Thread 724711523

How is it that this genre was able to carve out its own niche little corner and exist while still remaining relatively unmolested by modernity? And not only this, but also IMPROVE overall over time? The original "euroshmup" is pretty much dead and that paradigm has shifted to be more in line with what was previously considered top notch quality in japan, with any changes to that formula being mostly respectful improvements.

Like think about how every beat em up is a flashy baby game with some nostalgia crap or tumblr art skin laid over it, or how every modern platformer is a metroidvania, or how every doom clone is actually just gaudy build engine style slop with bad level design, or how every RPG is a lame story "game" for men who haven't realized they're women yet. When I look at this stuff I just think
>MAN, how the fuck did shmups survive this?

Are shmups the ULTIMATE form of gatekeeping in video games?

>>724711523 (OP)
It's dead outside of the indie scene and re-releases/ports.
And the reason for why indie devs makes shmups tends to be because they aren't too hard to code.

>>724711856
While its true that shmups can be cheap to make this is also true for all genres. Konami tried to me make a AAA shooter for tens of millions of dollars and hire pixar animators, and you can just look at it and tell its unfun and ugly at a glance:
https://youtu.be/5Ea67DGY93E
Its hard to make a shmup that is both fun and ugly. Good bullet patterns and fun mechanics will naturally lead to beautiful and appealing designs, no matter how minimalist. This is where aesthetics ties into gameplay. You can't make it superficially appealing. You can't reduce it to putting a nostalgic he-man skin over a beat em up or reducing a hype come back to a flashy looking button press in a modern fighting game. Its a brutally honest genre.

>>724712686
>While its true that shmups can be cheap to make this is also true for all genres
I said not hard to code, not the level of budget. They are a step above RPGM games purely in these terms.

>>724712836
I don't think any genre is "hard to code". It's not rocket surgery to make an FPS or open world action adventure game in UE5. Pajeets do it every day. In fact the latest deluge of releases from India and China are unsurprisingly third person action games.

>>724711523 (OP)
It's because the genre is so niche, there's not really a way that you can produce a casual shmup. So the genre just keeps revising and redesigning the system, while people who enjoy the genre keep getting content to buy.

>>724712836
If anyone could do it, wouldn't that mean there would be MORE bad shmups? I don't think you understand what's being implied.

>>724713231
Do you? It implies that the genre is so unpopular that despite being relatively easy to produce, there are really only a few devs doing it and it will be either a bunch of CAVEfags or literally ZUN.

>>724713230
I agree. people who want to tack fluff onto a game have all the other genres in OP's post to choose from. shmups hadn't really been redesigned for console players so there's no attachment. and its hard for normies (who consider games to be toys) to get attached when its just "the game" and no avoiding getting good from the drop

>>724713351
This would just imply that only high quality shmups are tolerated, and that its a genre for people truly interested in gameplay. There are always a pretty hefty amount of shmups being made, and they mostly turn out to be fun, and the ratio of bad:fun keeps shifting more and more heavily into the "fun" direction. There are billions of bad RPG maker games that shouldn't be played by any human being, but shmups on the whole are good.

We're getting closer to the truth. Exciting!

>>724713671
>This would just imply that only high quality shmups are tolerated
Or maybe that there is not enough interest in making a shmup.

Why do these games always have the sickest music?
https://youtu.be/SBuLibossds

>>724713761
>Or maybe that there is not enough interest in making a shmup.
There are at least 4 shmups releasing on steam in november.

>>724711523 (OP)
im playing mushi now, almost got the 1cc but not quite. what new shmups are there released in 2025? none that i know of

>>724713805
damn, wish the second half played so I wouldn't get sick of it after I restart over and over haha

>>724713985
This comes out on november 18 and judging by the demo I think it will be very fun
https://youtu.be/2LNE0Go79zo

But theres plenty of other stuff like Earthion, Salamander 3, Touhou 20, chinkhou, Shikigami 3 getting a PC port for the first time, plus some twin sticks like Sektori or 3D shooters like Death in Abyss on the way, just as some varied examples.

>>724714027
One feature I like about Blue Revolver is that the music actually syncs to whats happening on the stage (like a Darius game or something) so I never get bored of it personally.
https://youtu.be/ey4PpSUmXhs

>>724711523 (OP)
are housemarque games shmups?

>>724711523 (OP)
What a truly retarded OP.

>>724715243
That's true, he should have posted an e-celeb or a chart that said "/v/-core"

>>724715013
Are those the guys that made that smash TV type game? I didn't play their other one

>>724715013
Resogun and Stardust are, yeah.

>>724716001
Oh shit I forgot resogun existed. I played that game to death when it came out

Shmups understand what gamers really want. Its just anime girls with cool music and good gameplay.

