I feel like a lot of the comments here aren't hearing the points of the video and show a bit of knee jerk reaction. Dead is a metaphor and we have to decide for ourselves what it means in this context. It doesn't have to mean "absolutely lacking activity" or "beyond resuscitation", as it does in the context of dead humans. Mark gives his criteria for what dead means to him and these criteria are the key points of the video. Whether or not you agree "dead" is the right word is kind of trivial. I think there are such good, important arguments here that are being overlooked because people are caught on the title of the video.
@@TheElectricUnderground XD I can't wait for the podcast with UBO with the marketing stuff, that should be really interesting. Keep up the awesome work :)
This. Studios don't care about us. The mainstream audience doesn't care about us. The only ones who do care are just ourselves. If shmups suddenly disappeared, no one would blink an eye. Shmups are dead in the sense that they are forgotten. That's the reality, and I hate it as much as the next guy, but it is the truth. What we should focus on is how we are going to tackle this multifaceted problem. How do we make the genre profitable? Engaging? Accessible? Whatever we need to do to revive the genre (i.e. make people remember we exist) is if the community takes matters into their own hands, instead of waiting for CAVE to make Saidaifukkatsu or Mushihimesama 3. And let's be real, even if they did, it's not going to do anything. CAVE isn't a known brand outside of Japan. For more well-known names, like the upcoming R-Type Final 2, it may stir things up a little, but the "kids these days" don't know what R-Type is, so it won't last, at least not without the community capitalising on the opportunity.
Yes for sure, what I am getting at in the video is shmups are at an all time low and can be considered "dead" by the criteria I describe, especially for newcomers or people outside the genre, but if the current player base puts in focused plans of improvement, then the genre can grow back up and revitalize. The main message I want to get across in this video is that I do not think shmups will naturally do this by themselves, they need directed community support, this is how other gaming scenes have been able to survive and return (like melee).
@@TheElectricUnderground Yes, I understand your point, and being honest, I see it very difficult to happen, unless we start to face the genre in a different way to how it has been done in recent years. I see the same problem that beat them ups suffer: they are experiences that, beyond finishing them with all the characters or going to score, do not get much incentive to want to return to them. there are many possibilities that could try to be implemented for the genre, and thus perhaps capture a wider audience, but as long as that stigma that they are games for experts only continues, it will remain stagnant as a niche genre.
@@santiagodelfino2376 the stigma is real. When outsiders think shmups are only for experts, and the experts inside the genre fan base won't play the shmups that don't beat the stuffing out of them each time they play, because they can't find the fun in something without the challenge, and then those games get slammed online for being "too easy" it created a self fulfilling prophecy. All too often, I think we as shmup players might be our own worst enemy in that regard.
You only live twice - once when you bite the bullet, another when your name is said for the last time. And it was nice knowing you twice, Mr.Santiago! Bwahahahaha
bro. you want a community foundation with resurrection trigger, I got four words for you: Summer Carnival '20: Mega Cyber Caravan. Time attack-style, no 45 minute nolife western world record uguu crap just 2-5 minutes of sweaty shmupping to see who's top shmup. Quick to design and develop, quick to master. Make it an institution and when its time close submissions for that round and release the next one. No one knows the mysterious organization that runs the carnival or what they're after but shmuppers come from all over the galaxy to be top shmup for a while- or die trying.
RE: retention, I think a lot of it is just people going through cycles. I'll go through a genre phase, play it a bunch, then rotate to some other genre of game ... but eventually I make my way back again and everything repeats.
Casual shmup fan speaking. Personally, I really relate to the retention issue you brought up. I'm not a high score chaser, the most I'll go for in any shmup is a 1cc or maybe a no-hit run, but I'll rarely stick with one for much longer afterwards except as a revisit on a lark. For me, I discovered shmups during my indie phase around 2005, and the games by ABA/Kenta Cho were super influential for me. He programmed all of his shmups to have procedurally-generated bullet patterns, meaning for me it was more about getting into the meditative flow state and having a zen-like understanding of the broader bullet landscape rather than planning and executing routes in shmups with scripted enemy patterns (I may be simplifying high-level shmup play, I'm only a casual fan). In fact, I credit the time I spent playing those shmups for teaching me the skills to remain calm under pressure. But back on the broader appeal of shmups, I think part of the issue is how deeply ingrained shmup games are still to their arcade roots. While I'll try stuff by Cave or the Touhou games, ultimately grinding better performances through repeat playthroughs doesn't hold my attention. I can definitely see the appeal for those who want to perfect their execution like speedrunners (which is why I think the GDQ crossover was brilliant), but the ultimate measure of your performance is pretty much the score only. If you've ever heard of the player psychographics of Timmy/Johnny/Spike by Mark Rosewater for describing why people play Magic: the Gathering, I think it can help guide some of the thinking on the appeal of shmups. Current, arcade-y shmups really appeal to the Spikes out there, who want to hone their execution to a razor edge and have a simple metric to determine success (your score). But for the other psychographics, I don't think shmups have much to offer. For Timmy/Tammy, who wants cool experiences, big explosions, juicy bullet cancels, and dodging through what seems like an impossible gap in the bullet curtain has its thrills, but I don't think it holds up as well to repeat play when you've become familiar with everything. For the Johnny/Jenny, who want to play for expressiveness, creative routing can possibly scratch that itch, but if our metric for success is your score, then once you find the "optimal" route, then I think there's little to offer for those players again. Ultimately, as much as I want to enjoy shmups, I think for what they offer they'll still be something like a gaming sudoku or crossword puzzle for me. I can really dive into it and chew on it for a while, but once I've "solved" it to my satisfaction there's rarely any appeal to return to it. Given my love of the moment-to-moment gameplay of shmups, though, I do have high hopes for games like Steredenn, which is high on my list of games to try when I'm next bitten by a shmup bug.
Thanks for the great comment!!! Man the part about shmups needing to appeal to more players creativity really got me thinking, I wonder if there is an interesting way to do that, to give the games a bit of a sandbox feel, while still retaining their core appeal. That would be a super interesting game.
@@TheElectricUnderground I think the biggest way shmups current add creativity/style is in multiple ship and shot types. While it's not perfect, it allows for some aspect of player expression in how they like to play and what strategies they'll implement in the game. I love Jamestown in this regard because each ship plays completely differently and you can tailor the experience to how you like to play. There's even a random option that will mix and match your shot and specials upon death. This is partly why I'm excited to try Steredenn. Because it borrows elements from roguelikes, throughout the run you'll be customizing your ship with all sorts of power-ups. Plus, the procedural generation of levels also helps in keeping each run fresh and unique.
@@TheElectricUnderground But yes, ultimately I think it would be awesome if there was a shmup that would really reward player creativity and/or expressiveness. I think to an extent you can watch replays and figure out who's playing based on how they react and dodge various patterns, but if enemy and bullet patterns are fairly static this returns to the problem of players optimizing the fun/creativity out of the game.
@@RocketSlug This is a great observation, something like Bartle's Taxonomy for shmups might be in order. My first intuition is that shmup players that also like fighting games and shmup players that don't also like fighting games would form two separate camps. To your point about expression I think the most direct form of expression in a shmup is movement. The last shmup I can remember having really interesting movement was Galak-Z, I think it had a lot of potential but the rest of the game was a bit anemic.
@@GITAHxgCoo Yep, precisely. Funny enough, I do fall into that camp of shmup/figther lover, but I dabble in lots of other stuff as well. I've been giving the topic some thought over the past few hours and I've also settled on movement being a big factor in shmup expressiveness. Risks/reward mechanics (graze systems, as one example), and interesting uses of limited resources (usually bombs) are other candidates. The limiting factor to me is still the emphasis on score. It always leads me to the impression (founded or not) that there will always be some platonically perfect TAS that we're all just trying to approach. The lack of other metrics to measure success by limits players' abilities to find their own fun (pacifist runs, maybe?). Another thought I have is on the limited gameplay verbs in the shmup genre (move, shoot, bomb, etc.). Granted, limited gameplay verbs aren't a bad thing, Mario pretty much is entirely based around run and jump, and I'm certainly not advocating that we need to overcomplicate the genre, but I think if we break it down like this we can see opportunities to innovate. I've been reviewing some game design videos on how game designers help protect players from themselves and optimizing the fun out of the game, seeing where shmups can draw inspiration from. In particular I'm rewatching Mark Brown's "How Game Designers Protect Players From Themselves," Extra Credits's "Optimal Vs. Fun - Designing for Different Playstyles," and Adam Millard's "How Satisfactory Makes Work Fun" for inspiration. In particular I think I'm going to take some time to think about how character action games can cater to different playstyles. They have a similar score-focused mentality, but are much more open to player expressiveness. Partially I think it's due to the plethora of gameplay verbs they have, but there may still be things we can draw inspiration from.
It's crazy to think that the modern retrogaming community owes so much to the discoveries and passion of the shmups community. Pretty much every freaking thing everyone's obsessing over from the prices of retro games,( 90% of the most expensive games are the sought after shmups in one form or the other), video quality, to the obsession over BVMs and PVMs, input lag discoveries and how best to circumvent them, is all due to the findings and long drawn experimentation of the shmups community/forums.
I joined your discord today, and right away the first thing I noticed is that users were bickering with each other and mostly dismissing newcomers instead of welcoming them. I don't know if it was an unfortunate coincidence, but if that's frequently the case, I think that can explain in part why user retention is low. It's hard to create a community if newcomers feel like they can't get along with the veterans. :( Oh well, I'll try to stay positive and see what happens, it seems like a well laid-out server.
Sounds depressing to be honest. Good news is that there are still people getting into the Genre. Like me. I am a gamer since 1993. From 93 to early 2020, all shmups i have ever played were Hellfire, Parodius, Under Defeat and Ikaruga. But this spring, i got into the genre all of a sudden. Now i have added Battle Garegga, DDP SDOJ, DDR DFK, Mushihimesama and Futari, Darius Gaiden, Espgaluda 2, ESP Rade, Radiant Silvergun and Ketsui to that list. Recently i bought a japanese 360 just to play Daioujou. So yeah... there is hope. Maybe we just need a great Shmup on Gamepass or something, so people finally give it a shot.
I am guilty of getting in & out with shmups. There is so many games to play nowadays and with such little free time it's difficult to focus on new shmups. A perfect storm would help shmups. A very popular Twitch/TH-camr streamer along with the right new game can help. It's hard to get out of the basement.
Hello, mr Electric Underground, excuse my english. First of all, i would like to say that i have the most respect for your channel. One thing I've learned working with journalism is the importance of the audiance that listen to us. Although I could agree with your point partially, I have a hard time believing this video does more good than harm. That said, i wont discuss what a dead genre could mean and I do acknowledge the later minutes of the video, but humbly asking you to think about the viewers that have your channel as a reference. For example, i've just recommended your channel to a friend to try to show them that shumps are a great genre, but now theyre could maybe hear very unencouraging arguments straight from the horses mouth. From what I've seen of your channel I know this is not your intention.
Solid video Mark. Keep up the good fight. Two remarks: - Comparing anything to Chess doesn't get you anywhere. No game holds that kind of cultural currency. It's a ridiculous outlier. Generally being good at a game doesn't really mean a lot outside of the fan community of the particular game in question. EXCEPT Chess and some Sports. - And while we are at it, I think Shmups have a unique advantage here. The gameplay is universally understood even by complete outsiders. While the idea of a "Shmup Expert" doesn't hold much Cachet, actually SEEING somebody be good at a Shmup almost universally floors people from all walks of life. Even a relatively low-difficulty run of a Touhou title looks like you're being some kind of videogame savant. Compare how difficult of a time other genres have. Show a top-level Leage of Legends match to an outsider. They might just as well be looking at a sport from a different planet. Even fighting games struggle. I played fighting games in my life but I have never played Smash. To me Smash matches are completely incomprehensible. No idea who is winning. No idea what a good move is supposed to look like. Just a few characters hanging of a ledge and glitching around the screen. Compared to that, Shmups are instantly understandable and it's easy to impress with them provided you get people to watch it.
Hey thanks for the great feedback! Yeah I should have been more clear on what I meant regarding the chess comparison. I Definetly don't expect shmups to ever compare to chess in cultural currency, because like you say it is a unique outlier. I was just bringing up chess to explain what the concept is, because chess is pretty much universally respected.
Yes, shmup expertise is universally impressive but the underlying reason is that the core gameplay mechanisms are extremely simple : avoid obstacles via a directional pad, fire projectiles via a few buttons and the marker of success is binary: the player avatar/ship was not destroyed and is still moving. The flip side of expertise impressiveness and simplicity of gameplay is that for the non initiate, once you have seen one shmup, you have seen them all and a few screenshots and/or videos are going to have a hard time of convincing them otherwise. Platformers on the other hand can afford to tell a story by their layout and non mandatory scrolling. Players can discover them at their own rhythm (well, except for games like NES Ninja Gaiden but few neophytes will be attracted by those titles precisely because they impose the play rhythm). You cannot discover a shmup, you either conquer it or die after a few seconds. Maybe shmup said need to learn to not kill players to resurrect. 😉
@@nekononiaow Yeah Shmup skill play doesn't really inspire that "Hold my beer" feeling. I don't think that comparing Shmups to other genres is useful. Different genres have different strengths. But I do agree that the structure of Shmups needs some rethinking. Dying in Shmups is a downer. CHARLENEMAXIMUM, creator of the upcoming Bullet Sorceress recently compared Shmups to Disc Room. Mentioned that the gameplay is almost the same. But Disc Room has a lot of smart ideas to give players more control over the experience and make dying a lot more fun! Hey Mark, I think you should check out Disc Room. Would love to hear your take on this.
I'm thinking to strike at the Japanese scene of shmups. CAVE is certainly dead for us outside Japan, but... the meme of bullets, especially CAVE themselves, still lives on. Notably in Japan. Of all games that are received well recently, it's CAVE's latest game: World Witches United Front. I don't know why the Strike Witches series gets the bullet hell treatment (Note, I have 0 familiarity with this series), but here it is. Barriers and lasers with score-farming and lootboxes galore. One would think people would be abhorrent towards bullet hells, But the World Witches game is doing well. Is it due to its license or due to the bullets it spread? The shmuper in me wants to think the latter. Not only that, there is SEGA's Ongeki that despite the nasty virus we're having right now it received a 2nd major expansion at the arcades. Ongeki's main gimmick as a rhythm game is you evade bullet notes. It's so very aware with it, CAVE songs tend to get the special treatment with greater bullet complexity compared to the other songs within the game. Plus, SEGA and CAVE look as if they're having an incestuous relationship with each other. giving CAVE licenses for cross overs or yes, having CAVE stuffs on SEGA's Ongeki, complete with the bullets and simulating the lasers. Whether it will work or not, we won't know until someone still needs to try it and get the results. When CAVE is still permitted to spew out bullet hells even if the games are not traditional shmups, I think there's hope to relight the fire.
