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Shmups (pew pew)

Thank you for the suggestions Kaboom Kid. Actually there is a quite excellent shmup based on the "Katamari Shmup" idea. You might want to give Tumiki Fighters or its spiritual sequel Blast Works a try, you would probably like it a lot since it's a great game and it does the concept justice.

Also I too miss environmental hazards. And giant robot fish.
 
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a way i see Shmups having a place is in the mobile market, but not as the typical hardcore game but as a more accesible survival type of game for pick up n play. They can always promote the hardcore entries for some free publicity.
 
a way i see Shmups having a place is in the mobile market, but not as the typical hardcore game but as a more accesible survival type of game for pick up n play. They can always promote the hardcore entries for some free publicity.

Possibly, this is essentially how they (among other genres) worked in a true arcade setting.

That being said, I don't think shmups have to become "less hardcore" to win an audience. , I don't think shmups have any place in the "mainstream". But I do think they have a place among "hardcore" players who typically dwell with hardcore genres.

Fighting game players, people who like Platinum Games, speed runners, 2d game fans in general etc. there are a lot of people out there with an appreciation for "hardcore" action games. I see a lot of these people like games like Starfox, Contra, Metal Slug, various platformers, and lots of games that when you come down to it, are pretty much the same experience as your average shooting game.

Problem is the genre has been really inaccessible for a long time, and I don't just mean because of deep mechanics or challenging gameplay. Things like importing, expensive price tags, divisive art styles, a lack of exposure, and developers who make minimal or poorly conceived efforts to appeal to players who aren't 100% invested in the genre, all combine to make already niche games even harder to notice and get into. I'm speaking a bit from personal experience here, because since the ps2 (or just as it ended) it's been really hard to be a fan of the genre due to the price tag of imports alone, and that's just the price tags.

Thankfully it seems the trends are reversing a bit these days with the advent of cheap pc digitial distribution. I'm seeing many, many, many more friends buy games like Crimzon Clover or Gundemonium on Steam than I would have seen import Dodonpachi on 360 or a specially ordered Japanese Region PS2 (to get around the region locks...sigh). I think PC and digital distribution is where shmups really belong (besides arcades), and I hope developers start learning to take advantage of that.


Also you still didn't answer my question :(
 
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So, hey. This is a thing.
Pretty sweet. I hope Konami forces Treasure to make Gradius VI to compete, heh.

Xbox 360 also has Natsuki Chronicles confirmed, Qute's newest game and a single to Ginga Force. I've mentioned it before but I cannot praise Qute's shmups enough. They are the messiah of shooting games right now, in my eyes.
 
Speaking of... this is also a thing.

It seems like it's just a rerelease of the original JP-ONRY PC release. I might pick it up, but to be honest, I don't want to double-dip on the game.
 
Speaking of... this is also a thing.

It seems like it's just a rerelease of the original JP-ONRY PC release. I might pick it up, but to be honest, I don't want to double-dip on the game.

Yeah, I feel you. I wanted to like Raiden III but the game kind annoys me. The move speed is just so slow, it feels really methodical in a not so good way. Might still pick it up though to give it another chance, we'll see.

Still though, let's hope this is a new pattern starting. Classic Devs releasing their old games on Steam (hell, of any genre) is a good thing.


Also I know some people don't count run and gun shooters as shmups (I personally count them), but Super Cyborg looks like an amazing contra derivative. I played the demo and watched Slowbeef play the first 4 levels, and the level design is really sharp and the boss patterns are really clever.

It's on Steam Greenlight now, I recommend voting for it. Also the indie game stand is offering redeemable codes for desura and steam as well as an ost and some artwork.
 
2 hour long retro indie platformers with zero effort 8-bit graphics sell well while even Cave games on the XBLA market seem to struggle for nearly the same prices.
*Resists urge to rave about how 8-bit graphics are still a viable art style*
Is that really the case? I'm not going to argue that there are some lousy retraux games out there that are getting more than they deserve, but normally, when I hear of a fairly short, successful game, its shortness is listed among its flaws (I'm looking at you, Evoland).