>>724711523 (OP)
Shmups are too pure for this world. They can't be corrupted.

uh oh

Arcades are a sheltered cul-de-sac that allowed a chain of influences to manifest from SpaceWar! to DDP SDOJ via a few key developers in a back and forth dialog of game design and in some cases literal succession as in the case of Toaplan (parent of CAVE, 8ing, Gazelle, Takumi) or Taito (parent of ZUN), Compile (parent of Milestone). When we say "Shmup" we are often referring to this tradition not the mechanics of scrolling and shooting. It's very cool but old and gay and someone needs to do something with it because it's currently getting mogged by ball x pit.

Free twin stick shooter released 2 days ago for anyone that wants
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3651950/Evil_Egg/
https://youtu.be/yziGh2igbm4

724719003
>ball x pit

>>724719313
Enough to mog you.

>>724719416
>mog you
pajeet alert

>>724719509
>t. The Mogged

>>724719009
This is literally nuclear throne, what the fuck

>>724713230
There are a lot of casual shmups, they are just roguelite instead of faux arcade games. The thrill of riding life straight to perfect laughter in your cumstained basement is replaced with the promise of something like a 30 minute adventure with surprises.

>>724719009
My brain registered this as vomit at first glance but it's actually quite fun.

>>724720565
Yeah it's great, reminds me of nuclear throne mashed together with star of providence

>>724719003
Why change it if it's working? Not everything needs to sell 200 million copies. It's better to make games for gamers. I'd rather have a less popular game than a boring popular game.

>>724711523 (OP)
I soldered in a modchip in my ps2 and imported mushihimesama. Love it so much. Espgaluda, mushimisama futari and deathsmiles also.

>>724722720
They fell off pretty hard.

>>724722924
Quite the opposite, they churned out a bunch of masterpieces then just fucked off and made gacha instead of dragging the genre down with heaps of shit games.

>>724723095
That's one way of looking at it I guess.

>>724723189
It's the only way to look at, better to leave your mark and bugger off than squeeze your IPs dry for 20+ years. Look at all these awful remakes and sequels lately, I don't want that. CAVE really only made 2 mid games, Donpachi (as in the first one) and Deathsmiles 2. Everything else is a total banger.

Also posting a good track just 'cause
https://youtu.be/-EZo9V-pxuY

>>724718862
Oh neat, I've had my eye on this one but I had been holding off due to a lack of translation
>>724711523 (OP)
Shmups are in a spot similar to where fighting games were a while ago, but fighting games got brought back by some changes in newer titles. The biggest 'gatekeeping' is simply that there isn't money to be made in shmups unless you're running an indie shoestring budget or porting old games on the cheap. All that 'gatekeeping' will blow away in a second once someone makes a design that prints money (thankfully the simplified shmup gameplay wasn't the part of Undertale that people latched onto).
If euroshmups had been done well I think they could have kept the genre relevant longer, problem is the genre name became synonymous with low quality. Too many titles low-cost titles came out developed by people who didn't understand arcade shmups and didn't understand what could be added by the move to console/home pc. There were a few titles that were onto something, Tyrian, Jets n Guns, and Raptor. I'd have loved if more euroshmups were like those

>>724722573
i copped a 360 just to play shmups. i was torn on the ps2 but the ability to use my arcade stick pushed me over to the xbox. apparently the ps2 port of mushi is less arcade accurate. playing on 360 there are frame drops in certain moments that werent there on mame

>>724723572
there is an untapped market for sure. all of the fps zoomers who play fortnite and cod would have been STG players if they were in the 80s. multiplayer slop like fighting and puzzle took over the arcades in the 90s. then rhythm came and its the last survivor. i can see some kind of shmup going viral, the way dark souls did. where normies respect and fear it. it could even have high native frames per second or take advantage of oled. the coop aspect would be well received too

>>724723572
Euroshmups were already PC master race, that's why they had no arcade roots. I agree they didn't get the investment into gameplay needed to be explored completely and had something that is missing now. A daring synthesis might be possible. Perchance.

>>724723825
That's kind of what zeroranger already is. And it spawned a bunch of clones which are in development now, you'll see the results of that in the coming year.

>>724723917
Yeh, everyone that is interested in shmups should be making one by now.

>>724724051
A lot of sick stuff is in the pipes. Pretty hyped for this very obvious DDP clone
https://youtu.be/wdoX0r0931Y
I could link trailers of upcoming stuff all day, things might be getting pretty exciting soon.

>>724724481
No kidding, a little on the nose but looks solid. Happy to see what else you've found.