I definitely think shmups have the potential to return to more mainstream status, I definitely believe that for sure. But I think in order for that to happen, we need to understand that the genre is not able to do it on it's own and that it will require consistent community support. Right now I think the general attitude is just waiting around and hoping something will happen ha. Keep an eye out for the podcast ep with UBO though, because we're really working on a lot of stuff right now that I think will really help.
@@TheElectricUnderground So I wanted to point something out. World Witches United Front is a gacha shmup in the same vein as Azur Lane (one of the more popular gacha's with millions of users). WWUF is the 2nd gacha shmup that I can think of and I think it's a possible path forward for shmups, I'll get into that in another comment. Zazon: Strike Witches is a strong IP for both a shmup and a gacha game. Lots of cute girls, and a universe that already fights shmup style. It's a solid combo and I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner. I'm thinking Azur Lane's prolonged success spurred stakeholders to open up their checkbooks. CAVE with a strong IP (the weakpoint in the shmup genre) is a winning combo.
We need a new game that can break the barrier and introduce a lot of people to the genre. Shmups were made for arcades, arcades are dead now, that makes sense. The design for this type of games needs to be updated, popular roguelites games like Nuclear Throne, Enter the Gungeon have shmups influence, maybe the roguelites of today are the evolution of the arcade genre. Adding multiplayer online features could help, something like competing with other players for score/survival at the same time or a BR shmup(?). 100 players trying to survive a hellish bullet spread at the same time could be fun. But then, who is going to fund a project like that? The genre is a niche and there is not enough money to be made with it. Making a game, even simple ones, takes a lot of effort. Besides most shmups having an old school design, a lot of people are not aware of the challenges or how to challenge yourself when playing them, they just keep on feeding credits and continue playing, they "finish" the game in 25 minutes and then they believe the game has no content. Another issue is that even if you know how to challenge yourself, shumps are hard, they were designed to be hard. Getting a 1CC is really challenging and sometimes frustrating, even if you play a lot you are not guaranteed to get them in any game, that's not for everyone. Also for a long time and for most people the only way to play big shmups titles was using emulation, but the emulation was terrible and console ports were bad and/or too expensive (imports). All those issues helped to diminish the genre. Creating and cultivating a community is the only hope, exactly what you are doing.
Aside from rouge-likes and BR's, I think there's a third path for shmups. The Gacha Shmup. These are significantly more reliant on being backed by a strong IP and being on mobile but Azur Lane (which is a shmuppy RPGish gacha) has over 3 million players on it's global server. CAVE's latest game is a Strike Witches gacha. Waifus sell.
i'm crying and shaking rn mark would never say shmups are dead /s if you mention a rpg or something most people will probably be like "ooh what is it like?" but if you talk about a shmup they'll be uninterested problem with this genre is it's the opposite of how popular games should be, unlike most games you see nowadays which are relatively easy and take 60+ hours to beat, shmups are insanely difficult but only take 30-45 mins it's also bad for shmuptubers cause shorter games = less videos = less views = less money but even if shmups are dead, i'll still continue playing them
ha well I say shmups are dead in the terms of the definition I give, but I'm defiantly not saying they should be left behind, what I'm getting is more about how if we want to bring them back to life (which I do) it's going to take some focused effort, rather than just waiting for it to happen by itself.
We need a Mario Maker style shmup game where players create small bite size trials, puzzles, and entertaining/artistic levels and boss fights for each other and their friends. It would probably go a long ways towards growing the genre and onboarding people long enough to learn the fundamentals and try other shmups. In general gaming nowadays is very online and connected, which is maybe partly why fighting games continue to grow especially as better netcode is implemented. Some sort of shmup battle royale like tetris 100 might be interesting too.
Gotta be honest, you hit the nail exactly on the head here. Great video that goes through all warning signs that its dead. That being said, I think it's just as interesting to analyze "why" we're dead. And I think design has a lot do with it. Anyways, this gave me a bunch of fire and spirit to do what I can to support the Shmup cause!
Great video Mark. You're doing a lot yourself with these videos and the podcast, which are working to convert me from a "passively interested, come back every now and then" shmup player to a more passionate fan. I think the power of video content can't be understated. The players who are already interested in arcade games or skill intensive games will trickle in as they always have. But there's a MASS of people who are interested in games and would be pulled in by great runs or entertaining streamers. I'll make a comparison from the scene I know, Melee. Mang0 alone has something like 10K subscribers on Twitch. There aren't even 10K people who could win a set at a decent local. That means there are tons of people who are there simply to enjoy watching, for the game and for the streamer's personality. Same goes for tournament viewers. In every VG community, having the top players be visible personalities is a huge draw. What storylines are there in shmups? Events like shmup slam could do a ton for the scene once they get more exposure, and give people the context of "this is an amazing run". A shmup version of SummoningSalt would also be amazing, but we need good footage and good documentation of scores - both things I know you've talked about. Imagine the hype of a SummoningSalt video when he says "it seemed like scoring was reaching it's theoretical limit, but then..." and then we see some new route or technique in a shmup that blows open the scoring. There's SO much potential here. I disagree with some who are saying we need new games. While that may help, we need content that explains to the layman why the classics are awesome and still worth playing.
I am so happy to hear that! Yes, I completely agree. I'm actually a huge melee fan/player myself, so I know exactly what you mean :-) Yeah, Mango has been an insanely strong resource for melee and definitely one of the reasons it has maintained popularity. I really hope my content can have a similar effect for shmups. In case you haven't seen it, I actually put some melee footage of my marth (who is getting pretty crispy these days) in this video ha: th-cam.com/video/s4sssyZHDtI/w-d-xo.html
dude, i see your playing fire lancer for the wonderswan color, you should definitely try Wing Warriors for the gameboy/ gamegear/ master system! I'd like to see your input on this new homebrew. Its only 15 minutes long, so dont expect the longest game like dodonpaci or anything. However, this is a bullet hell on the original gamegear/gameboy, so there is definitely some love still for the genre, just not from mega corporations. if your playing the master system version. make sure to set it to 50hz!
Speaking as an outsider (just subscribed by the way), I would say that there are many new twists on the shmup genre that could generate new interest. I think although the hardcore players may like bullet hell shmups there are ways to have interesting shmup games that don't rely on tons of bullets. As an example, whilst it's not a true "shmup", look at the way sound and graphics were blended in Rez. Imagine a 2d shmup that took a similar audiovisual synesthesia approach, blending in sound and rhythm into the shmup action. Beat Saber may also be a good source of inspiration for this hypothetical rhythm shmup game. If this idea of using synesthesia to give a new twist on a genre seems strange, I would suggest this is what Tetris Effect did in the puzzle genre, and judging by the TH-cam views this seems to have been a success.
I think the devs are all dead or making games I don't like. Treasure and Cave are not doing anything but ports of games I already love. I have been waiting for treasure to make project RS3 since they talked about it like 10 years ago. Cave could just do anything new and it would put some life back in the genre. Touhou is just making games I don't really get into. Imperishable Night was the peak for me. Zun puts out games regularly, but they all feel like middle of the road games. I think we just are not getting enough fresh new content. Mushi3 or RS3 would definitely put a spot light on the genre because most people seem to know them. I was also thinking that maybe something with a high art production value could help get new people in. Cuphead was a hit and I think the novelty of the art really helped pull people in. Great video though.
STG's more or less died with arcade era. Have you thought about reaching out to content creators that cover arcade era games or people seeking to revive arcade communities? A lot of those people are already casual fans of the genre but might not know about what M2 is doing or haven't heard about indie games that are keeping the spirit alive, such as ZeroRanger.
Okay, I know I'm a bit late to the party here, but I was thinking about this a lot recently. In my eyes, there's two reasons why the genre is stuck in a rut: 1, it has become stale. 2, predictability. For point one, well... compare this genre to the roguelike genre. That genre was, for a long time, also "dead". Hardly anyone even knew what it was, and many who found out would try said games and bounce off of them real hard. Roguelikes at the time were VERY strict about sticking to the original Rogue's ideas (for better or for worse... usually "worse" if I'm being honest) and it made them nigh-impossible to get into, and bloody irritating even once learned. And then, out of nowhere, Spelunky and Isaac came along. The entire genre EXPLODED. Loudly. Suddenly, it is EVERYWHERE, taking old concepts and merging them with any ol' genre it can find. It freaking EVOLVED. It showed the true potential of the concepts that had always been at the heart of it, by allowing those concepts to go in new directions. And yeah, the "purists" werent very pleased with this (seriously the roguelike community is the most stuck-up bunch I've ever seen), but even they benefitted from it, since the wild new popular stuff also started to get many gamers curious about the old traditional type of roguelike. Now, traditional-type games in that genre are being made on a regular basis too. All because the genre took steps to evolve. The shmup genre though refuses to do that. It has stuck to old ideas even WAY past the point of making any sense at all. Vertical scrolling for instance. I ask you: WHY. Seriously, why. It makes no sense. Not anymore. It happened in arcades due to the way the screens were built/oriented. That made sense. It DOESNT make sense in the land of widescreen monitors. When you've got a game that only ACTUALLY uses 1/3rd of the screen space, OF COURSE it's going to be less appealing, because it doesnt make any bloody sense. Yet shmup devs just keep doing it, not because there's any logical reason, but simply because "well that's how it's done". And it's the same with pretty much all aspects of the genre... they never change it, they never step away and try new things. It's as if they have this paranoid aversion to the very concept. Of course it's going to stagnate and die when that is happening. How could it not? The second huge aspect though is predictability. This is what knocked me out of the genre for the longest time. As much as I love shmups, they have, and I say this with absolute confidence, the lowest variability of any game genre, period. And heck, some games take it to an extreme, like DOJ, with its utter obsession about making the player memorize the perfect pre-designed route for scoring and doing *exactly* that every single time. These games are 100% predictable to the point that, for many, they will eventually just get dull. And they're so darned short and small that there's no room even within that framework. Compare that to something like, say, Dark Souls (yes, I know, just bear with me here). DS is also a very predictable game... sort of... but it counters that by adding MORE to it. It is an expansive game... huge. Just huge. A million different ways to approach a ton of different areas, bosses and enemies that act on AI rather than on perfectly predetermined timers... thus making their fights actually dynamic as opposed to static shmup bosses... and a bazillion different items and stats and all sorts of ways to change up the player's own character. Even within a predictable framework, DS (and games like it) is DYNAMIC. Shmups are the direct opposite... there is nothing dynamic in them at all in most cases. And THAT is going to be an enormous turn-off to many, many players, even if they dont immediately realize why. Particularly when you consider how tiny they are. Their ultra-short runs are harmed by their static nature. Overall, the one and only way this genre can truly come back is if it steps away from the ancient concepts that it has clung to past the point of making any sense. AKA, it needs to actually try something new. Something ACTUALLY new, not just "slightly odd scoring system". Heck, for me, I actually did get back into it recently. But not because of any normal shmup. It was a game called The Void Rains Upon Her Heart that did it. Just that one game alone pulled me back in, because it avoids every single one of the problems I've mentioned here while still being a true bullet-hell shmup game, yet it doesnt stick to the old conventions whatsoever. It takes the base concept and runs with it off into the hills. And it just works. More games like that, new and shiny instead of crusty and old fashioned, dynamic instead of static... that's what's needed if anyone is to revive the genre. And heck, games like Enter the Gungeon prove the concept... that game is shmup-influenced through and through, all about bullets and dodging and that. But people eat it up because those concepts are in a different, non-stale framework full of possibilities and replay value that isnt JUST "score high". Devs of scrolling shmups absolutely could do that too... but so far, they dont want to, and that's the crux of the problem, really. Until they change that, the genre aint gonna be rising from the grave.
A big part of most shmups is complex scoring systems which isnt something you can understand by just looking at them. I think thats why Ikaruga has more mainstream popularity, the polarity switching is easy to understand just by looking, a lot of ikaruga fans dont even think about chaining. Bayonetta has the same thing as Ikaruga where witch time is an easy to understand mechanic for casuals while the bigger mechanic the game is designed around is dodge offset.
Absolutely! Yes more visual communication of the scoring mechanics is a great idea and I do think it will help the genre. Like Crimzon Clover having these giant stars for points for example.
I really think a shmup with good online co-op, good leader boards and other modes like maybe a side-by-side score off mode kinda like how they do tetris matches (i think twinkle star sprites has this type of mode idk never played), and other things that fuel a community. Feeling like there is a sense of community when PLAYING the game is a huge factor of retention. I think you made references to religious people before, so ill make one too. In churches, even if somebody is iffy about some things in the group, if they have a better community overall, it will get people to stick around. People love community, there isnt a lot of it going for high scores all alone, which seems to be the major mode a lot of the time. This is why I'm interested in playing co-op on fightcade 2 with people once i get some more time :)
Man, you got me writing an essay. Shmups do have some hits that bring in numbers that would still be considered a success by any indie. The big 2 being Touhou 16 (an estimated 200k sales) and Azur Lane (over 3 million users on the global servers, self reported number by Yostar during their anniversary stream). Shmups need to change and devs need to learn from the ones who are still succeeding in a dead genre. Which does tie into your building a strong foundation that keeps people around. Shmups have a trio of glaring weaknesses, and a weakness that is also a strength depending on the player. 1) IP's. As a rule, shmups have abysmally weak IP's. Name a shmup character that isn't Reimu. I can't, can you? Strong IP's create strong fan communities and strong fan communities create their own content and grow the fanbase of the game. Go to the Azur Lane or Touhou subreddits. Would you believe the genre is dead just by looking at the numbers of fans, the amount of OC, and the amount of talk on those subs? I understand that playing a shmup for the plot is as counter-intuitive as reading Playboy for the articles BUT compare my 2 exceptions to the rest of the market: Touhou and Azur Lane both have: A) Waifus: Lots of cuties with their own personalities. There's something for everyone. B) Great settings with room for more than fighting. The Port stories in Azur Lane and Touhou manga have a ton of slice of life moments and fans love those. They want to spend more time with their favorite girls. Azur Lane's next anime? All slice of life. C) Creators that encourage and enfranchise fan communities. Engage with your fans and celebrate their creativity. That's infectious like a motherfucker. See the Reitaisai. 2) Pathways to mastery. A lot of shmups don't guide the player into building mastery. Grazing, death bombing, maximizing the score system, etc... Not a lot of games focus on guiding the player into doing these things well. Exceed 3rd and Graze Counter are the only 2 that I can think of drive the player in a direction that improves them in a tangible way. 3) It's not a good genre for streamers. It's hard to run mouth and watch chat while playing a good shmup. It requires too many braincells. I don't think that's fixable unless it's a more IP focused RPG/Gacha/Shmup like Azur Lane. AL is really unique in that regard. The weakness that is also a strength is that by their nature, a good shmup is bite sized. You don't poopsock shmups the way you poopsock other games, your brain would melt. You do a couple of runs and then you're done for the day. That's an aspect of shmups that I love, they respect the player's time. Speaking of time, I need to get back to working on my own shmup.