...Oh, shoot, I've wandered into a shmup thread with very little experience. Um...my take on it is...well, from my perspective, the shmup genre has become an if-else statement. If it's an easier shmup game, it's probably not going to challenge the player much at all, just a quick, simple little experience that may have a couple rough spots, but overall you're drowning expendable enemies in bullets. If it's a harder shmup game, it's instantly a bullet hell. You can thank Touhou's wild popularity for that, I suppose. Point is, both of those don't exactly appeal to the brunt of the gaming population. This, I think, is the shmup's main obstacle in the industry.
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I haven't played many of them, but I remember a couple browser shmups by JaGEx from way back in the day—StarCannon and Dr. Phlogiston Saves the Earth. It's been a long time since I've played them, so they may not be all I remember them being, but I remember enjoying them, and I know that they are fairly obscure, so I thought I'd go ahead and share them.
 
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*Resists urge to rave about how 8-bit graphics are still a viable art style*
Is that really the case? I'm not going to argue that there are some lousy retraux games out there that are getting more than they deserve, but normally, when I hear of a fairly short, successful game, its shortness is listed among its flaws (I'm looking at you, Evoland).

Seems to be so. This actually came to my mind when someone who was interviewing a retro indie dev making some retro indie game asked the dev if he'd be interested in making a shmup, to which the response was "I don't want to commit financial suicide". Sadly it also seems that despite having beautiful presentation and aesthetics, many of Cave's shmups ported to XBL or localized did absolutely horrible sales wise, as did G.Rev's more old school throwback Strania: The Stellar Machine (which despite very pretty graphics, actually lost the company money).

Of course, my personal theory is that these games are so pretty is part of the problem: More understated and inexpensive graphics would result in a game that could more easily be sold for a lesser price to a more curious userbase. But there's definitely more to it than that.

Also I have nothing against 8-bit art styles when they're done well. My point was more that some have argued that "lack of pretty graphics" is one reason why this genre has fallen into niche and obscurity. But many indie platformers have succeeded embracing 8-bit or similarly minimalist art styles, whereas shmups with excellent graphics have still under-performed.

...Oh, shoot, I've wandered into a shmup thread with very little experience. Um...my take on it is...well, from my perspective, the shmup genre has become an if-else statement. If it's an easier shmup game, it's probably not going to challenge the player much at all, just a quick, simple little experience that may have a couple rough spots, but overall you're drowning expendable enemies in bullets. If it's a harder shmup game, it's instantly a bullet hell. You can thank Touhou's wild popularity for that, I suppose. Point is, both of those don't exactly appeal to the brunt of the gaming population. This, I think, is the shmup's main obstacle in the industry.

Thank you for the input. One question though: When you say "instant bullet hell", do you mean bullet hell as a whole or just the more crazy entries?

Some bullet hell games are actually quite a bit easier than more "old school" shmups. Touhou itself is generally regarded as extremely easy on the default difficulty setting, due to the microscopic player hitbox and the avalanche of extra lives it throws at the player. I guess you could say Touhou has a good difficulty variance, with "hard" and "lunatic" modes fulfilling the moderate and hardcore niches.

I definitely agree that more difficulty settings is universally a better design choice if possible.
 
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the entire ALLTYNEX trilogy is on steam, people

GO PLAY IT

especially KAMUI
 
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the entire ALLTYNEX trilogy is on steam, people

GO PLAY IT

especially KAMUI
giphy.gif
 
They're also offering trading cards soon too.

BTW if you like The Alltynex Series, and haven't played Rayforce (the series inspiration) you owe it to yourself to give it a spin in Mame.
 
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For fans of Treasure, Hiroshi Iuchi, the guy who made Ikaruga (and Treasure's other shmups including Gradius V and Radiant Silvergun) is working on a new game that has been explicitly stated to be a shmup. Its been in development for at least a year or two now, and all we know at this point is its name ("Ubusana") and that its going to be for PS4.

Another interesting thing is that he's currently employed at M2, who made the Konami Rebirth games on Wii and recently absorbed a number of programmers and designers from Cave (who Cave let go once they effectively killed their arcade game division). Cave and Treasure working together? Really could be interesting if they did end up lending a hand for the project, but either way it definitely won't be another generic bullet hell shooter with Iuchi at the helm at any rate.
 
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So hey, some old school goodness came out. Raptor just got a re-release on Steam for 4.49. From what I'm hearing there isn't much in the terms of improvements, just a quickie paint job on the graphics, but it's still a classic if you're interested.
 
Pretty momentous news


I cannot emphasize enough how much I recommend this game. Although Crimzon Clover might technically have more depth, I personally prefer Eschatos. It feels like it has the best of both worlds from oldschool shmups and bullet hell shooters.