>>724723834
shit I completely forgot about euroshmups here kek >>724713640

>>724712686
Stage 5 of Mushihimesama is absolute kino when you get it down
I did the 1-ALL of Daifukkatsu v1.5 (after accidentally trying 1.51 for a few hours because i didn't know it was a special version lol) pretty easy so now I'm trying Black Label without autobomb. I really fucking hate the final stage with the revolving indestructible drone things, i have no idea how I'm meant to dodge or track when there's potentially a very chaotic quadruple layer of obstacles on the screen (the drones themselves, fixed lasers, fixed bullets, tracking bullets) and like no space to manoeuvre. Like, i kind of dragged myself through it on v1.5 with autobomb but i need a better method now

>>724724692
Well here's one that releases in 5 days and everyone has giant boobies haha
https://youtu.be/Cc8QOUxPmew

But there's tons of ambitious stuff too, like here's a pretty obvious zeroranger inspired game with a free demo on steam that should be absolutely cracked if the dev manages to improve the scoring system a little
https://youtu.be/-Pg9Kft2vUg

>>724711523 (OP)
Its an incredibly saturated genre.

>>724725651
>Stage 5 of Mushihimesama is absolute kino when you get it down
I always get raped by the centipedes at the end of stage 4 and limp into stage 5 with no resources and die before the miniboss

>>724725932
The trick to centipedes is to hop on the right after the first cricket wall in that segment. This is an old webm but its more or less how to do it. Its extremely consistent.

>>724725902
Because no one ever mixes in anything new not because of volume.

>>724726070
based

>relatively unmolested by modernity
>is as tranny-coded as a videogame genre can possibly be

>>724711523 (OP)

tell me some good shmups to ply on my steam deck

>>724728125
>tranny-coded
Weird how every game that isn't slop is "tranny-coded"

>>724728125
do niggas actually play these games in horizontal mode

>>724728125
What isn't tranny coded according to you people?
>>724730413
Right?
>>724730526
I do for the M2 ports. I don't have a dedicated system and screen for vertical orientation and at least the gadgets are a cute addition, even if ultimately worthless.

>>724730385
Everspace

why didnt he do it?

>>724730778
Why? It's not that hard to flip your monitor sideways. You know you can display the gadgets in vertical mode too right?

>>724731018

anon groypers dont want to play games with gothic lolitas they want to molest the real thing

>>724731018
Shmups got mogged.

>>724711523 (OP)
The barrier of entry is a barrier. If the game sucks nobody wants it, simple as. The genre is filtering by default.

>>724731029
I have a rotatable monitor for 360, sure, but my main screens are a 60" plasma for PC and a 60" OLED for PS5. I guess I could detach the PS4/5 for the other monitor during those times, sure.

>>724719003
ball x pit "mogs" shmups (sales wise) because it's worthless turn your brain off and relax shit, at this point you could say that every game is being "mogged' by stardew valley so they should all turn into cozyshit

How do I fix this? Time to record a 1cc

>>724732727
Play windowed instead, oh wait that fucks up the refresh rate because of hack devs

>>724711523 (OP)
what's a euroshmup?

>>724733378
It refers to a shmup that sucks ass and isn't fun to play. They're called euroshmups because shmups made by europeans back in the day tended to be shit. Although there are some games that take qualities from those games like RPG systems and fit them with good gameplay, like Ginga Force.

>>724733378
Games that usually have more than one of the follwing aspects:
>widescreen in a vertical shmup
>extremely easy compared to arcade games and they don't encourage you to improve your skills
>little to no scoring mechanics
>mouse controls
>health bars
>shields
>screen shaking effects
>western developer
>story/cutscenes between stages
>big hitboxes (especially the player's ship)
>linear shot
>slow speed
>upgrades between stages (not to be confused with shop system like the one you find in Fantasy Zone and Trouble Witches)
>bland space or military setting
the list goes on...

>>724719891
>There are a lot of casual shmups, they are just roguelite instead of faux arcade games
Which ones? Outside the Vampire Survivors clones (if you would even call them shmups) I can only think of one shmup I would call a roguelike. What titles have you seen that use the roguelike mechanics?

>>724732952
>that fucks up the refresh rate
say what now

Is /v/ excited for Cotton's new shmup?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po76rBAUh74

>>724735110
looks cute, cant wait to pirate it

>>724735110
>hori
I have tunnel vision with this kind of game. I can only see 1/3 of the screen most of the time. Deathsmiles is the only hori that didn't bother me tho. Mostly because the patterns are easy to read and the amount of slowdown helps a lot.

>>724735510
Rude! Cotton deserves lots of support!
>>724735659
I don't really have this issue desu, most of the shmups I play are horizontal, I mainly just boils down to being able to react in time and figuring out a path.