BTW: I'd just like to point out that the majority of shmups I've purchased are games I've seen in the algo curated elements on the front of the Steam store page. Take that for what it's worth.
And people say touhou is dying after touhou 14 xD. Also a thing I can not understand, is that why cave games has better drawn anime girls and some other games where there are actually lowkey sexualized girls doesn't get near the touhou levels of appeal to people. Also every other elements as well. Every single element of touhou games gets appreciated by fans.
@@ihaveadream7858 I think it has to do with the settings. Raw character appeal isn't enough to carry the game. You gotta be interested in the world they live in. Speaking of Cave, I'm really interested in how successful Witches World United is. I'm still kinda surprised that they went all in on a mobile gacha game but they got the Strike Witches IP which is perfect for the game they've made.
Podcast with UBO? POG. I see him working really hard in the Shmups Discord, giving helpful marketing advice to the indie devs there and consolidating shmup content to make the community, both Japanese and global, more unified (e.g. STG Shmups on Twitch and Reddit). I agree with you here. Shmups have been slowly dying since the last century, even in the arcades where they should be thriving. In terms of profits, they are less profitable than fighting games and rhythm games in the arcades since the latter two are shorter per game. It's also harder to quantify progression in a shmup, which makes them appear much harder than other genres, which then turns people off from trying them out. And on PC and consoles, the situation isn't much better, as the lack of market demand drives prices low. The CAVE ports are basically the AAA games of shmups, yet they are priced the same as indie games. They should be at least twice as expensive. And because of this, no one really wants to develop a new shmup (although there are some coming). On that note, in terms of mainstream awareness, sure there are some cool shmups coming out, but no one besides us know that. Meanwhile, as someone who doesn't play fighting games, I know that SFV exists (through collaboration events), and I definitely knew about Ultimate's release. Who knows that SDOJ Exa is coming out? Or Crimzon Clover having a Switch port? Or the Aleste Collection? It's just us. At best, people know about Touhou and Ikaruga, but most people in the Touhou scene don't care about shmups, and Treasure has more or less collapsed. Even for the more popular games of the past (e.g. Darius, Gradius, Raiden), the studios behind those games aren't making any new entries, wasting the potential of these already established names. As for creators, people only know about Jaimers, World of Longplays, and Replay Burners (if the latter two can even be counted as creators). In terms of retention, you've covered it pretty well. There is a lack of community created content. Even for games as big as DDP, there aren't any proper guides, and without easy to find guides, newcomers won't know how to approach the game and just quit. All we have are replays and analysing replays is a difficult task for someone new to the game. Which is why I try to actually create tutorials to help lower the barrier to entry to the genre, and as someone who's doing so, I know what are some of the reasons people don't make such content. I don't know if anyone's out there who is new to the game and needs help. I don't know if the algorithm will allow my tutorials to see the light of day. I don't even know how to make a good tutorial, where every single detail is made obvious and easy to understand, while still remaining concise to avoid information overload.
Yes exactly my dude, these are definitely the issues we are facing right now! Also when you mentioned your tutorial videos, yeah it is brutal because I've seen some really good ones that hardly get any attention, especially game specific ones. It's a catch 22 we're stuck in. You need players to make a tutorial worthwhile, but players needs tutorials to stick around in the first place, so it's really frustrating for sure.
i thought every shmup fan visits system11 and look into "strategies? subforum? that being said, looks like people there almost stopped doing new guides lately >_
very hard to convince people pay fullprice for shmups nowodays as people now grew up with totally different expectations of what a game is. like rpg with 100 levels and 1000 characters and 2000 enemies.
really good video, lots of interesting topics as for shmups, they might be irresurectable as a genre but the easiest thing to do is bring more awareness to the good ones that have already been made and showcase those as games worth trying out; another thing to do is maybe have games shown in the background of videos and podcast episodes like in this video and display the name of the game in the video itself that could help to get some more immediate awareness in a small way another thing that would help is to kinda widen the net a little bit and cover other types of games as well (like recent fighting game topics for example) because those can help bring more people to the channel
I still play shmups like the Strikers 1945 series and I feel that the genre really is dead because most genre of games I always see in YT or somewhere else are FPS, MOBA, but rarely see new Shmup content on YT. I also feel that I am the only one playing shmups 😂.
Shmups can grow for sure. I'm new to the genre, for instance, but it would take a lot of community effort. Feels real similar to the Project M situation where the community is definitely still around but getting the community up to the size of the other 2 smash games feels impossible. Project M has the advantage of there being a very social element to it with in-person tournaments/fests but the whole unofficial game thing is a deterrent and there feels its not as respected as the other two (even though I think its by far the most fun competitively). The community has made many efforts to grow such as central discords, new updates, nationals, etc. but drawing new people into something as difficult as fighter/shmups is super hard. Best bet for PM is a rollback build like melee but that's very unlikely to happen, and I'm not sure what the equivalent for shmups would even be outside maybe a very nice looking/sounding game which is fun at all levels of play. Would love to see the genre get big though.
screw mobile market though. more often then not, good releases there just being lost among tons of trash, going unnoticed. and what worse, shortest span life of mobile games. they either die when OS chahge, or cause were tied to servers like all those modern trendy japanese releases.
While being on a crazy shmup kick since December, and thoroughly determined to GET Ketsui (which is Japanese for "determination" the wiseacres) despite getting smeared, what I'm seeing is that the shmup genre just needs to overcome its arcade roots. Again I love Ketsui. I DESPISE the difficulty incline. I have to explain this over and over again: I'm not complaining that it's too hard. But the genre is plagued because of the design philosophy of "get him off the machine." I was pretty new to shmups and Ketsui and I could get through 1.5 stages with reflexes, but by stage 5 I don't have a ghost of a chance until I have every bullet memorized (not much of an exaggeration). Console shmups are a lot better about this in a lot of ways. Like when I play Soldier Blade, it restarts me at the beginning of a stage if I die infinitely. Conta 3 is the PERFECT example of a memorization-heavy game done right. It's designed to be played on easy, normal and then hard. If you start on hard, you will get slaughtered by things that you'll simply never have any way of reacting to on the fly. But easing up the difficulties trains the things that you need to know in a way that isn't rude, painful and cheap. Contra 3 does get a bit harder as it gets close to the end, but not to the absurd degrees as an arcade shmup. I love the gameplay found within shmups but I do think their arcade roots give them genuine design flaws. I wouldn't even bother too much with Battle Garegga if not for M2's Premium mode toning down the ridiculous ranking system. tl;dr: shmups (arcade shmups especially) have horrific difficulty scaling because of arcade roots. The genre doesn't deserve to die, but quite frankly, I think that that central design flaw from arcade roots is enough to kill the genre all by itself. One other aspect of shmups that are off-putting is a lack of narrative. Look at Panzer Dragoon Orta for example: you visit a lot of stages, but it doesn't feel like you're just plopped into different locations with no narrative purpose but as a continuous story. That was one thing that had me disinterested in shmups ever since I was gaming in the NES days. Sine Mora might be a good example for a fairly traditional shmup as it has a strong presence of narrative that isn't overly intrusive, obviously not the focal point, but doesn't feel nearly as much of an afterthought as an arcade shmup and is integral to the presentation. As much as I think From Software's Dark Souls is grossly overrated gameplay-wise (Nioh destroys it), people dig the atmosphere and sense of narrative in the background. There's no reason why shmups couldn't improve this instead of just throwing artistically disjointed stages together like so many of them do, or if it's there, again, scaling difficulty would make the artistic side easier to appreciate while growing in skill. I think a game like Drainus (even with its flaws) can put things on the right track too: no one-hit deaths, it has a character growth system, fairly consistent difficulty. All that said, I grant that gamers are often wrong-headed in their demands, particularly that a game has to have hundreds of hours of content like more open world games. I can't believe more people don't see the value in a short, fine-tuned gaming experience that's worth gaining skill at rather than something you just waltz through over a long period of time (to be sure, the Soulsborne craze is somewhere in between, and I'm a Nioh guy myself). One of my favorite games is "Until You Fall" right now and is as modern as you can get as it's in VR, and it's all about perfecting a 20-40 minute run similar to a shmup (and likewise you can be at it for a hundred hours and still have room for improvement). Mainstream gaming doesn't see the value in that so much anymore, and people get stuck in a rut.
Awesome comment my dude! So I have good news for you (and you have to trust me). As you get more and more experienced in the genre, you will learn to love the sharp difficulty curve of games like ketsui. I felt EXACTLY the same way when I started, why do these stupid games go hardcore mode after 4 minutes of gameplay ha. But as you get deeper and deeper into the genre, you'll start to say, "why don't all games go hardcore mode after 4 minutes?" I really recommend checking out my gameplay density vid as it's a good compliment to this one: th-cam.com/video/9Ew5hEMSzEw/w-d-xo.html
@@TheElectricUnderground I saw that video, actually. I appreciate the thoughts. I love the character action games too btw and also like to kick back with an open world game even, but yeah I'm all in with the concept. In fact, one of my gripes about Ocarina of Time (even when it first came out!) was exactly what you're talking about: I missed the brisk pace of the top-down Zeldas by comparison, where OoT would have a lot of empty trekking. My favorite 3D Zelda is actually Skyward Sword, contrary to the crowd, because it's extremely dense with things going on and interactivity in the environment. One of the most successful 3D versions of a franchise (probably THE most successful) is Metroid Prime for that reason too, because the environments had so much interaction and not too much just holding forward for seconds at a time. And yet to your point: repeating stage 1 in Ketsui, for example, is similar to exactly what you're talking about: fat to be trimmed. Why am I replaying this stage over and over when I can clearly consistently get through it without taking a hit? To me that's more offensive fat that I want trimmed than walking through a field in a straight line in an open world game where at least it's visually different. I know I'm repeating myself, but I see no reason why -- aside from the arcade "get him off the machine" directive -- you don't just have easy, normal, hard, like was done so well in Contra 3. Like Crimzon Clover has an easy mode. I don't want to play through an easy mode because stage 1 and even stage 2 are already plenty easy, doable and fun, and if they were any easier I'd be bored! Why would I want those stages to be easier when I can handle them just fine as it is? It's stages 3 through 5 that I need to be easier and closer to the balance of the first two. If I beat up a mode like that and want more, I'd then kick up the difficulty and play a harder (and likewise balanced) harder mode. Likewise, I only tried Ketsui's "super easy" mode once, but what I really want is a far more consistent difficulty setting. That's why I'm SO grateful for Battle Garegga's "Premium" mode. That's basically how I am with a thoroughly hardcore game called "Until You Fall" right now, which is essentially a 20-40 minute game. I was getting better and better at the game, so then I took it on at the highest setting, naturally. Now I can slaughter that game. I would have HATED the experience if (say) the beginning was as easy as one setting lower, but then the last section would have been too hard by comparison. I either have a game that's way too easy at the start or way too hard at the end. I guess I'll trust you that I might warm up to this design in time somehow but let me tell you, in the meantime, in my mind, that all by itself clearly explains the death of shmups. If we want to debate the validity of "difficulty spike" being a valid strike against a game in a critical look, in the meantime, they sure aren't popular, and most people want a "balanced" difficulty. I still struggle to wrap my mind out of how just to enjoy a shmup as there is superb gameplay to get out of them.
super casual here. I would say the least casual thing I do is watch some of your vids XD I enjoy the games when I've got a basic goal in mind - which often just 'finishing' the game is enough incentive, and depending on my enjoyment of the experience I will replay the game in an attempt to minimise credit dependence and on some rare occasions; attempt 1c or various 'challenge' runs. But the real question; how do I even start playing the game.. admittedly a big factor is the visual appeal and first impressions of artstyle. Generally come for the flash , but stay for the substance. If I have a couple of friends playing the same game at the same level; it's a lot more fun for us to attempt 'high scores' in a casual competitive way. So I think there's something to be said about the 'social' aspect in that more people playing the games would probably get more people interested in playing the games.. But how to tap into the appeal on a broader level.. Considering I have 'phases' of interest when it comes to arcade type gaming, it might also depend on mood. These games require high engagement. That is to say they generally require more attention and focus in terms of reactivity. And I often enjoy games with fun combo mechanics that are normally related to some kind of adaptable rhythmic pattern, Which I sometimes prefer testing myself with as I also find games that are on the more strategic side, to be overwhelming at times when I'm not in the mind set for planning ahead or considering planning / tactics. BUT other times I want neither planning ahead nor focused reactions, I just want to zone out or relax.. which is when I end up playing a more story/narrative or world driven game. I wonder if the shmup genre could benefit from integrating/blending elements from other genres. I know there are some story driven shmups out there but I've yet to encounter one that keeps me interested in this way though I'm sure it's possible as there are some that I have been influenced and prefer to play based on setting / theming aesthetics. Perhaps that's why I remain 'casually' interested as the next stage involves more of the 'planning ahead' stuff that isn't the component that draws me in; if anything it can put me off digging deeper. Interesting enough subject though - as your content inspires me to share my unrefined thoughts on the matter and I probably wouldn't have thought about this stuff let alone try to articulate it otherwise. ;)
Thanks so much for watching my vids! yes I agree completely. In addition to the core gameplay for shmups, I do think it would be a cool idea for shmups to start diversifying a bit more to bring in more gameplay styles and tastes.
I dunno man. With Aleste Branch, rebooted cotton game and a new pocky and rocky I don't think its finished yet. Agreed, a new cave game would get me excited dont think it would be a big turning event.
