it doesn't become a game of decision making and twitch reflexes. It becomes a game where success is based on practice through repetition. A game about perpetually learning the game.

I think I'd feel much better about the difficulty of the genre if the enemies and shots weren't predetermined. Tetris is hard but it's different each time. Imagine if it weren't. Sure, more people would have mastered it but it looses the thinking part. If there was actually an A.I. aspect to the game so the exact same move doesn't work every single time or the exact same move doesn't fail every single time more people would play. Being good isn't the same as being practiced and I think the repetition a lot of these games require puts people off. It feels like a waste of time to die just because you didn't know what was up ahead.

[ssjlance]

I still dig out Mars Matrix and Ikaruga on DC when I need a good SHMUP fix. Also, a few for the SNES work really well for that (Darius Twin, Super R-Type, Axelay, Phalanx, etc). But I never buy a SHMUP when it first hits shelves. Why? Because, $50 is a bit much for the typ of game. It is a lot of fun, but not for a very long time. If they were released as budget titles at about $20 - $30 a pop, my shelves would be lined with them. I'm still waiting for Raiden III for PS2 to drop enough for me to justify picking it up. Same with puzzle games. I love them to death, but $50 for the newest Tetris just seems absurd to me.

[Kitsune Sniper]

Do I like these games? Yes, but only up to a point.

I hate those games that require you to have pixel-perfect moving skills. Bullet barrages that fill up 95% of the screen ARE NOT FUN AT ALL.

[Aussie2B]

To make a bad pun, I'd say shmup developers are shooting themselves in their own foots by purposely limiting their already limited audience. There IS room out there for more than just "bullet hell" type shooters, but that's what almost every modern shooter is. It is possible to be a shooter fan without finding that type of gameplay enjoyable, contrary to what they may believe, and I know I personally would support the genre more if they would show the same support for MY tastes and I bet I'm not the only one out there. As it is, I'll take a 16-bit style shooter ANY day, where there's actual design to the stages as well.

[TonyTheTiger]

I think it comes down to the ease of development. There is a such thing as the "disposable shooter syndrome" where a player sets the game on easy, blows through it, and never picks it up again. To counter this, developers have proceeded to increase the difficulty. It's just that the way they chose to do so screams "lazy." Rather than trying for more creative stage design or implementing an A.I. system or even increasing the variety of enemies, they just put more crap on screen that can kill you and say "now find the 2% of the screen where you'll be safe and do it for 5 or 6 levels." It also provides for a nice grab. People like flashiness and a barrage of greens and purples is an attention grabber which maybe you need when your game is sitting next to stuff like Tekken 5, Devil May Cry 4, and Mass Effect.

[Captain Wrong]

I'm really confuesed here. If you have unlimited continues and no difficulity, when have shmups ever been more than a 20 minute game? These are arcade games, after all. They are designed to be quarter munchers. Always have been.

Memorization a new thing? Umm...ever played R-Type? "It becomes a game where success is based on practice through repetition. A game about perpetually learning the game." Yeah, that pretty much nails the genre for as long as I've been playing 'em. You play until you die and hopefully learn from your mistakes next time.

I think a lot of you are looking for something in the genre that was never there and isn't supposed to be. Shmups as I've played them (and as pretty much everyone else I known to play them has played them) has been a quest to improve your score and get a 1CC. That's not supposed to be easy and there's going to be a lot of trial and error (heavy on the error) to get there.

That's not skill? Whew, you all are a tough crowd. I've yet to 1CC any shmup (at least on default settings) and I consider myself a pretty big fan. Sorry, there's lot more than just memorization to these things, otherwise anyone could 1CC a game like Donpatchi if they downloaded a FAQ and put the time in.

You wanna know why shmups aren't going to make a comeback? Too few people get what they're about. Just read through this thread for loads of examples (including the OP.)

[James8BitStar]

but this is America of course; Land of the "I'm right, you're wrong" mentality,

That mentality is pretty damn universal dude. It's not just America.

Personally, I think the problem is people think they need to BEAT every game they play. When I play a shooter its not to seriously play it... its a quick fix, a break from the normally slower and more heady genres like the RPG. If I get addicted to it, whoopee. But its not gonna be my life and I'm not gonna kill myself if I can't get past level eight.