>>724730385
G-Darius HD
Mecha Ritz
Devil Blade Reboot

>>724735110
If its cheap yes, if no I'll wait to see how it turns out.

>>724732449
So turn it sideways. Oled screens aren't that heavy.

>>724714609
>Touhou 20
Call me when Touhou 1-11 are on steam

>>724732449
You can get a rotatable 1080p monitor for super cheap.

>>724711523 (OP)
>unmolested by modernity
That's a nice way to say no one is making them.

Messing with this game a bit on the side.

>>724744468
>no one is making them
True, needs to be in the hands of AAA devs so we can have open world shmups with cinematic glory kills and all player interaction being relegated to stat progression.

what makes a good shmup a good shmup?

>>724745181
anime girls
lots of bullets on the screen

>>724745181
epic stories and deep lore.

>>724745181
It needs to be presented by Cave™.

>>724725902
I have literally no idea what you mean by this

>>724745181
Proper risk/reward mechanics (Psyvariar, Shikigami Shiro). A sense of having enough firepower and mobility to navigate the chaos (Gradius does this well. Radiant Silvergun does not, in that your ship is the slowest moving object in the game). If there are any physical barriers that are threats, they need to be abundantly clear and should not put players in a position that they cannot be escaped (Radiant Silvergun breaks this rule). An incentive to shoot as much of everything as possible (Radiant Silvergun breaks this rule too).

>>724744241
Not sure why he'd buy that when he has a huge oled tv. He just needs to stop being a pussy and turn it sideways.

I recently tried Angel at Dusk. Very cool game.

>>724747360
Its really hard to play on a giant screen

>>724747372
how so?

>>724745465
lol no. Beyond the soundtrack I like Thunder Force V's lore and ending but as a game it's way too easy and imbalanced for it to stand as one of the greats.

>>724748936
he's probably referring to cho aniki

>>724735110
Cute feet

>>724711856
>It's dead outside of the indie scene
Where else would you buy video games? Do you play console garbage or something?

>>724750832
Yes? M2 only releases their ports on console.

>>724711523 (OP)
>while still remaining relatively unmolested by modernity?
vampire survivor & gungeon are considered bullet hells

>>724750907
I know the catalogue is moving at light speed because someone is making 20 reddit frog threads a minute but you gotta have better bait than that

>>724751687
There ain't even a hint of shmup DNA in that sloppa.

>>724751687
That has been debunked already.

i hate twin stick shooters but want to make something like one. I'd personally enjoy one more if you could only shoot in cardinal directions but I don't know if anyone else would like that. Does only shooting in cardinal directions with 4 face buttons sound insane to you or something you'd get used to quickly? I vastly prefer the locked in feeling shmups have where you primarily aim by moving your ship which can force riskier positioning

>>724711856
fpbp

Shmups are still good because they're niche as hell and nobody's made a shmup that pushes trannies on the player

>>724711523 (OP)
Probably the reason shmups stayed pure is that they work perfectly the same at home as in the arcade. The only difference is the quarters are free.

>>724755017
>nobody's made a shmup that pushes trannies on the player
espgaluda

>>724754072
ever play crisis force? its a two button shmup but you have 3 ships you can change at will. and there are two weapon upgrade paths so there are many different shot types. the primary one only shoots in front. it has the best dps. then there is one that shoots behind you and one that shoots to the side. they are balanced by their dps and the upgrade path. if you choose the laser upgrade path back shot gets a powerful laser that circles you and side shot lasers home onto the enemies, but front shot laser is mid. front shot bullet upgrade is the highest dps in the game but back shot and side shot bullet is mid.

probably not explaining it well but you should try it

>>724756062
>He didn't watch Birdy the Mighty

>>724755017
>nobody's made a shmup that pushes trannies on the player
espagaluda 1 and 2
Graze Counter
Also there's that kickboxer that dresses up like touhou characters and beats people up
https://youtu.be/qSSCjD-zlfE

>>724755934
New shmups don't even use credits now.

DDP is the better series

>>724711523 (OP)
Same as pinball
It has a loyal following

>>724761728
>Same as pinball
No

>>724711523 (OP)
tranny genre

>>724763748
https://youtu.be/Hr4S-Q-SU1M
So what chud

>>724711523 (OP)
>relatively unmolested by modernity?
99% of shmup players are posers though. 13% barely even finish the games.

>>724764158
Don't be so sure.
>everyone who buys a shmup is a shmup fan
Nope, that's the gatekeeping at work. Some people like the idea of shmup games, but don't understand what is required to beat them, and what they're really about.

>>724764158
And 41% commit suicide

>>724744525
Man I wish I was much better at Monolith, it's pretty fun