They need to add co op, 2 player mode with rollback netcode. I think past finishing the game with infinite lives there's no incentive for new players to continue. Unless they have that competitive drive that encourages them to 1CC. And that's extremely niche, but that is why I am here.
it is quite interesting to watch this now. I think since the publication of this video, things have changed. At least, the trend has changed. Many more shmups are being developed, both old ports and new ones. Also so many of them are physical. There was a time when you could only find Sine mora on Switch, now you can find easily 2 o 3 new physical shmups every month. Also I feel like it's increasingly more accessible to play them, such as Andro Dunos 2, or any M2 games which have so many options to adapt the difficulty to your taste.
hello^^ haven't finished the video but o recently got into "shmups" from maiden and spell and a bit of acceleration of suguri 2. when you said what could be the counterpart of rollback i immediately thought of them. I can enjoy regular shmups, but, man, vs ones are incredible to me and i need more (with rollback, lol)
_Dying_ is the wrong word. A more accurate term would be _Evolving._ Much like how the large dinosaurs died after the meteor crashed and smaller animals starting populating the Earth, AAA SHMUPs are gone but smaller, more experimental indie SHMUPs have started to rise. Also, while Arcade-style SHMUPs may be at a very low point, many genres have begun adopting SHMUP mechanics. I'd argue that this era will be defined by Hybrid SHMUPs.
@6 mins ish: The living off of (playing) chess part . There's plenty of large channels, and streamers that exclusively play, and analyze chess matches and make huge bank off of it.
Oh yes for sure, especially among the elite players. I was referring more towards the lower tier grandmasters and such. From what I remember (my friend is deeply involved in chess), being a grandmaster in itself does not outright equal money, but if you know how to use the social credit that is associated with being a GM, then you are able to turn that into a living. That's the larger point I was aiming for ha, that being a shmup grandmaster does not have the social credit to convert into coin like a chess GM has.
From where I stand seems like shmups is making a slow resurgence. It was dead a few years ago, especially dead in the early 10, but with all the indie and what amounts to western doujin games on the rise I feel like it's coming back up again, but yeah there needs to be competition to drive the player forward. It's just like the Souls series, player retention was mainly due to the PVP element in the game. Though it's tough to implement that competitive pvp elements in shmups besides scoring and what amounts to just a puzzle game wrapped in shmups skin like in say Twinkle Star Sprites. There needs to be something that goes further than just 1ccing a game or scoring the highest point. I feel like it could happen. Just needs that lightning in a bottle moment.
The reason shmups have close to 0 player retention is only neuro-divergent people enjoy playing the exact same level over and over again. People are enthusiastic when they start playing shmups because they believe there's variety, when you get bored of 1 shmup you just hop to another. But there is no variety, if you've played one you've played (almost) all of them. Shmups had their golden age in the arcades because for 90% of people, these games stop being fun after 10 or so credits. It's not that shmups are intrinsically unfun so much as 2D autoscrollers suck. You fix the autoscroller crap, and you save the genre.
Just had an amazing idea. Why has no one ever created a battle royale shmup? Think Tetris 99 or Super Mario 35. Everyone starts on the same level, and levels get progressively harder. You can attack other players like in Tetris 99, but if players gang up on you, you can change modes to amplify your power for how many people are attacking you. And the best part is, there are so many shmups you could do this with. Imagine Cave Royale where everyone is assigned a random level from a random cave game then every subsequent level is a new level from a different game with steadily inclining difficulty. Last person standing wins. And even better, if you wanted to get good at cave royale, you could buy the old cave games and practice.
I feel like devs are missing a reaallly fondamental factor in making a shmup appealing : it must instantly look and feel good. Shmup are those kind of games where you simply do the same things over and over. You just want to make those 4 levels, those 25 min of game as beautiful and dense as possible. Because that's all there is. Cave siglehandedly managed to make the shmup genre last a decade more by making their games irresistibly beautiful and their gameplay so tight that it is instantly catchy. That's the thing that make it so cool. The gameplay is as old as video games. You got to add something to make it interesting for the player.
I was playing shmups years ago thanks to the french streamers DamDam, A-M, Cdv or Ben Shinobi back in the 2000's. I came back thanks to your videos and now I want to get better at them with an arcade stick :)
The last shmup I can remember getting traction in the mainstream media was Sine Mora, probably because of its production values and connection to Suda 51. We've seen shmup mechanics make their way into Undertale and Nier Automita, ensuring a large amount of people are engaging with shmups, all be it in a condensed, bite sized manner. I've recently seen trailers for the new R Type game coming out next year on IGN, probably because of the heritage of the name and also because of the highf production values- I genuinely think shmups will neeed to have graphics on par with other modern games to grab people's attention on a large scale, either that or a sensibility and style that stands out from the crowd, such as Undertale or Zero Ranger. I'd like to see a shmup that plays in a similar way to the recent Mario game where people are playing together, sending enemies and bullets back and forth in real time- the aspect ratio of vertical shmups would allow enough space to each side to show other peoples gaming window. It will be interesting to see where the genre goes.
its hilarious that in 2020 Sine Mora is still the shmup with best 3d graphics (well, people who did environments and modelling in sine mora were more talented than those who did gameplay) cause all big releases since then were much weaker visually. Welp, r-type final 2 should change this funny fact finally
I dont know my guy. Maybe its because I own a Switch, but I think shmups are making a huge comeback, & you talkin to someone who owned a Japanese Xbox :) Crimson Clover world re- ignition drops in a few days & just yesterday, I caught the trailer for R -Type Final - 2! If you hinting around about some future Fortnite streaming you wanna try, have at it bro. No skin off my Einhander loving ass lol
Absolutely not, I hate fortnight, battle royal modes with resources and building is the worst combo I could ever imagine. Been playing a bunch of Bayonetta today, but I don't think that's gonna bring in the big numbers either ha.
Lol, you are a man of great tastes I see ;) Cant go wrong loving Bayonetta & hating Fortnite. I swear bro, I got 2 nephews & a niece I know has spent at least $2000 on Fortnite season passes, skins, etc, while Im begging them TRY SOMETHING ELSE!!! Anyways, now that they all have Switch consoles, all 3 have had enough of the " rinse & repeat" lameness & pretty much despise Fortnite lately. Tell your shmup dev friends, there IS light at the tunnel, its just slow af :)@@TheElectricUnderground
@@ronniepatterson2827 i still wait for a game that would deserve Battle Royal name. should be as eccentric as original movie was (unlike all those br games with generic assets from unity store), and should be much more use of environments/traps instead of sniping in grass field and randomloot
Nah. Shmups are like Berserk, not mainstream but far from dead. This is a genre that can only get worse with popularity. Not necessarily difficulty wise but designing the game around minimizing frustating and usually the way they do that is through RPG mechanics. Seeing how RPG mechanics ruined the better chunk of beat em ups, I'd say we are lucky for shmups to still be made but out of the spotlight. Nobody wants to see Ikaruga made forever.
As I go over in the video, I do think shmups are "dead" in the criteria I outline, in that if there is no directed effort to help them grow, they will continue to be stuck in their very niche status right now, where we are losing as many people as we are gaining and the viability to invest in the genre remains pretty low. The goal of reviving the genre would be creating an ecosystem where shmups are able to sustain and grow the community around them more naturally and where people outside the genre see it as a solid investment. Right now everyone in development that I speak with about this side of things do mention how brutal it is and how larger companies will flat out refuse to invest in shmups because they do not make returns and such.
I can't say I disagree with any of the points you made. It DOES make it interesting that companies like Rising Star Games, NIS, Kadokawa and M2 make such an effort for our community though despite knowing that the return investment is low. It's probably why we see so many re-releases versus brand new titles. I've seen shmups get brought up in fighting game discussions a lot. Where fighting games have the spectator aspect on lock but fail to gain new players outside of sales and because of how difficult (and oversaturated) they are to play.
I dunno I think shmups do a particularly good job of lampshading rpg mechanics as shmup conventions (the ubiquitous shop/currency system, weapon levelups from collecting exp in many games (radiant silverfun?), ship building in euroshooties, boss health meters in shmups look a lot like boss health meters in RPGs) and the resulting diagetic mechanics are more intuitive than abstract rule systems (chain meter? multiplier? double hyper? I thought this was a shooting game). Where I see designers (with any level of genre savvy) getting into trouble is not in the RPG mechanics but the RPG storytelling. The shmupitudal shmup plot is a frame story where the narrative doesn't intrude on the action and needs to be that way to not impact the pace. If there is room for innovation in this area it will stretch the definition of shmup.
I got into these games recently through playing centipede chaos at the arcade. Navigating around bullets is strangely cathartic to someone with my kinda ocd.
Hey everybody I'm new to the comunity. I've been binge watching this chanel and binge playing shmups. My interset in gaming has been revitalized by shmups. I can't get enough. I feel like I've played through all the tough side scrollers i. E. Battletoads, hagane, ghost's n goblins etc and was kind of burnt out. Then I sat down one night and tweaked out (figuratively)on Lords of Thunder. Now I'm hooked. I love being fully engrossed in a game. My question is- where is everybody at? I am active on r/crtgaming and I just joined r/shmups. Is this a good community? I'm basically interested in checking out what games people are playing abd posting my progress on games. I also post youtube videos. Got a few lined up right now.
Shoot em ups at one time was some of my favorite games! Then I put them down and stopped playing them completely, now I'm completely into them again! Been buying shmups left and right!
@@TheElectricUnderground I really think it will! Everything tends to go in circles! Like music 80s retro is kind of making a come back, there's a few bands that have a 80s sound making hits! Just when it comes back there needs to be a strong scene built up and players to look up to! Hell classic tetris has a pretty big scene and the tournaments are crazy!
First and foremost shmups are not dead because shmups are not A thing. The shmup scene is a cluster of smaller subscenes that do not go with each other. They are pretty disconnected and most of the time disregarding each other blatantly. If they do not get together with each other and work on something mutual none of them will have the critical mass to survive. The fighting scene is a good example. None of the game scenes will survive and thrive without the rest. Players of SF might not care about Smash but their communities get together and work on events like EVO and such. This immediately brings more attention to any of the smaller groups, it might even bring sponsors and even more attention because of that. Currently I do not see anything connecting people who try to 1cc some games, people who grind scores, smaller developers who try to breath new life and innovate some of the aspects of the genre, people who just watch and are interested from a casual standpoint. You need an actual collaboration between the subscenes, of shmups, you need to get behind new games regardless if you all like everything in them. Metroidvanias did not start with Ori, Hollow Knight and Bloodstained 15 years ago. To get there you need a critical mass of interest. You need events together and you need to try and get people to be interested in shmups as a whole and see the merits in other types of shmups. Unless that happens "Are shmups dead?" will not be a single question but a bunch of questions the answer of which will be "Yes!"
I might share a bunch of thoughts in separate comments under this one just for readability sake. I do no think retro arcade shmup will be able to keep existing the way it does in the past. It is rooted in mechanics and gaming mindsets that are considered obsolete for the most part. Pretty much no genre relies on lives now, punishing players for tiny mistakes is not the norm, grinding the game over and over for marginally different scores is not a thing. Hell, scores in themselves are not a thing. No bigger developer can justify spending on developement of a game that is guaranteed to have so many unpopular staples. Unless people are ready to embrace some changes and mainly some variety in the genre, it is not going to work. See for example the RTS genre. Throughout the years a lot of developers tried to bring something new to the table. The audience arrogantly met all of that with hostility. RTS, albeit more popular than shmups and having some E-sport scene, are going to be a dead genre in time as well unless they accept some changes. Even now major or even medium developers cannot justify working on an RTS (and most probably do not want to because of the lack of creative freedom they will be allowed from the fans). That, of course, is not a problem of the fandom. You are not obligated to support something you do not like just because it will help the bigger picture.
Does being a shmup player give you social credit is the wrong question but it will lead you to the right answers. The comparisons with speedrunning, some e-sports and chess are great ones. The social credit depends on the socium (not surprisingly). And to impress the socium you need something that seems official. Being a good speedrunner does not give you too much social credit but whatever credit it does give you is because of the organizitations that tie different communities like ESA, GDQ and most importantly speedrun.com. E-sports are the next step. They have associations, teams and paid events. Chess is even higher because it is acknowledged as a regular sport, people are more familiar with it, it has a longer history, different formats etc. You need to have something behind your backs that seems official. Whether it is an event, a joint leaderboards or something like that, does not matter. The latter will be a great first step. You migh reach game autors to give you access to the online data they capture for their games and leaderboards. There is no reason for them not to provide it as it will bring publicity. Also, it will give smaller players something to strive for. People who will be in the genre for the competition would find it more enjoyable to start in a leaderboard they can see themselves in and not try to go against some established players that look too oppressive and intimidating.
dunno, under impression that EVO is piece of shit and overall "muh umerica" fighting community as well, they only promote "trendy games" and diregard anything else
@@nerdzone rts... like shmups, didnt really had "grand" new releases for 10+ years. "grand" as ones having huge impact and well known.. yeah.. just small experiments here and there
It's way off the beaten track that's for sure. Shmups haven't been mainstream since the mid 80s really. As long as there is a trickle of releases and a community ongoing - even if it's small - then they aren't dead in the strictest sense. Some of the old franchises still have a high recognition - Space Invaders, Xevious, Galaga/Galaxian etc could still be a mainstream thing on smartphones in the same way casual games of Tetris and Pacman are. Pacman CE showed the way how something can be updated though. You might get the occasional sleeper hit but for I don't see it ever becoming mainstream as the genre is - let's face it - too hard for the average mainstream gamer. Shmups are about delayed gratification so they won't ever get the high volume of players that won and done style of games get. That's just the way it is. Shmups don't have a 1 versus 1 format either - versus fighters are just as hard core but they are attractive to greater volumes because of the direct competitive nature. Shmups aren't really like that.
last arcade-heavy consoles were saturn and dreamcast. with ps1, industry turned into epic/cinematic side. and many people now grew up on such, plot-heavy or not
my definition of dead on this genre in my opinion are probably really basic. The big shmup dev like Taito/Cave/Capcom/Takumi/Treasure/Rizing/Eighting/Moss/Toaplan/ are....barely release a new game lately. if it was a new game, it probably the update/port version from the previous old games. and the doujin/indie shmup dev like Shanghai Alice(AKA Zun) are more active imo. im still wondering if capcom revive Shmup like they made a shmup in 80s-90s. but it's probably the age that devour shmup into a void today. and that is a pretty sad.
A new cave game would interest no one outside of the shmup world. The only thing that would bring shmups into fokus again would be a shmup from Nintendo with mario in it...