That being said shooters are probably niche because there just isn't a lot you can do with the genre, so they might get very repetitive after awhile.

[Flack]

Most people are turned off by the high difficulty

Says who? Is this a fact or did you make this up? Sources?


[most people are] turned off by the length because they'll blow through the entire game in 30 minutes.

Says who? Is this a fact or did you make this up? Sources?


most shmups get bad reviews because of one or both

Says who? Is this a fact or did you make this up? Sources?

[Captain Wrong]

Says who? Is this a fact or did you make this up? Sources?



Says who? Is this a fact or did you make this up? Sources?



Says who? Is this a fact or did you make this up? Sources?

LOL

The more I read the OP, the more my head hurts.

[TonyTheTiger]

I'm really confuesed here. If you have unlimited continues and no difficulity, when have shmups ever been more than a 20 minute game? These are arcade games, after all. They are designed to be quarter munchers. Always have been.

Exactly. So where's the logic in making them virtually unbeatable if you don't know the exact location to be at the precise second the 1,000,000 shots are fired? Listen, I play shoot-em-ups as much as the next guy and I make sure to buy all the greats and not so greats but fact of the matter is they use an archaic style of difficulty. It's like how Dragon Quest insists on making you return to town to resurrect a party member.


Memorization a new thing? Umm...ever played R-Type? "It becomes a game where success is based on practice through repetition. A game about perpetually learning the game." Yeah, that pretty much nails the genre for as long as I've been playing 'em. You play until you die and hopefully learn from your mistakes next time.

Since when did I say this is a new thing? But you are completely wrong that route memorization is a facet of the genre as a whole. U.N. Squadron, Abadox, Gradius and Lifeforce (to a point), Raystorm, the old 1941s and similar...Star Fox if you want to count it... These games all allow for that "twitch" play but they don't feature 98% of the screen covered in stuff that kills you. Imagine playing Super Mario Bros. where there were no less than 100 Bullet Bills flying through at any given moment. It's kind of the same idea. It's nice to be able to...if not think...at least anticipate what's going to happen or have some kind of defense beyond "be in the right place."


I think a lot of you are looking for something in the genre that was never there and isn't supposed to be. Shmups as I've played them (and as pretty much everyone else I known to play them has played them) has been a quest to improve your score and get a 1CC. That's not supposed to be easy and there's going to be a lot of trial and error (heavy on the error) to get there.

And that's fine. I'm not saying there's no room for the R-Types of the world. But you'd think someone would think outside the box a bit and revitalize the genre. If SNK can redraw Terry Bogard after how many years then anything is possible.


That's not skill? Whew, you all are a tough crowd. I've yet to 1CC any shmup (at least on default settings) and I consider myself a pretty big fan. Sorry, there's lot more than just memorization to these things, otherwise anyone could 1CC a game like Donpatchi if they downloaded a FAQ and put the time in.

It's a different kind of skill. Photographic memory. Intensely precise muscle control. There's a whole range of potential skill the genre is currently ignoring.


You wanna know why shmups aren't going to make a comeback? Too few people get what they're about. Just read through this thread for loads of examples (including the OP.)

They're about shooting stuff because it's fun to shoot stuff. I don't think there was ever anything beyond that.

[Captain Wrong]

Virtually unbeatable? No, you just need to have skill.

So much of what you're saying makes it sound like there is one path that leads to sucess and all else is fail. That isn't true at all, otherwise all you need is a walkthrough and you'd be in business. I don't care what game you're talking about, top players of any bullet hell shmup have different techniques to play. Yes, it may look like there's one way out, but anyone who gets really deep in these games knows that's not the case.

I think I understand what you're getting at here, but I don't think you're understanding what I'm saying. Shmups are a fairly "classic" genre and without the "archaic difficulty" (as you so put it) they wouldn't be shmups. They'd be something else.

If you just want to shoot stuff you can always ratchet the difficulity down or play a FPS, I guess. At the risk of sounding like a game snob (which I'm not, because actually I'm just average at shmups,) these games are designed to seperate the men from the boys so I find all this complaining about difficulity to be curious.