I bought a 360 purely for the shmups, and out of all the Cave shooters and others, this was the game that justified my purchase.
 
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I thought it was saying a chobits shmup was confirmed.

and I'd be up for that.
 
I thought it was saying a chobits shmup was confirmed.

and I'd be up for that.
Nah, from other comments it seems like they're hinting at a Mushihime game, though nothing confirmed yet.

I already own the second game on 360, but I wouldn't mind double dipping for it. It's pretty great, and an insane amount of polished and varied content (like 8 completely different modes or so, and that's not counting the novice mode difficulties).
 
Seems like Degica's the publisher for whatever Cave game's coming out on Steam. According to a Degica employee on shmups.system11.org, Cave is the one that's actually developing the port, and some offhand comments imply that the game will be one of the SH3-era games, which supports the theory of a Mushihimesama series port.
 
Seems like Degica's the publisher for whatever Cave game's coming out on Steam. According to a Degica employee on shmups.system11.org, Cave is the one that's actually developing the port, and some offhand comments imply that the game will be one of the SH3-era games, which supports the theory of a Mushihimesama series port.

Yeah Degica is incredible.

Brought over Crimzon Clover and the Zeal games, and now their bringing us Eschatos and Cave.

Personally, I'm more hyped for Eschatos. I personally prefer their style over Cave's, but both are great and will be a day one purchase for me. If it's Mushihimesama Futari, I have a good excuse to start playing as Abnormal Reco again, heheh.
 
Raiden IV recently got an updated rerelease on Steam as Raiden IV OverKill. Has a bunch of additional content, including the titular OverKill mode. Hope for Raiden V, maybe?
 
MUSHIHIMESAMA CONFIRMED

3 different modes (Original, Arrange, Novice), online leaderboards, additional modes as DLC, and confirmation of more CAVE STGs on the way!
 
Raiden IV recently got an updated rerelease on Steam as Raiden IV OverKill. Has a bunch of additional content, including the titular OverKill mode. Hope for Raiden V, maybe?

Yeah. A bit worried about Raiden V though. Most of the screens they've shown so far feature viewpoints and camera angles not common to a shmup. Hopefully these are just cinematic, because otherwise that would mean some sort of flight sim genre shift.

MUSHIHIMESAMA CONFIRMED

3 different modes (Original, Arrange, Novice), online leaderboards, additional modes as DLC, and confirmation of more CAVE STGs on the way!

Pretty good, considering the xbox version of the game was sadly region locked. The dlc is also going to be the Matsuri arrange, which changes all 3 modes.

But even better, ESCHATOS came out today on Steam. This is in my personal top 5 favorite shmups ever, and I highly, highly recommend it to everyone. Developer is cool so any support you could give them is appreciated.


Also I 1cc'd Ikaruga yesterday.

B42C0E09FF66012E750786B42C06269A7C9C4CA5

A82A8C94959523326E37C8445AB701D7BA0C384E

manly_tears.jpg
 
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This is a pretty good deal for hardcore fans actually. Mushihimesama (the original) is one of the few games in Cave's library that is not properly emulated (you need a hacked mame, and it's still fucked up and missing later content Cave added to it), and it's only port is region locked.

It'll be interesting to see how this game does compared to some of the other shmups and small indie games on Steam.
 
Yesterday, Japan's major shmup developers (Cave, Moss, Triangle Service, G.rev, Treasure, Taito, Qute, and Yotsubane) along with publishers Playism and Degica had a conference/expo on the Transition of shoot em ups from consoles to PC. Events included developer panels on recent releases and the future of shmups, score attack contests on Mushihimesama, Dariusburst, and Crimzon Clover, and a free play exhibition of several shmups that are on PC, including Strania -The Stellar Machina-, DELTAZEAL, Raiden IV OverKill, Mushihimesama, Astebreed, and REVOLVER360 RE:ACTOR. At the expo, Cave announced that their next PC port would be of their first game to be sold overseas: Deathsmiles. If you want to take a look at the festivities, there are videos of each panel on Tokyo Otaku Mode's YouTube channel, but here's the opening ceremony as a freebie.