I like your realistic takes, I'm surprised this is the first time I come across your channel! Subscribed, see ya on discord :) I hope my retention will be ok
I think the genre is mostly dead because they were designed for arcades, they perfected that arcade design but now that arcades are gone it doesnt work anymore Also technology has grown a lot and sensibilties have changed When the console landscape supplanted arcades they failed to captivate audiences in part because of their gameplay design not adapting and in part because of their visuals not adapting, or maybe people got bored of the established formula Its hard to visualize a shmup that blows up in popularity in current years but if the game looks good/charming in a modern sense and has engaging gameplay outside of an arcade environment/philosophy then maybe I still think its really cool that you are bringing more awareness to the genre so people who would enjoy these games can get to know about them awareness and availability is a big part why the genre is not as prominent as it could be
..my way to support the shmup genre is to pay the full price for the games and not wait for sales. Btw. thx for the great content on this channel, its like a hidden treasure in a jungle, i learn so much about shmups here.
I am unable to make a game myself but I have some ideas that I feel would be pretty revolutionary. Is there anyone I can talk to that might be interested in taking cues from my ideas?
@@TheElectricUnderground I have several ideas but one I have been thinking aBout lately is a vertical top down game where the ship would enter trenches. These would have branching trench paths that you can choose to enter progressively become harder to navigate without hitting the walls but give more points if you can deftly fly the trench destroying all enemies lining the trenches with a short aura laser and a few bombs to blow the most obtuse obstacles out of the players way and you could even have super narrow ducts where the craft rolls knife edge as in star fox to get through the narrowest trenches. This would encourage precise exciting stick tapping and yanking movement and would appeal to speed runners too as a clean run through a trench would be the quickest. The trenches would have staggered bends and cut backs to really test your flying skill. Do you think that sounds interesting?.
You are not unable to make a game. Learn, practice, and you can make anything. The only obstacle between you and your creation is the amount of effort you are willing to put into learning new skills. Learn how to use GameMaker Studio, anyone can do that, they just need motivation and perseverance.
The story of rail shooters is tragic, one of my fav genres :-(. I m a bit more divided on beat em ups though, as they do tend to get more mainstream coverage than shmups do (like streets of rage 4) but it is hard times for these genres as well, no doubt. I consider them part of the shmup family as well. th-cam.com/video/eGW_Bg7Cdcw/w-d-xo.html
@@TheElectricUnderground they do get coverage, but if u take a look, there are really very very few of them if u dont count unofficial stuff like openbor
@@TheElectricUnderground and yeah, rail and cabal-likes... even more extinct. last cabal like before wild guns remaster was Zombie panic in wonderland, i think
@@TheElectricUnderground He seems to be really good at old school games, but I never see him play the hardcore shmups that I only hear about from guys like yourself. Bullet hells like DoDonpachi and the like
I'd say the issue with shmups, from the outside looking in, is that shmups don't get "rebooted" with better features. Take Western RPGs for example. Almost everyone who is hardcore says Morrowind is the best, but Skyrim is by far the more widely enjoyed game. From the standpoint of what shmups lack (i.e. mainstream popularity), Skyrim is by far the better game to adopt as a model. But shmups are mostly stuck being Morrowind; cool and deep but too funky and difficult for their own good. Start making more shmups like Raging Blasters with the aesthetic of Mushihimesama, and you'll get more attention to this genre. Make the games fair, make them less difficult, but keep the looping systems that will retain veterans. Just my two cents, from someone who is very very new to the genre.
Bullet Hell certainly isn't dead, but the danmaku style and intensity that was once solely the province of shmups got co-opted by other indie/arcade game styles, like twinstick shooters and roguelites, and even something like Nier:automata. If you narrowly define "shmup" as only forced scrolling games where you go for the 1cc, and any time a developer innovates away from that specific style it's not a shmup anymore, then you are basically defining them into oblivion. Be more accepting of the bastard offspring ;-)
@@TheElectricUndergroundI'll be watching. Maybe a slightly different point: have you ever wondered how many 'pure shmups' have already been made in total? "Why I want shmups to succeed" is IMHO ironic in a way because they have succeeded so spectacularly that, even narrowly defined, they might be the video game genre with absolute highest number of entries of all genres. Any new entry in the genre is essentially competing with that huge back catalogue.
Well speaking as dev here, I kinda have to disagree with you. When I look at the charts the genre is pretty much alive and kicking, just dominated by a bunch of trashy junk. Furthermore, one also needs to consider that something like ZeroRanger takes way more time to produce and sells much less, even though it has all those fancy articles (see wikipedia for example). So obviously there is a much larger problem for those that would want to have quality games.
Yes exactly, and that s Definetly a big issue I think, where quality is not being recognized and rewarded, like Ketsui Deathtiny, that should have been a big release, but it went completely under the radar basically
I think the mistake with shmups is focusing too much on difficulty and less on level design. The point is to make a game where apart from there being variety in the attack pattern of the enemies there is also an interesting interaction with the level environment (for example, dodging falling spikes or rising columns of fire).
I dont think even Cave could get hype to the scene. A new DDP or Mushi could bring old player back but there probably wouldnt rly be new players. We have seen it with mushi and ddp daifu on steam.
@@TheElectricUnderground What i think would gain a little bit attention would be if scoring gets a bit of attention and we would be a little louder. Another problem or savior how you point it? (Im also part of) is touhou. The community grows, we are probably the biggest active shmup community, but sadly many player dont look into any other shmups because we dont mention them enough. I play mushi and touhou and got into DDP ressurection because someone posted a video about it on our discord.
Funny story about that: Cave announced they're making a Touhou fangame. In the survey they put out about this, however, one of the last questions is about what mobile games you play. That... doesn't make the shmup fanbase happy.
@@IllusionistsBane People should remember that CAVE doesnt have anything to do with shmups anymore. They have other more money friendly things to do. So a touhou game from cave is basically a gacha trash. Besides, a CAVE design in touhou would probably rly kill the charme of the game. See FDF. Looks good but no love in the characters what so ever
@@niklasstg6957 About that 'CAVE magic' design, the first CAVE shmup I played was the PS2 port of Mushihimesama. I played it to completion (without the True Final Boss), and the only lasting impression of it that I had was "purple vomit". I think I got into Touhou some time after playing that game, after I found out about its music in Stepmania. Compared to the aforementioned purple vomit, I think Touhou drew me in with its colorful patterns and music. Add to that that each character's own theme and backstory oozed into their Spell Cards. The very first Touhou game I played was Touhou 7, by the way. I went on to play 8, 11, 12, 10, 10.5, 12.3, 12.8, 13.5, 14.5, 15.5, a bit of 6, and a bit of 16. Yes, 10.5, 12.3, 13.5, 14.5, and 15.5 were fighters, and they also clued me in that the world of Touhou also works outside of shmups. 12.8 was a shmup which had a neat mechanic, though: chain-freezing bullets. As for other shmups... well, I played the PS1 port of Strikers 1945 2 on the easiest difficulties and didn't bother going to loop 2. I never had the time to 'git gud' at shmups, so instead of going to other shmups, I went on to Touhou fangames instead. I'd been more of an action/RPG guy anyway. That SDM-themed EDF copy made by Twilight Frontier who also made the fighter games, Genius of Sappheiros, Labyrinth of Touhou 2, Fushigi no Gensoukyou 2 Miracle Party, Touhou Luna Nights, Touhou Genso Wanderer (FnG2MP's sequel), Gensou Skydrift (kart racer-type game), Lotus Labyrinth R (Touhou Genso Wanderer's sequel), Three Fairies' Hoppin' Flappin' Great Journey (basically Touhou FF12 on steroids), Yuu Yuu Jiteki no Yuukarin (action platformer), the list goes on. Sorry for the tangent. Anyway, I've recently started thinking that CAVE fans remain stuck in the past and refused to move forward. Doesn't help that CAVE hasn't made any new shmup title since... 2012, I think. Maybe that's when they recognized the death of the Arcade, and started porting their games over to home consoles. Then the PC later on. Too little too late, unfortunately. By the time they did, Touhou was THE bullet hell.
You say shmups are dead but at the same time you don't even consider mobile shmup to be a real game. Maybe it is time to give em a chance? Also supporting developers (including no name indies) of new games in this genre by at least doing some reviews from steam or itchio, from time to time, could help imo
Mobile: Aka to Blue th-cam.com/video/P_FAGZWKVPQ/w-d-xo.html Indie: Super XYX th-cam.com/video/vn_AkaAd7KY/w-d-xo.html Crisis Wing th-cam.com/video/pRcvIw8u6Sw/w-d-xo.html Blue wish ressurection: th-cam.com/video/zaobbELMxJc/w-d-xo.html Battle traverse th-cam.com/video/5nvhGCEYGBU/w-d-xo.html Exceed 3rd: th-cam.com/video/9ZB17dcqq8g/w-d-xo.html ZeroRanger th-cam.com/video/-jlSMNzjbMs/w-d-xo.html Blue Revolver th-cam.com/video/XXnmBDedo08/w-d-xo.html Danmaku Un 3 th-cam.com/video/ti2P8ovO7kA/w-d-xo.html Refrain th-cam.com/video/IVXmPorEARg/w-d-xo.html And more :-)
thre are some great shmups on mobiles, too bad mobiles as platform is too shortliving, and most games die quickly either when OS changes or servers shutdown. Imho, all quality releases MUST be ported to pc or at least consoles, as with those platforms much more abilities to keep game available for decades
@@soratheorangejuicemascot5809 Bullet Hell Monday is good, also i played and liked Aka to Blue, Star Shooter Gaiden and Dodonpachi Maximum (unlike other Cave titles it was made for touch in mind). I also recall playing less good ones, but if you are interested to check for yourself: Galaga Special Edition, Air Barrage, Sector Strike, S.T.G., Shogun, Xerlorians. There might be more... but my most active touchscreen era was around 2010-2016 and since then i went back to portable consoles and pc.
well shmups are getting super niche...... i do wish one day some of the flagship title like DDP can steer clear from paedophilliac theme with all the underaged "android" ---> whatever you might argue this.... it's sort of hmm...sickening....but that's just my point of view. Japanese are different and i think they might think it's just normal
@@harmannsmith5653 yeah pretty sure you are the kind of guy that is fine with underaged anime girl flauting swimsuit for fan service and other anime weeb shiz. Nothing wrong with it if you are into that stuff (pretty sure you would argue they are fictional character) ---> just pointing out the sort of direction that the whole japanese weeb anime hentai waifu trending at the moment and it's sort sickening to say the least. Aside from that the game is solid
I recently got into video game pinball. One of the things Zen Studios does is acquire licenses to make an Avengers table or a Doom, Fallout, Star Wars, ect. pinball table. I think it would be awesome to have well know IPs be made into shmups. I'd like to play a Halo or a Dragonball z or Star Wars shmup. Something that people know about to pull them into the genre.
I won t call dead. I agree they are on a all time low. The Steam store is full of bad shumps, and it is hard to see the good ones. Most of the reviewers dont know what makes a great shotemup . Euro shooters like sine mora, etc have great scores.plus the style now is dominated by bullet hells. Cave is a good company , but does not take risks like in the past (dangun feveron for instance). Their games lack inovattion.
I know! Though I am really excited about the new lightgun that came out that can run on modern displays, I'm going to get one soon so keep an eye out for some fun lightgun content soon!
Well, you just said. THE NEXT DODONPACHI arcade and all that… Arcades are dead my friend. I am interested in the genre but i find it impossible in some aspects. Everyone says oh CAVE is the best. THE NEW ALESTE cave game ONLY ARCADES… oh, fantastic. Or the community all the time talk about games that are not available in current gen consoles or steam. And many like me are not modding, are not emulating. I just want to play games in my free time and i dont know the how to do all that and i dont think i have the patience to try and error until i have something running. That is not exactly easy, and you could say: well… then you are not that interested… I think this is were this genre is dying. Accessibility is a key component and expecting people to do all those things to get a game running is kind of ridiculous not to mention ilegal or it feels ilegal, or in a very grey area. I love the genre but i think its most of the time a bunch of elitist people talking about all this fantastic games I can’t play because I can’t pay money and play them. I’m not sure if I’m making my point across. And then when these games make a comeback is in… EXA something… And you check the prices and I’m like that’s fine. I am ok. The companies that are making the most for shmups are the companies who published their games on ps4 and switch and consoles. I got into the genre thanks to city connection ports of old games. I know you find them unplayable… i loved them so much i ended up sticking around. Lol
Guess it's a good thing Touhou started with the PC-98 and Windows. Also, now that I think about it, someone else also said that Shmups are dead because they'd reached an innovation dead end. No shmup fan wanted to try any shmup that doesn't follow a CAVE/Toaplan/Psikyo/Raizing/Treasure formula and the shmups that do don't sell well. By the way, I'm a Touhou fan and not a Shmup fan. I tried the Touhou games and got drawn in by the characters and their character-specific patterns based on their identity and backstory. When I played the Touhou games I played them for the lore and music, not to get the highest score possible - just getting to the end without a continue is enough for me. My most memorable moment was dying touching a bullet in Subterranean Sun as Utsuho was exploding. That was baffling and wild. I tried the PS2 port of Mushihimesama and all I saw was forgettable purple vomit. As to why I brought that up: Someone said that ZUN refuses to follow the Shmup formula and that there's a reason that formula exists in the first place. What, so they want Touhou to be more like the innovation dead ends?
Are schmups dead? From a demand point of view , yes. When the demand is not enough, well there’s no development. Pretty dead in that respect, but in terms of are they forgotten and not played anymore? Absolutely not. Very much alive. Niche, but it’s there and its core is hard. Retro is and has been on the up for a few years especially on the Saturn and on other platforms plus emulation.This is not worth a 20 minute video.
I think the problem is the fact that well at least to me video games are dead. Lets also be honest all of the shmups that came out on ps4 really sucked. When you have old school games where the graphics look good like DoDonPachi then new school games that look like garbage and cheap really suck. Well of course the genre is going to die.
![It's Time to LEAVE Big Studio Gaming Behind! Escaping the Studio Gaming Cycle! [Uncut]](/img/n.gif)
I feel like a lot of the comments here aren't hearing the points of the video and show a bit of knee jerk reaction. Dead is a metaphor and we have to decide for ourselves what it means in this context. It doesn't have to mean "absolutely lacking activity" or "beyond resuscitation", as it does in the context of dead humans. Mark gives his criteria for what dead means to him and these criteria are the key points of the video. Whether or not you agree "dead" is the right word is kind of trivial. I think there are such good, important arguments here that are being overlooked because people are caught on the title of the video.