[Kid Fenris]

* yes, I've been to Japan within the last year and being a huge shmup fan I was a bit suprised to find the conventional Western wisdom that this genre was still ruling the roost over seas was quite wrong. Sure, you still see them in the dark back corner of the arcades, alone and unplayed. And yeah, most game stores still stock a couple of titles. So you do see shmups more over there than over here. But this perception that shmups are popular in Japan is flat out wrong, at least in my experience. More popular than here? Yes. But still a small niche thing at best.

Odd. I was in Japan last year, and I checked out several arcades. The smaller ones usually didn't have shooters, but the larger, more popular arcades invariably had plenty, often dedicating entire floors to them. And those shooters had people playing.

I've also never really heard anyone proclaim shooters to be "ruling the roost" in Japan. Even nutcase fans seem aware than their beloved genre is a nerdy niche there, and that it's only around because nerdy niches can take root and turn profits more easily in Japan than in the U.S.

What did you expect to find over there? Did you think that high-scoring Mushihime players would be carried down a street by sumo wrestlers while schoolgirls showered their path with confetti made from ground-up Radiant Silvergun manuals?


Shmups as I've played them (and as pretty much everyone else I known to play them has played them) has been a quest to improve your score and get a 1CC.

I'd say that sums up everything wrong with shooters today.

[Captain Wrong]

What did you expect to find over there? Did you think that high-scoring Mushihime players would be carried down a street by sumo wrestlers while schoolgirls showered their path with confetti made from ground-up Radiant Silvergun manuals?

Yeah, all the brochures I read prior to leaving had full-color fold outs from the annual Shmup Festivals. Guess I just landed at the wrong time of year.

[TonyTheTiger]

Your definition of shoot-em-up seems suspect. The archaic difficulty is obviously not a facet of the genre. By your definition 1941 is not a shoot-em-up. Is Mass Effect not an RPG because there are no random battles?

And maybe I should rethink my terminology. "Archaic difficulty" might be a misnomer as the concept of the bullet-hell shooter is actually younger than the genre as a whole.

It's easy to blame the world for why a particular game and/or genre isn't successful. "They just don't get it." But the more likely scenario is not that there's something wrong with the world but something wrong with the game and/or genre itself. Things change. Formulas evolve. The bullet-hell formula just isn't working for the genre anymore. I'd put money on the genre being much healthier if people weren't getting thrashed within two minutes of the first level and then getting frustrated and never playing again.

And what's this separate men from boys bunk? You could say that about any game on the face of the planet. Go beat Ninja Gaiden Black on Master Ninja. That separates the men from the boys. Go crash Pac-Man. That separates the men from the boys. Go win a Street Fighter III: Third Strike tourney at Evo. That separates the men from the boys. Go beat Doom on Nightmare...etc. You can make anything hard. It's easy to make things hard. No life meter, 100,000 enemies, enemies take 10 hits, very short time limit, etc. The real design successes are the ones that fuse challenge with accessibility. The #1 rule of good design? Respect the player's time. A lot of older RPGs require absurd amounts of backtracking. Turns out the best RPGs on the market today require very little, if any.

You can't deny that time is an obvious factor in any gaming related success. No matter how much natural talent a person has, in order to accomplish something they need to invest the most valuable resource in the world. Is it an accomplishment to 1cc Radiant Silvergun? Damn straight it is. I won't pretend otherwise. But the person who accomplishes that has probably invested hundreds of hours into the game. Not everyone has the time or will to do that. But how about just beating Radiant Silvergun? Even that requires a significant time investment in relation to the actual length of the game. If players don't feel like they're making progress with their time investment, they'll quit playing. And consecutive game overs on the first level (just like spending two hours in a dungeon fighting random battles for a pointless fetch quest) grates on a lot of people's nerves. It's not their fault for not "getting" the game. Its the game that's not "getting" the players.

There are valid criticisms for every genre. This just happens to be one for shoot-em-ups.

[Aussie2B]

Shmups as I've played them (and as pretty much everyone else I known to play them has played them) has been a quest to improve your score and get a 1CC.



I'd say that sums up everything wrong with shooters today.