 
Indiegala currently has a bundle composed almost entirely of doujin shmups on Steam called the Rockin' Anime bundle. The base tier has Hitogata Happa and Diadra Empty for a dollar, but if you pay at least $2.49, you also get the rest of the Gundemonium Collection (Gundemonium Recollection and Gundeadligne), Suguri, Acceleration of Suguri X Edition, and a single non-shmup title, Bunny Must Die! The bundle's going to expire in about 9 days from the time of this post, though, so if you like doujin shmups (or games published by Rockin' Android), you might want to pick it up sooner rather than later.
 
Welp. Seems like a good time for shmuppers at the moment. Gradius V is on sale on PSN thanks to the Golden Week sale, several anime-style shmups like the eXceed series, Mushihimesama and DeathSmiles are on sale on Steam thanks to the Anime Weekend, and CAVE just announced that DoDonPachi DaiFukkatsu is coming to Steam. (No word yet on whether Black Label is also coming, though.)
 
Dangun Feveron also coming to PS4. Personally that's my favorite Cave shmup (maybe tied with Guwange) for it's emphasis on fast movement and agressive play.

Also guys, check out Soul Eater. In person it looks almost like a Vanillaware shmup (it looks like they're using the same style of flash tweening sprites, to me). Special points go to that rad transition midway through the boss fight. Worth playing for yourself real quick and not spoiling it. Great atmosphere.
 
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M2's launched an initiative to put classic shmups that haven't gotten much mainstream exposure onto current generation hardware, known as M2 ShotTriggers. The aforementioned Dangun Feveron port is the first of the M2 ShotTriggers program, but alongside the reveal of the initiative, M2 also revealed a second game coming to PS4: the Raizing classic Battle Garegga.
 
M2 is insane. They are literally porting the games code from scratch. The dedication to classic game preservation is insane. I love em.
 
Quite a bit of interesting news has been popping up on various shmup-related projects due to Tokyo Game Show.

First off, CAVE is considering bringing Gothic wa Mahou Otome (a free2play mobile shmup that's brought in big money for them in Japan) overseas. Second, Dodonpachi Resurrection's release date on Steam has been confirmed to be mid-October. The Steam page is already up and running.

The next series of announcements all have to do with Dariusburst Chronicle Saviors, so I'm gonna lump them together:
  • Two new DLC packs have been confirmed. First up is a Cave crossover pack featuring the Type-A DeltaSword from Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu, Windia from DeathSmiles and the AH-Y72 Tiger Schwert from Ketsui. Coming afterwards is a Raizing crossover pack featuring unknown ships/characters from Battle Garegga, Soukyugurentai, and Mahou Daisakusen.
  • Taito has stepped down from active development of Dariusburst CS and will hand their work over to G.rev, another company consisting of Darius alumni (specifically, they worked on G Darius).
  • Physical and limited editions of the previously digital-only PS4 version have been confirmed for release in Spring of 2017. No clue what's in the limited edition at the moment.
Finally, Thunder Force III has been confirmed to be part of Sega 3D Classics Collection 3: FINAL STAGE. (EDIT: This is because Sega has officially bought the rights to all of Technosoft's IPs. They've also mentioned wanting to rerelease Thunder Force IV, Thunder Force V, and Herzog Zwei, but there aren't any formal announcements regarding that stuff.)
 
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For those who don't know yet, DoDonPachi Daifukkatsu/Resurrection is coming on Steam next month.

It will feature everything from the Xbox versions of 1.5 and Black Label: 1.5, 1.51, Arrange A & B, Black Label, Novice for 1.5 and Black Label and also Ketsuipachi, the Black Label arrange mode that was exclusively for Japan.

I love this game so much, I can't wait to destroy, cancel and dodge everything with all these amazing soundtracks (normal, Black Label and the aranged Ketsui soundtrack)

Some people are complaining about CAVE games ports on Steam, I hope this one will be perfect.
 
so, after finally getting a controller that works, Deathsmiles is currently my favorite bullet hell.
 
You paying on Steam? There are a lot of great shooters there, I could recommend a few.

Eschatos and Mecha Ritz are by far my favorite on there. Must play, those.

Oh and Ikaruga.
 
I own the 360 version. I didn't own a controller so I would have to use my younger brother's which sometimes just sticks up, so I'll be swerving bullets and them my character will just shoot upwards and die.
 
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Daifukkatsu's Steam release date has been clarified, thanks to CAVE's official English site. The game will be launching October 14th. Pricing is unknown, but I'd expect it to be similar to previous Steam releases (if not slightly more expensive due to all the included modes).