1 trillion iq tier comment, I 💘 it
@@TheElectricUnderground XD I can't wait for the podcast with UBO with the marketing stuff, that should be really interesting. Keep up the awesome work :)
This. Studios don't care about us. The mainstream audience doesn't care about us. The only ones who do care are just ourselves. If shmups suddenly disappeared, no one would blink an eye. Shmups are dead in the sense that they are forgotten. That's the reality, and I hate it as much as the next guy, but it is the truth.
What we should focus on is how we are going to tackle this multifaceted problem. How do we make the genre profitable? Engaging? Accessible? Whatever we need to do to revive the genre (i.e. make people remember we exist) is if the community takes matters into their own hands, instead of waiting for CAVE to make Saidaifukkatsu or Mushihimesama 3. And let's be real, even if they did, it's not going to do anything. CAVE isn't a known brand outside of Japan. For more well-known names, like the upcoming R-Type Final 2, it may stir things up a little, but the "kids these days" don't know what R-Type is, so it won't last, at least not without the community capitalising on the opportunity.
As long as there are people talking about them and playing them, they will never die completely.
Yes for sure, what I am getting at in the video is shmups are at an all time low and can be considered "dead" by the criteria I describe, especially for newcomers or people outside the genre, but if the current player base puts in focused plans of improvement, then the genre can grow back up and revitalize. The main message I want to get across in this video is that I do not think shmups will naturally do this by themselves, they need directed community support, this is how other gaming scenes have been able to survive and return (like melee).
@@TheElectricUnderground Yes, I understand your point, and being honest, I see it very difficult to happen, unless we start to face the genre in a different way to how it has been done in recent years. I see the same problem that beat them ups suffer: they are experiences that, beyond finishing them with all the characters or going to score, do not get much incentive to want to return to them. there are many possibilities that could try to be implemented for the genre, and thus perhaps capture a wider audience, but as long as that stigma that they are games for experts only continues, it will remain stagnant as a niche genre.
@@santiagodelfino2376 the stigma is real. When outsiders think shmups are only for experts, and the experts inside the genre fan base won't play the shmups that don't beat the stuffing out of them each time they play, because they can't find the fun in something without the challenge, and then those games get slammed online for being "too easy" it created a self fulfilling prophecy. All too often, I think we as shmup players might be our own worst enemy in that regard.
It might become a monkey paw curse wanting to introduce more players to shmups
You only live twice - once when you bite the bullet, another when your name is said for the last time.
And it was nice knowing you twice, Mr.Santiago! Bwahahahaha
bro. you want a community foundation with resurrection trigger, I got four words for you: Summer Carnival '20: Mega Cyber Caravan. Time attack-style, no 45 minute nolife western world record uguu crap just 2-5 minutes of sweaty shmupping to see who's top shmup. Quick to design and develop, quick to master. Make it an institution and when its time close submissions for that round and release the next one. No one knows the mysterious organization that runs the carnival or what they're after but shmuppers come from all over the galaxy to be top shmup for a while- or die trying.
RE: retention, I think a lot of it is just people going through cycles. I'll go through a genre phase, play it a bunch, then rotate to some other genre of game ... but eventually I make my way back again and everything repeats.
Casual shmup fan speaking. Personally, I really relate to the retention issue you brought up. I'm not a high score chaser, the most I'll go for in any shmup is a 1cc or maybe a no-hit run, but I'll rarely stick with one for much longer afterwards except as a revisit on a lark.
For me, I discovered shmups during my indie phase around 2005, and the games by ABA/Kenta Cho were super influential for me. He programmed all of his shmups to have procedurally-generated bullet patterns, meaning for me it was more about getting into the meditative flow state and having a zen-like understanding of the broader bullet landscape rather than planning and executing routes in shmups with scripted enemy patterns (I may be simplifying high-level shmup play, I'm only a casual fan). In fact, I credit the time I spent playing those shmups for teaching me the skills to remain calm under pressure.
But back on the broader appeal of shmups, I think part of the issue is how deeply ingrained shmup games are still to their arcade roots. While I'll try stuff by Cave or the Touhou games, ultimately grinding better performances through repeat playthroughs doesn't hold my attention. I can definitely see the appeal for those who want to perfect their execution like speedrunners (which is why I think the GDQ crossover was brilliant), but the ultimate measure of your performance is pretty much the score only.
If you've ever heard of the player psychographics of Timmy/Johnny/Spike by Mark Rosewater for describing why people play Magic: the Gathering, I think it can help guide some of the thinking on the appeal of shmups. Current, arcade-y shmups really appeal to the Spikes out there, who want to hone their execution to a razor edge and have a simple metric to determine success (your score). But for the other psychographics, I don't think shmups have much to offer. For Timmy/Tammy, who wants cool experiences, big explosions, juicy bullet cancels, and dodging through what seems like an impossible gap in the bullet curtain has its thrills, but I don't think it holds up as well to repeat play when you've become familiar with everything. For the Johnny/Jenny, who want to play for expressiveness, creative routing can possibly scratch that itch, but if our metric for success is your score, then once you find the "optimal" route, then I think there's little to offer for those players again.
Ultimately, as much as I want to enjoy shmups, I think for what they offer they'll still be something like a gaming sudoku or crossword puzzle for me. I can really dive into it and chew on it for a while, but once I've "solved" it to my satisfaction there's rarely any appeal to return to it. Given my love of the moment-to-moment gameplay of shmups, though, I do have high hopes for games like Steredenn, which is high on my list of games to try when I'm next bitten by a shmup bug.
Thanks for the great comment!!! Man the part about shmups needing to appeal to more players creativity really got me thinking, I wonder if there is an interesting way to do that, to give the games a bit of a sandbox feel, while still retaining their core appeal. That would be a super interesting game.
@@TheElectricUnderground
I think the biggest way shmups current add creativity/style is in multiple ship and shot types. While it's not perfect, it allows for some aspect of player expression in how they like to play and what strategies they'll implement in the game. I love Jamestown in this regard because each ship plays completely differently and you can tailor the experience to how you like to play. There's even a random option that will mix and match your shot and specials upon death.
This is partly why I'm excited to try Steredenn. Because it borrows elements from roguelikes, throughout the run you'll be customizing your ship with all sorts of power-ups. Plus, the procedural generation of levels also helps in keeping each run fresh and unique.
@@TheElectricUnderground
But yes, ultimately I think it would be awesome if there was a shmup that would really reward player creativity and/or expressiveness. I think to an extent you can watch replays and figure out who's playing based on how they react and dodge various patterns, but if enemy and bullet patterns are fairly static this returns to the problem of players optimizing the fun/creativity out of the game.
@@RocketSlug This is a great observation, something like Bartle's Taxonomy for shmups might be in order. My first intuition is that shmup players that also like fighting games and shmup players that don't also like fighting games would form two separate camps. To your point about expression I think the most direct form of expression in a shmup is movement. The last shmup I can remember having really interesting movement was Galak-Z, I think it had a lot of potential but the rest of the game was a bit anemic.
@@GITAHxgCoo
Yep, precisely. Funny enough, I do fall into that camp of shmup/figther lover, but I dabble in lots of other stuff as well. I've been giving the topic some thought over the past few hours and I've also settled on movement being a big factor in shmup expressiveness. Risks/reward mechanics (graze systems, as one example), and interesting uses of limited resources (usually bombs) are other candidates.
The limiting factor to me is still the emphasis on score. It always leads me to the impression (founded or not) that there will always be some platonically perfect TAS that we're all just trying to approach. The lack of other metrics to measure success by limits players' abilities to find their own fun (pacifist runs, maybe?).
Another thought I have is on the limited gameplay verbs in the shmup genre (move, shoot, bomb, etc.). Granted, limited gameplay verbs aren't a bad thing, Mario pretty much is entirely based around run and jump, and I'm certainly not advocating that we need to overcomplicate the genre, but I think if we break it down like this we can see opportunities to innovate.
I've been reviewing some game design videos on how game designers help protect players from themselves and optimizing the fun out of the game, seeing where shmups can draw inspiration from. In particular I'm rewatching Mark Brown's "How Game Designers Protect Players From Themselves," Extra Credits's "Optimal Vs. Fun - Designing for Different Playstyles," and Adam Millard's "How Satisfactory Makes Work Fun" for inspiration. In particular I think I'm going to take some time to think about how character action games can cater to different playstyles. They have a similar score-focused mentality, but are much more open to player expressiveness. Partially I think it's due to the plethora of gameplay verbs they have, but there may still be things we can draw inspiration from.
It's crazy to think that the modern retrogaming community owes so much to the discoveries and passion of the shmups community.
Pretty much every freaking thing everyone's obsessing over from the prices of retro games,( 90% of the most expensive games are the sought after shmups in one form or the other), video quality, to the obsession over BVMs and PVMs, input lag discoveries and how best to circumvent them, is all due to the findings and long drawn experimentation of the shmups community/forums.
I joined your discord today, and right away the first thing I noticed is that users were bickering with each other and mostly dismissing newcomers instead of welcoming them. I don't know if it was an unfortunate coincidence, but if that's frequently the case, I think that can explain in part why user retention is low. It's hard to create a community if newcomers feel like they can't get along with the veterans. :( Oh well, I'll try to stay positive and see what happens, it seems like a well laid-out server.
Sent you a message on discord :-)
Sounds depressing to be honest. Good news is that there are still people getting into the Genre. Like me. I am a gamer since 1993. From 93 to early 2020, all shmups i have ever played were Hellfire, Parodius, Under Defeat and Ikaruga. But this spring, i got into the genre all of a sudden. Now i have added Battle Garegga, DDP SDOJ, DDR DFK, Mushihimesama and Futari, Darius Gaiden, Espgaluda 2, ESP Rade, Radiant Silvergun and Ketsui to that list. Recently i bought a japanese 360 just to play Daioujou. So yeah... there is hope. Maybe we just need a great Shmup on Gamepass or something, so people finally give it a shot.
I am guilty of getting in & out with shmups. There is so many games to play nowadays and with such little free time it's difficult to focus on new shmups. A perfect storm would help shmups. A very popular Twitch/TH-camr streamer along with the right new game can help. It's hard to get out of the basement.
Hello, mr Electric Underground, excuse my english. First of all, i would like to say that i have the most respect for your channel. One thing I've learned working with journalism is the importance of the audiance that listen to us. Although I could agree with your point partially, I have a hard time believing this video does more good than harm. That said, i wont discuss what a dead genre could mean and I do acknowledge the later minutes of the video, but humbly asking you to think about the viewers that have your channel as a reference. For example, i've just recommended your channel to a friend to try to show them that shumps are a great genre, but now theyre could maybe hear very unencouraging arguments straight from the horses mouth. From what I've seen of your channel I know this is not your intention.
It s not meant to be discouraging, I m sorry if it comes off that way. It s meant to be more of a status report on what we can improve and how.
Solid video Mark. Keep up the good fight. Two remarks:
- Comparing anything to Chess doesn't get you anywhere. No game holds that kind of cultural currency. It's a ridiculous outlier. Generally being good at a game doesn't really mean a lot outside of the fan community of the particular game in question. EXCEPT Chess and some Sports.
- And while we are at it, I think Shmups have a unique advantage here. The gameplay is universally understood even by complete outsiders. While the idea of a "Shmup Expert" doesn't hold much Cachet, actually SEEING somebody be good at a Shmup almost universally floors people from all walks of life. Even a relatively low-difficulty run of a Touhou title looks like you're being some kind of videogame savant. Compare how difficult of a time other genres have. Show a top-level Leage of Legends match to an outsider. They might just as well be looking at a sport from a different planet. Even fighting games struggle. I played fighting games in my life but I have never played Smash. To me Smash matches are completely incomprehensible. No idea who is winning. No idea what a good move is supposed to look like. Just a few characters hanging of a ledge and glitching around the screen. Compared to that, Shmups are instantly understandable and it's easy to impress with them provided you get people to watch it.
Hey thanks for the great feedback! Yeah I should have been more clear on what I meant regarding the chess comparison. I Definetly don't expect shmups to ever compare to chess in cultural currency, because like you say it is a unique outlier. I was just bringing up chess to explain what the concept is, because chess is pretty much universally respected.
Yes, shmup expertise is universally impressive but the underlying reason is that the core gameplay mechanisms are extremely simple : avoid obstacles via a directional pad, fire projectiles via a few buttons and the marker of success is binary: the player avatar/ship was not destroyed and is still moving.
The flip side of expertise impressiveness and simplicity of gameplay is that for the non initiate, once you have seen one shmup, you have seen them all and a few screenshots and/or videos are going to have a hard time of convincing them otherwise. Platformers on the other hand can afford to tell a story by their layout and non mandatory scrolling. Players can discover them at their own rhythm (well, except for games like NES Ninja Gaiden but few neophytes will be attracted by those titles precisely because they impose the play rhythm).
You cannot discover a shmup, you either conquer it or die after a few seconds.
Maybe shmup said need to learn to not kill players to resurrect. 😉
@@nekononiaow Yeah Shmup skill play doesn't really inspire that "Hold my beer" feeling.
I don't think that comparing Shmups to other genres is useful. Different genres have different strengths. But I do agree that the structure of Shmups needs some rethinking. Dying in Shmups is a downer. CHARLENEMAXIMUM, creator of the upcoming Bullet Sorceress recently compared Shmups to Disc Room. Mentioned that the gameplay is almost the same. But Disc Room has a lot of smart ideas to give players more control over the experience and make dying a lot more fun!
Hey Mark, I think you should check out Disc Room. Would love to hear your take on this.
I'm thinking to strike at the Japanese scene of shmups. CAVE is certainly dead for us outside Japan, but... the meme of bullets, especially CAVE themselves, still lives on. Notably in Japan.
Of all games that are received well recently, it's CAVE's latest game: World Witches United Front. I don't know why the Strike Witches series gets the bullet hell treatment (Note, I have 0 familiarity with this series), but here it is. Barriers and lasers with score-farming and lootboxes galore. One would think people would be abhorrent towards bullet hells, But the World Witches game is doing well. Is it due to its license or due to the bullets it spread? The shmuper in me wants to think the latter.
Not only that, there is SEGA's Ongeki that despite the nasty virus we're having right now it received a 2nd major expansion at the arcades. Ongeki's main gimmick as a rhythm game is you evade bullet notes. It's so very aware with it, CAVE songs tend to get the special treatment with greater bullet complexity compared to the other songs within the game. Plus, SEGA and CAVE look as if they're having an incestuous relationship with each other. giving CAVE licenses for cross overs or yes, having CAVE stuffs on SEGA's Ongeki, complete with the bullets and simulating the lasers.