Yeah, I'd have to wholeheartedly agree. While that may apply to most regulars of shmups.com, I say that's a recent phenomenon that coincides with the growth of bullet hell shooters and does NOT describe every shooter fan out there nor the history of the genre. While getting better at a game and improving a score was always desired, it was NOT the defining element of why someone played a shooter, how they played a shooter, and what was enjoyable about a shooter. I don't know of anyone who was obsessed with beating a shooter in one credit back in the '80s and early '90s. You didn't need some complicated mindset to go about playing a shooter. You just did so because it was fun, and assuming its difficulty was balanced, just beating it in some shape or form was satisfying enough. That's why I prefer shooters that originate on home consoles or have been converted for them because, if the developers balance things right, they'll give you a fair difficulty that's challenging without being cheap and will provide you with only enough lives/continues that they believe is a reasonable amount for their game. Seriously, who came up with this ridiculous 1 credit rule? Not all shooters are created equal. It would only make sense if every shooter had the same level of difficulty. Obviously, some shooters are harder than others, so it'll be easier to 1 credit one game over another. Who's to say that beating one game in two or three credits isn't just as impressive, if not more so, than beating another in 1?

[Captain Wrong]

Ok, now I think I see where you're coming from.

Man, the first time I played Pac-Man, I got creamed. This was during Pac-Mania and I just didn't get it. But, I came back to it and I got it. That's what I'm saying, and where I think we're disagreeing here. I think these games are doable, it just takes time to learn them. I think what you're saying is the amount of time required outweighs the fun factor. Am I close?

Personally, I like bullet hell shumps. I accept the fact that they are hard as hell and I'm going to get my ass handed to me, a lot. Not everyone's bag. Ok, cool, I can accept that.

I think where we're disagreeing is on the accessibility thing.

I dunno, maybe I'm just a freak though because I've tried to 1cc for as long as I can remember.

[TonyTheTiger]

I'm saying that the time required for the bullet-hell games is not reasonably proportional to the actual length of the game.

If you play a Final Fantasy you know what you're getting into. You know that the time you need to invest in the game is substantial but that time investment is proportional to the number of dungeons, plot points, boss fights, etc. You know the saying "get a bang for you buck?" Here you get a bang for your hour. For every hour invested, you probably get about that much worth of progress made. A bullet-hell shoot-em-up, though...most of the time you're talking fewer than 10 levels, each of which isn't particularly long. Yet an hour invested in the game nets you about 10 minutes worth of constructive progress that you more than likely can't even save. That frustrates people.

Meanwhile, shoot-em-ups like U.N. Squadron aren't particularly difficult in comparison but the time investment nets you a better return. The game is about a half hour worth of actual play and you can make reasonable progress over a half hour of play time. It doesn't pretend to be a longer game by killing you dead on the first level forcing you to spend all of your time investment playing through the first 2 minutes over and over again.

The concept of the bullet-hell shoot-em-up isn't the problem. The fact that's the only type of shoot-em-up you can find these days is the problem. I say let a 30 minute game be a 30 minute game for once. If it's really that good it'll induce multiple playings anyway regardless of the difficulty.

[ubersaurus]

To make a bad pun, I'd say shmup developers are shooting themselves in their own foots by purposely limiting their already limited audience. There IS room out there for more than just "bullet hell" type shooters, but that's what almost every modern shooter is. It is possible to be a shooter fan without finding that type of gameplay enjoyable, contrary to what they may believe, and I know I personally would support the genre more if they would show the same support for MY tastes and I bet I'm not the only one out there. As it is, I'll take a 16-bit style shooter ANY day, where there's actual design to the stages as well.

This is a rare day. We actually agree!

It's not that I dislike bullet hell shooters, but they're simply nowhere near as fun as a good classic type, skill and memory shooter. Compile's games still kick ass. Even the new stuff like R-Type Final, Gradius V, Last Hope, and g.rev's games were awesome.

This is actually something I noticed over on shmups.com. The bulk of the forum seems to be made up of manic fans who vocally look down on classic style shooters. Look at how much Last Hope got lambasted...it's not a bad game at all! Brutally hard, yes. But not bad! And all the griping at games like Under Defeat that don't have a million bullets and convoluted scoring schemes...I don't get it. And they especially seem to look down on modern arena shooters and classic non-scrolling shooters.