Whether it will work or not, we won't know until someone still needs to try it and get the results. When CAVE is still permitted to spew out bullet hells even if the games are not traditional shmups, I think there's hope to relight the fire.
I definitely think shmups have the potential to return to more mainstream status, I definitely believe that for sure. But I think in order for that to happen, we need to understand that the genre is not able to do it on it's own and that it will require consistent community support. Right now I think the general attitude is just waiting around and hoping something will happen ha. Keep an eye out for the podcast ep with UBO though, because we're really working on a lot of stuff right now that I think will really help.
@@TheElectricUnderground So I wanted to point something out. World Witches United Front is a gacha shmup in the same vein as Azur Lane (one of the more popular gacha's with millions of users). WWUF is the 2nd gacha shmup that I can think of and I think it's a possible path forward for shmups, I'll get into that in another comment.
Zazon: Strike Witches is a strong IP for both a shmup and a gacha game. Lots of cute girls, and a universe that already fights shmup style. It's a solid combo and I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner. I'm thinking Azur Lane's prolonged success spurred stakeholders to open up their checkbooks. CAVE with a strong IP (the weakpoint in the shmup genre) is a winning combo.
All I want to know is where in the hell are the CAVE games for consoles?
We need a new game that can break the barrier and introduce a lot of people to the genre.
Shmups were made for arcades, arcades are dead now, that makes sense. The design for this type of games needs to be updated, popular roguelites games like Nuclear Throne, Enter the Gungeon have shmups influence, maybe the roguelites of today are the evolution of the arcade genre.
Adding multiplayer online features could help, something like competing with other players for score/survival at the same time or a BR shmup(?). 100 players trying to survive a hellish bullet spread at the same time could be fun. But then, who is going to fund a project like that? The genre is a niche and there is not enough money to be made with it. Making a game, even simple ones, takes a lot of effort.
Besides most shmups having an old school design, a lot of people are not aware of the challenges or how to challenge yourself when playing them, they just keep on feeding credits and continue playing, they "finish" the game in 25 minutes and then they believe the game has no content.
Another issue is that even if you know how to challenge yourself, shumps are hard, they were designed to be hard. Getting a 1CC is really challenging and sometimes frustrating, even if you play a lot you are not guaranteed to get them in any game, that's not for everyone.
Also for a long time and for most people the only way to play big shmups titles was using emulation, but the emulation was terrible and console ports were bad and/or too expensive (imports). All those issues helped to diminish the genre.
Creating and cultivating a community is the only hope, exactly what you are doing.
Aside from rouge-likes and BR's, I think there's a third path for shmups. The Gacha Shmup. These are significantly more reliant on being backed by a strong IP and being on mobile but Azur Lane (which is a shmuppy RPGish gacha) has over 3 million players on it's global server. CAVE's latest game is a Strike Witches gacha. Waifus sell.
A game like this exists, it's called Monolith. Check it out it's super good.
i'm crying and shaking rn mark would never say shmups are dead /s
if you mention a rpg or something most people will probably be like "ooh what is it like?" but if you talk about a shmup they'll be uninterested
problem with this genre is it's the opposite of how popular games should be, unlike most games you see nowadays which are relatively easy and take 60+ hours to beat, shmups are insanely difficult but only take 30-45 mins
it's also bad for shmuptubers cause shorter games = less videos = less views = less money
but even if shmups are dead, i'll still continue playing them
ha well I say shmups are dead in the terms of the definition I give, but I'm defiantly not saying they should be left behind, what I'm getting is more about how if we want to bring them back to life (which I do) it's going to take some focused effort, rather than just waiting for it to happen by itself.
We need a Mario Maker style shmup game where players create small bite size trials, puzzles, and entertaining/artistic levels and boss fights for each other and their friends. It would probably go a long ways towards growing the genre and onboarding people long enough to learn the fundamentals and try other shmups. In general gaming nowadays is very online and connected, which is maybe partly why fighting games continue to grow especially as better netcode is implemented. Some sort of shmup battle royale like tetris 100 might be interesting too.
it already exists and it's called Danmakufu :)
Gotta be honest, you hit the nail exactly on the head here. Great video that goes through all warning signs that its dead.
That being said, I think it's just as interesting to analyze "why" we're dead. And I think design has a lot do with it.
Anyways, this gave me a bunch of fire and spirit to do what I can to support the Shmup cause!
I m really glad to hear that!
Great video Mark. You're doing a lot yourself with these videos and the podcast, which are working to convert me from a "passively interested, come back every now and then" shmup player to a more passionate fan. I think the power of video content can't be understated. The players who are already interested in arcade games or skill intensive games will trickle in as they always have. But there's a MASS of people who are interested in games and would be pulled in by great runs or entertaining streamers. I'll make a comparison from the scene I know, Melee. Mang0 alone has something like 10K subscribers on Twitch. There aren't even 10K people who could win a set at a decent local. That means there are tons of people who are there simply to enjoy watching, for the game and for the streamer's personality. Same goes for tournament viewers. In every VG community, having the top players be visible personalities is a huge draw. What storylines are there in shmups? Events like shmup slam could do a ton for the scene once they get more exposure, and give people the context of "this is an amazing run". A shmup version of SummoningSalt would also be amazing, but we need good footage and good documentation of scores - both things I know you've talked about. Imagine the hype of a SummoningSalt video when he says "it seemed like scoring was reaching it's theoretical limit, but then..." and then we see some new route or technique in a shmup that blows open the scoring. There's SO much potential here. I disagree with some who are saying we need new games. While that may help, we need content that explains to the layman why the classics are awesome and still worth playing.
I am so happy to hear that! Yes, I completely agree. I'm actually a huge melee fan/player myself, so I know exactly what you mean :-) Yeah, Mango has been an insanely strong resource for melee and definitely one of the reasons it has maintained popularity. I really hope my content can have a similar effect for shmups. In case you haven't seen it, I actually put some melee footage of my marth (who is getting pretty crispy these days) in this video ha: th-cam.com/video/s4sssyZHDtI/w-d-xo.html
dude, i see your playing fire lancer for the wonderswan color, you should definitely try Wing Warriors for the gameboy/ gamegear/ master system! I'd like to see your input on this new homebrew. Its only 15 minutes long, so dont expect the longest game like dodonpaci or anything. However, this is a bullet hell on the original gamegear/gameboy, so there is definitely some love still for the genre, just not from mega corporations. if your playing the master system version. make sure to set it to 50hz!
Oh sounds cool! I 'll look it up now
Ever since I downloaded Bullet Hell Monday, I can't escape from the bullet clusters.
Speaking as an outsider (just subscribed by the way), I would say that there are many new twists on the shmup genre that could generate new interest. I think although the hardcore players may like bullet hell shmups there are ways to have interesting shmup games that don't rely on tons of bullets. As an example, whilst it's not a true "shmup", look at the way sound and graphics were blended in Rez. Imagine a 2d shmup that took a similar audiovisual synesthesia approach, blending in sound and rhythm into the shmup action. Beat Saber may also be a good source of inspiration for this hypothetical rhythm shmup game. If this idea of using synesthesia to give a new twist on a genre seems strange, I would suggest this is what Tetris Effect did in the puzzle genre, and judging by the TH-cam views this seems to have been a success.
Thanks for subscribing!! The sequel to this vid I am recording tonight ha, great timing!
I think the devs are all dead or making games I don't like. Treasure and Cave are not doing anything but ports of games I already love. I have been waiting for treasure to make project RS3 since they talked about it like 10 years ago. Cave could just do anything new and it would put some life back in the genre. Touhou is just making games I don't really get into. Imperishable Night was the peak for me. Zun puts out games regularly, but they all feel like middle of the road games. I think we just are not getting enough fresh new content. Mushi3 or RS3 would definitely put a spot light on the genre because most people seem to know them. I was also thinking that maybe something with a high art production value could help get new people in. Cuphead was a hit and I think the novelty of the art really helped pull people in. Great video though.
STG's more or less died with arcade era. Have you thought about reaching out to content creators that cover arcade era games or people seeking to revive arcade communities? A lot of those people are already casual fans of the genre but might not know about what M2 is doing or haven't heard about indie games that are keeping the spirit alive, such as ZeroRanger.
I have :-) Here is my interview with the ZR devs! th-cam.com/video/V1wyPN4DaJE/w-d-xo.html
Okay, I know I'm a bit late to the party here, but I was thinking about this a lot recently.
In my eyes, there's two reasons why the genre is stuck in a rut: 1, it has become stale. 2, predictability. For point one, well... compare this genre to the roguelike genre. That genre was, for a long time, also "dead". Hardly anyone even knew what it was, and many who found out would try said games and bounce off of them real hard. Roguelikes at the time were VERY strict about sticking to the original Rogue's ideas (for better or for worse... usually "worse" if I'm being honest) and it made them nigh-impossible to get into, and bloody irritating even once learned. And then, out of nowhere, Spelunky and Isaac came along. The entire genre EXPLODED. Loudly. Suddenly, it is EVERYWHERE, taking old concepts and merging them with any ol' genre it can find. It freaking EVOLVED. It showed the true potential of the concepts that had always been at the heart of it, by allowing those concepts to go in new directions. And yeah, the "purists" werent very pleased with this (seriously the roguelike community is the most stuck-up bunch I've ever seen), but even they benefitted from it, since the wild new popular stuff also started to get many gamers curious about the old traditional type of roguelike. Now, traditional-type games in that genre are being made on a regular basis too. All because the genre took steps to evolve.
The shmup genre though refuses to do that. It has stuck to old ideas even WAY past the point of making any sense at all. Vertical scrolling for instance. I ask you: WHY. Seriously, why. It makes no sense. Not anymore. It happened in arcades due to the way the screens were built/oriented. That made sense. It DOESNT make sense in the land of widescreen monitors. When you've got a game that only ACTUALLY uses 1/3rd of the screen space, OF COURSE it's going to be less appealing, because it doesnt make any bloody sense. Yet shmup devs just keep doing it, not because there's any logical reason, but simply because "well that's how it's done". And it's the same with pretty much all aspects of the genre... they never change it, they never step away and try new things. It's as if they have this paranoid aversion to the very concept. Of course it's going to stagnate and die when that is happening. How could it not?
The second huge aspect though is predictability. This is what knocked me out of the genre for the longest time. As much as I love shmups, they have, and I say this with absolute confidence, the lowest variability of any game genre, period. And heck, some games take it to an extreme, like DOJ, with its utter obsession about making the player memorize the perfect pre-designed route for scoring and doing *exactly* that every single time. These games are 100% predictable to the point that, for many, they will eventually just get dull. And they're so darned short and small that there's no room even within that framework. Compare that to something like, say, Dark Souls (yes, I know, just bear with me here). DS is also a very predictable game... sort of... but it counters that by adding MORE to it. It is an expansive game... huge. Just huge. A million different ways to approach a ton of different areas, bosses and enemies that act on AI rather than on perfectly predetermined timers... thus making their fights actually dynamic as opposed to static shmup bosses... and a bazillion different items and stats and all sorts of ways to change up the player's own character. Even within a predictable framework, DS (and games like it) is DYNAMIC. Shmups are the direct opposite... there is nothing dynamic in them at all in most cases. And THAT is going to be an enormous turn-off to many, many players, even if they dont immediately realize why. Particularly when you consider how tiny they are. Their ultra-short runs are harmed by their static nature.
Overall, the one and only way this genre can truly come back is if it steps away from the ancient concepts that it has clung to past the point of making any sense. AKA, it needs to actually try something new. Something ACTUALLY new, not just "slightly odd scoring system". Heck, for me, I actually did get back into it recently. But not because of any normal shmup. It was a game called The Void Rains Upon Her Heart that did it. Just that one game alone pulled me back in, because it avoids every single one of the problems I've mentioned here while still being a true bullet-hell shmup game, yet it doesnt stick to the old conventions whatsoever. It takes the base concept and runs with it off into the hills. And it just works.
More games like that, new and shiny instead of crusty and old fashioned, dynamic instead of static... that's what's needed if anyone is to revive the genre. And heck, games like Enter the Gungeon prove the concept... that game is shmup-influenced through and through, all about bullets and dodging and that. But people eat it up because those concepts are in a different, non-stale framework full of possibilities and replay value that isnt JUST "score high". Devs of scrolling shmups absolutely could do that too... but so far, they dont want to, and that's the crux of the problem, really. Until they change that, the genre aint gonna be rising from the grave.
A big part of most shmups is complex scoring systems which isnt something you can understand by just looking at them. I think thats why Ikaruga has more mainstream popularity, the polarity switching is easy to understand just by looking, a lot of ikaruga fans dont even think about chaining.
Bayonetta has the same thing as Ikaruga where witch time is an easy to understand mechanic for casuals while the bigger mechanic the game is designed around is dodge offset.
Absolutely! Yes more visual communication of the scoring mechanics is a great idea and I do think it will help the genre. Like Crimzon Clover having these giant stars for points for example.
I really think a shmup with good online co-op, good leader boards and other modes like maybe a side-by-side score off mode kinda like how they do tetris matches (i think twinkle star sprites has this type of mode idk never played), and other things that fuel a community. Feeling like there is a sense of community when PLAYING the game is a huge factor of retention.
I think you made references to religious people before, so ill make one too. In churches, even if somebody is iffy about some things in the group, if they have a better community overall, it will get people to stick around.
People love community, there isnt a lot of it going for high scores all alone, which seems to be the major mode a lot of the time. This is why I'm interested in playing co-op on fightcade 2 with people once i get some more time :)
There is a lot of asset flicks, cheap clones, bad games in this genre... which overshadow the real deals.
Man, you got me writing an essay. Shmups do have some hits that bring in numbers that would still be considered a success by any indie. The big 2 being Touhou 16 (an estimated 200k sales) and Azur Lane (over 3 million users on the global servers, self reported number by Yostar during their anniversary stream). Shmups need to change and devs need to learn from the ones who are still succeeding in a dead genre. Which does tie into your building a strong foundation that keeps people around.
Shmups have a trio of glaring weaknesses, and a weakness that is also a strength depending on the player.