Like I said though, there are GOOD bullet hell games. I like Dodonpachi, and Soukyugurentai (if it counts) but other stuff? I could take it or leave it. To get on topic though, I think bullet hell games are a serious problem with the genre. It's like 2d fighters. Eventually they just got so complex and hardcore, only a small audience will play them. And bullet hells require you to move in certain spots, chain and play certain ways to get through stages with a decent enough score to even get an extra life. The sheer numebr of bullets precludes anyone but the hardcore from getting ANYWHERE. Older games were hard, but they seemed a hell of a lot more fair about it.

[G-Boobie]

The concept of the bullet-hell shoot-em-up isn't the problem. The fact that's the only type of shoot-em-up you can find these days is the problem. I say let a 30 minute game be a 30 minute game for once. If it's really that good it'll induce multiple playings anyway regardless of the difficulty.

Lets define 'these days': are we talking the last couple years? Because some great non-bullet hell shooters have been released in that time frame. Omega Force, Nanostray and Nanostray 2, Raiden III, Chaos Field, Last Hope, Soldner X... That's pretty good right there.

If we want to enlarge our definition of what a shmup is, and include twin stick shooters or arena shooters, the list gets even bigger. Geometry Wars, Geometry Wars Galaxies, Everyday Shooter, Super Stardust HD... There are others on Live and PSN, but I'm too lazy to look them up right now. The point is, they're out there, and they aren't bullet hell.

I totally agree about letting a 30 minute game be a 30 minute game, though: I blew through R-Type Final in an hour or so on my first play through, but I loved every minute of it. I still play that game from time to time.

I have a theory that bullet hell shooters are the final design evolution of the genre: they're basically a caricature of the genre itself. They take every convention that defines the genre and take it to the extreme. I love a good memorization-fest, but games like Trigger Heart Exelica and Castle Shikigami are just too much for me.

[Trevelyan]

I love shoot em ups & i am jealous if more have been released in Japan (and/or the USA), especially on the NES, SNES, Genesis & many more 8-32bit consoles of that era :bawling:

[GaijinPunch]

Yes. But still a small niche thing at best.

Don't confuse "not mainstream" with "nitche". Most arcades (even big ones that cater to the UFO catcher crowd) has some type of shooting game in there. If you looked at arcades as a whole then you'd have to say that everything is nitche except for Bandia's Gundam versus games, Tekken 5, and prize/medal games, as these are the ones with the huge presence.

[Tep]

I don't think shmups will ever make a resurgence in the US nor the UK anytime soon. Most people are turned off by the high difficulty, or if the game gives you unlimited continues, they're turned off by the length because they'll blow through the entire game in 30 minutes. I wonder what the answer could be? Plus the fact that most shmups get bad reviews because of one or both, reasons which doesn't help either. I wonder what still makes the genre so popular in Japan?. I know many of the developers don't release their titles oversea's, realising there not going to sell.
The reason why they won't make a resurgence is because of credit feeders. Heck, this is why arcades in general fail. They're so popular in Japan because they're just... Japanese. They're more resilient than others, so I'm told. Think of them as robots and you should be alright. (Not that I do.)

They don't sell well because people don't play them. They credit feed and credit feed until they just quit and never touch it again and tell all their friends to leave it alone.

It's not bullet-hell. It's shooters in general. People hate them. They didn't sell very well back then, developers saw this, they stopped coming. Even if they all WERE released in America, it would still be the same situation.

I really hope for someone to prove me wrong. Because the fact that people know the words "All your base are belong to us" but have never played the game or don't know what it is, is just glaringly obvious.

[Aussie2B]

I love shoot em ups & i am jealous if more have been released in Japan (and/or the USA), especially on the NES, SNES, Genesis & many more 8-32bit consoles of that era :bawling:

Actually, in that era, Europeans were generally much more fortunate than Americans in term of shooters being released. Konami in particular released a whole ton of stuff that never came out in the US, like entries in the TwinBee and Parodius series.

[ubersaurus]

The reason why they won't make a resurgence is because of credit feeders. Heck, this is why arcades in general fail. They're so popular in Japan because they're just... Japanese. They're more resilient than others, so I'm told. Think of them as robots and you should be alright. (Not that I do.)

They don't sell well because people don't play them. They credit feed and credit feed until they just quit and never touch it again and tell all their friends to leave it alone.

It's not bullet-hell. It's shooters in general. People hate them. They didn't sell very well back then, developers saw this, they stopped coming. Even if they all WERE released in America, it would still be the same situation.

I really hope for someone to prove me wrong. Because the fact that people know the words "All your base are belong to us" but have never played the game or don't know what it is, is just glaringly obvious.

I don't follow. The idea of an arcade is to make money. To make money, you want people to put money in your machine. So you want a game that's hard enough that most people will die within minutes and put in another coin, but not so hard that they die in absolutely no time and think they wasted their money.

Japanese arcades do decently well for a number of factors: the fact they're usually combined with pachinko parlors, gaming culture being different, smaller country with smaller homes, etc. that don't necessarily apply to American arcades. And shooters didn't sell well back in the day? There's a reason they were a dominant genre in the 80s and early 90s!

They're not a major genre these days because mainstream game tastes have changed. There's still people that enjoy them, enough to keep it profitable to keep making them.

[xaer0knight]

ive read what most people have said

1. Its a niche market.
2. Most of the best are Arcade Machines :( they are "Quarter-Eaters"
3. the games are hard as hell. i know i get bored at games like Gun Bird
... Bullet Hell/Too much shit on the screen and even if it has unlimited continues "Why Torture Myself?"
4. "Bullet Hell" caused most Horizontal shmups to disappeared
... even most "classic" gamers remember R-Type and Gradius
5. Everyone always talks sprite size, on screen color, and other tech specs. It has caused certain things to the shmup genre which killed the Horizontals. Companies "gotta push that hardware to the limit."
6. Sony and "Current/Next" Gen has been killing 2D for along time now, I heard that Sony at one point turns/shuns 2D games, I heard that Alien Hominid had to fight to be on the PS2 but GC welcomed it.

thats my rant about shmups. Its like you have to pay up the butt for good SHMUPS even in America. Thanks to MAME, we don't have to go to those "quarter-eaters" in the arcade or get an arcade machine. Even tho i would like a "Change Air Blade" arcade unit alas don't have the money.

The biggest plus to me, It the PC side of Shoot 'em ups. There are some great PC titles that mostly come out in Japan, that require hardly any English. Companies like Shanghai Alice and ABA Games. Games like Fren-ze (my review is on http://www.shmups.com), Everything Extend, and Warning Forever are exceptional games! A LOT of em are freeware! The downside is that all of em work only in Windows. Shoot The Core PC database (http://shootthecore.moonpod.com/database.php) has a ton of free Shmups for your Windows compatible machine

[Poofta!]

I'm really confuesed here. If you have unlimited continues and no difficulity, when have shmups ever been more than a 20 minute game? These are arcade games, after all. They are designed to be quarter munchers. Always have been.

Memorization a new thing? Umm...ever played R-Type? "It becomes a game where success is based on practice through repetition. A game about perpetually learning the game." Yeah, that pretty much nails the genre for as long as I've been playing 'em. You play until you die and hopefully learn from your mistakes next time.

I think a lot of you are looking for something in the genre that was never there and isn't supposed to be. Shmups as I've played them (and as pretty much everyone else I known to play them has played them) has been a quest to improve your score and get a 1CC. That's not supposed to be easy and there's going to be a lot of trial and error (heavy on the error) to get there.

That's not skill? Whew, you all are a tough crowd. I've yet to 1CC any shmup (at least on default settings) and I consider myself a pretty big fan. Sorry, there's lot more than just memorization to these things, otherwise anyone could 1CC a game like Donpatchi if they downloaded a FAQ and put the time in.

You wanna know why shmups aren't going to make a comeback? Too few people get what they're about. Just read through this thread for loads of examples (including the OP.)

quoted for truth. im not that good at them, but i always accepted and appreciated them for what they are: very fucking hard with great memory and twitch reflexes required.

[VitaminX]

So, at least the shmup is alive and well in Japan, though the declining arcade business is beginning to cut that down to size as well. Regardless, I can't imagine that the "space shooter" will ever die, as it is one of the central cornerstones of the history of gaming, and one of the last ways to get that pure Zen meditative, adrenaline-rush dichotomy that all of the best pure video games of any genre have. No need to think about or learn complex controls. Just grab a pad or stick; one button shoots, one button bombs. That's where the beauty lies.

Good Ol' Shoot & Dodge, Can't beat a bit of Shoot & Dodge, ay Klausien???...