1) IP's. As a rule, shmups have abysmally weak IP's. Name a shmup character that isn't Reimu. I can't, can you? Strong IP's create strong fan communities and strong fan communities create their own content and grow the fanbase of the game. Go to the Azur Lane or Touhou subreddits. Would you believe the genre is dead just by looking at the numbers of fans, the amount of OC, and the amount of talk on those subs? I understand that playing a shmup for the plot is as counter-intuitive as reading Playboy for the articles BUT compare my 2 exceptions to the rest of the market:
Touhou and Azur Lane both have:
A) Waifus: Lots of cuties with their own personalities. There's something for everyone.
B) Great settings with room for more than fighting. The Port stories in Azur Lane and Touhou manga have a ton of slice of life moments and fans love those. They want to spend more time with their favorite girls. Azur Lane's next anime? All slice of life.
C) Creators that encourage and enfranchise fan communities. Engage with your fans and celebrate their creativity. That's infectious like a motherfucker. See the Reitaisai.
2) Pathways to mastery. A lot of shmups don't guide the player into building mastery. Grazing, death bombing, maximizing the score system, etc... Not a lot of games focus on guiding the player into doing these things well. Exceed 3rd and Graze Counter are the only 2 that I can think of drive the player in a direction that improves them in a tangible way.
3) It's not a good genre for streamers. It's hard to run mouth and watch chat while playing a good shmup. It requires too many braincells. I don't think that's fixable unless it's a more IP focused RPG/Gacha/Shmup like Azur Lane. AL is really unique in that regard.
The weakness that is also a strength is that by their nature, a good shmup is bite sized. You don't poopsock shmups the way you poopsock other games, your brain would melt. You do a couple of runs and then you're done for the day. That's an aspect of shmups that I love, they respect the player's time.
Speaking of time, I need to get back to working on my own shmup.
BTW: I'd just like to point out that the majority of shmups I've purchased are games I've seen in the algo curated elements on the front of the Steam store page. Take that for what it's worth.
And people say touhou is dying after touhou 14 xD. Also a thing I can not understand, is that why cave games has better drawn anime girls and some other games where there are actually lowkey sexualized girls doesn't get near the touhou levels of appeal to people. Also every other elements as well. Every single element of touhou games gets appreciated by fans.
@@ihaveadream7858 I think it has to do with the settings. Raw character appeal isn't enough to carry the game. You gotta be interested in the world they live in.
Speaking of Cave, I'm really interested in how successful Witches World United is. I'm still kinda surprised that they went all in on a mobile gacha game but they got the Strike Witches IP which is perfect for the game they've made.
Podcast with UBO? POG. I see him working really hard in the Shmups Discord, giving helpful marketing advice to the indie devs there and consolidating shmup content to make the community, both Japanese and global, more unified (e.g. STG Shmups on Twitch and Reddit).
I agree with you here. Shmups have been slowly dying since the last century, even in the arcades where they should be thriving. In terms of profits, they are less profitable than fighting games and rhythm games in the arcades since the latter two are shorter per game. It's also harder to quantify progression in a shmup, which makes them appear much harder than other genres, which then turns people off from trying them out. And on PC and consoles, the situation isn't much better, as the lack of market demand drives prices low. The CAVE ports are basically the AAA games of shmups, yet they are priced the same as indie games. They should be at least twice as expensive. And because of this, no one really wants to develop a new shmup (although there are some coming).
On that note, in terms of mainstream awareness, sure there are some cool shmups coming out, but no one besides us know that. Meanwhile, as someone who doesn't play fighting games, I know that SFV exists (through collaboration events), and I definitely knew about Ultimate's release. Who knows that SDOJ Exa is coming out? Or Crimzon Clover having a Switch port? Or the Aleste Collection? It's just us. At best, people know about Touhou and Ikaruga, but most people in the Touhou scene don't care about shmups, and Treasure has more or less collapsed. Even for the more popular games of the past (e.g. Darius, Gradius, Raiden), the studios behind those games aren't making any new entries, wasting the potential of these already established names. As for creators, people only know about Jaimers, World of Longplays, and Replay Burners (if the latter two can even be counted as creators).
In terms of retention, you've covered it pretty well. There is a lack of community created content. Even for games as big as DDP, there aren't any proper guides, and without easy to find guides, newcomers won't know how to approach the game and just quit. All we have are replays and analysing replays is a difficult task for someone new to the game. Which is why I try to actually create tutorials to help lower the barrier to entry to the genre, and as someone who's doing so, I know what are some of the reasons people don't make such content. I don't know if anyone's out there who is new to the game and needs help. I don't know if the algorithm will allow my tutorials to see the light of day. I don't even know how to make a good tutorial, where every single detail is made obvious and easy to understand, while still remaining concise to avoid information overload.
Yes exactly my dude, these are definitely the issues we are facing right now! Also when you mentioned your tutorial videos, yeah it is brutal because I've seen some really good ones that hardly get any attention, especially game specific ones. It's a catch 22 we're stuck in. You need players to make a tutorial worthwhile, but players needs tutorials to stick around in the first place, so it's really frustrating for sure.
i thought every shmup fan visits system11 and look into "strategies? subforum? that being said, looks like people there almost stopped doing new guides lately >_
i know of sdoj exa but my country didnt have arcades for ages so it all hurts. aka to blue not having proper home release also
very hard to convince people pay fullprice for shmups nowodays as people now grew up with totally different expectations of what a game is. like rpg with 100 levels and 1000 characters and 2000 enemies.
really good video, lots of interesting topics
as for shmups, they might be irresurectable as a genre but the easiest thing to do is bring more awareness to the good ones that have already been made and showcase those as games worth trying out; another thing to do is maybe have games shown in the background of videos and podcast episodes like in this video
and display the name of the game in the video itself
that could help to get some more immediate awareness in a small way
another thing that would help is to kinda widen the net a little bit and cover other types of games as well (like recent fighting game topics for example) because those can help bring more people to the channel
I still play shmups like the Strikers 1945 series and I feel that the genre really is dead because most genre of games I always see in YT or somewhere else are FPS, MOBA, but rarely see new Shmup content on YT. I also feel that I am the only one playing shmups 😂.
Shmups can grow for sure. I'm new to the genre, for instance, but it would take a lot of community effort. Feels real similar to the Project M situation where the community is definitely still around but getting the community up to the size of the other 2 smash games feels impossible. Project M has the advantage of there being a very social element to it with in-person tournaments/fests but the whole unofficial game thing is a deterrent and there feels its not as respected as the other two (even though I think its by far the most fun competitively). The community has made many efforts to grow such as central discords, new updates, nationals, etc. but drawing new people into something as difficult as fighter/shmups is super hard. Best bet for PM is a rollback build like melee but that's very unlikely to happen, and I'm not sure what the equivalent for shmups would even be outside maybe a very nice looking/sounding game which is fun at all levels of play. Would love to see the genre get big though.
Fire lancer looks nice
It's awesome, I can't wait for the full release!
Indie shmup developer needs to consider the mobile market, the smallest number that I checked in play store is about 1000 downloads
screw mobile market though. more often then not, good releases there just being lost among tons of trash, going unnoticed. and what worse, shortest span life of mobile games. they either die when OS chahge, or cause were tied to servers like all those modern trendy japanese releases.
@@harmannsmith5653 Oh yeah that's true, I learn about Aka to Blue was from a Reddit post.
While being on a crazy shmup kick since December, and thoroughly determined to GET Ketsui (which is Japanese for "determination" the wiseacres) despite getting smeared, what I'm seeing is that the shmup genre just needs to overcome its arcade roots.
Again I love Ketsui. I DESPISE the difficulty incline. I have to explain this over and over again: I'm not complaining that it's too hard. But the genre is plagued because of the design philosophy of "get him off the machine." I was pretty new to shmups and Ketsui and I could get through 1.5 stages with reflexes, but by stage 5 I don't have a ghost of a chance until I have every bullet memorized (not much of an exaggeration).
Console shmups are a lot better about this in a lot of ways. Like when I play Soldier Blade, it restarts me at the beginning of a stage if I die infinitely.
Conta 3 is the PERFECT example of a memorization-heavy game done right. It's designed to be played on easy, normal and then hard. If you start on hard, you will get slaughtered by things that you'll simply never have any way of reacting to on the fly. But easing up the difficulties trains the things that you need to know in a way that isn't rude, painful and cheap. Contra 3 does get a bit harder as it gets close to the end, but not to the absurd degrees as an arcade shmup.
I love the gameplay found within shmups but I do think their arcade roots give them genuine design flaws. I wouldn't even bother too much with Battle Garegga if not for M2's Premium mode toning down the ridiculous ranking system.
tl;dr: shmups (arcade shmups especially) have horrific difficulty scaling because of arcade roots. The genre doesn't deserve to die, but quite frankly, I think that that central design flaw from arcade roots is enough to kill the genre all by itself.
One other aspect of shmups that are off-putting is a lack of narrative. Look at Panzer Dragoon Orta for example: you visit a lot of stages, but it doesn't feel like you're just plopped into different locations with no narrative purpose but as a continuous story. That was one thing that had me disinterested in shmups ever since I was gaming in the NES days. Sine Mora might be a good example for a fairly traditional shmup as it has a strong presence of narrative that isn't overly intrusive, obviously not the focal point, but doesn't feel nearly as much of an afterthought as an arcade shmup and is integral to the presentation. As much as I think From Software's Dark Souls is grossly overrated gameplay-wise (Nioh destroys it), people dig the atmosphere and sense of narrative in the background. There's no reason why shmups couldn't improve this instead of just throwing artistically disjointed stages together like so many of them do, or if it's there, again, scaling difficulty would make the artistic side easier to appreciate while growing in skill.
I think a game like Drainus (even with its flaws) can put things on the right track too: no one-hit deaths, it has a character growth system, fairly consistent difficulty.
All that said, I grant that gamers are often wrong-headed in their demands, particularly that a game has to have hundreds of hours of content like more open world games. I can't believe more people don't see the value in a short, fine-tuned gaming experience that's worth gaining skill at rather than something you just waltz through over a long period of time (to be sure, the Soulsborne craze is somewhere in between, and I'm a Nioh guy myself). One of my favorite games is "Until You Fall" right now and is as modern as you can get as it's in VR, and it's all about perfecting a 20-40 minute run similar to a shmup (and likewise you can be at it for a hundred hours and still have room for improvement). Mainstream gaming doesn't see the value in that so much anymore, and people get stuck in a rut.
Awesome comment my dude! So I have good news for you (and you have to trust me). As you get more and more experienced in the genre, you will learn to love the sharp difficulty curve of games like ketsui. I felt EXACTLY the same way when I started, why do these stupid games go hardcore mode after 4 minutes of gameplay ha. But as you get deeper and deeper into the genre, you'll start to say, "why don't all games go hardcore mode after 4 minutes?" I really recommend checking out my gameplay density vid as it's a good compliment to this one: th-cam.com/video/9Ew5hEMSzEw/w-d-xo.html
@@TheElectricUnderground I saw that video, actually. I appreciate the thoughts. I love the character action games too btw and also like to kick back with an open world game even, but yeah I'm all in with the concept.
In fact, one of my gripes about Ocarina of Time (even when it first came out!) was exactly what you're talking about: I missed the brisk pace of the top-down Zeldas by comparison, where OoT would have a lot of empty trekking. My favorite 3D Zelda is actually Skyward Sword, contrary to the crowd, because it's extremely dense with things going on and interactivity in the environment. One of the most successful 3D versions of a franchise (probably THE most successful) is Metroid Prime for that reason too, because the environments had so much interaction and not too much just holding forward for seconds at a time.
And yet to your point: repeating stage 1 in Ketsui, for example, is similar to exactly what you're talking about: fat to be trimmed. Why am I replaying this stage over and over when I can clearly consistently get through it without taking a hit? To me that's more offensive fat that I want trimmed than walking through a field in a straight line in an open world game where at least it's visually different.
I know I'm repeating myself, but I see no reason why -- aside from the arcade "get him off the machine" directive -- you don't just have easy, normal, hard, like was done so well in Contra 3. Like Crimzon Clover has an easy mode. I don't want to play through an easy mode because stage 1 and even stage 2 are already plenty easy, doable and fun, and if they were any easier I'd be bored! Why would I want those stages to be easier when I can handle them just fine as it is? It's stages 3 through 5 that I need to be easier and closer to the balance of the first two. If I beat up a mode like that and want more, I'd then kick up the difficulty and play a harder (and likewise balanced) harder mode. Likewise, I only tried Ketsui's "super easy" mode once, but what I really want is a far more consistent difficulty setting. That's why I'm SO grateful for Battle Garegga's "Premium" mode.
That's basically how I am with a thoroughly hardcore game called "Until You Fall" right now, which is essentially a 20-40 minute game. I was getting better and better at the game, so then I took it on at the highest setting, naturally. Now I can slaughter that game. I would have HATED the experience if (say) the beginning was as easy as one setting lower, but then the last section would have been too hard by comparison. I either have a game that's way too easy at the start or way too hard at the end.
I guess I'll trust you that I might warm up to this design in time somehow but let me tell you, in the meantime, in my mind, that all by itself clearly explains the death of shmups. If we want to debate the validity of "difficulty spike" being a valid strike against a game in a critical look, in the meantime, they sure aren't popular, and most people want a "balanced" difficulty. I still struggle to wrap my mind out of how just to enjoy a shmup as there is superb gameplay to get out of them.
super casual here. I would say the least casual thing I do is watch some of your vids XD
I enjoy the games when I've got a basic goal in mind - which often just 'finishing' the game is enough incentive, and depending on my enjoyment of the experience I will replay the game in an attempt to minimise credit dependence and on some rare occasions; attempt 1c or various 'challenge' runs.
But the real question; how do I even start playing the game.. admittedly a big factor is the visual appeal and first impressions of artstyle.
Generally come for the flash , but stay for the substance.
If I have a couple of friends playing the same game at the same level; it's a lot more fun for us to attempt 'high scores' in a casual competitive way. So I think there's something to be said about the 'social' aspect in that more people playing the games would probably get more people interested in playing the games..
But how to tap into the appeal on a broader level..
Considering I have 'phases' of interest when it comes to arcade type gaming, it might also depend on mood. These games require high engagement. That is to say they generally require more attention and focus in terms of reactivity. And I often enjoy games with fun combo mechanics that are normally related to some kind of adaptable rhythmic pattern, Which I sometimes prefer testing myself with as I also find games that are on the more strategic side, to be overwhelming at times when I'm not in the mind set for planning ahead or considering planning / tactics.
BUT other times I want neither planning ahead nor focused reactions, I just want to zone out or relax.. which is when I end up playing a more story/narrative or world driven game.
I wonder if the shmup genre could benefit from integrating/blending elements from other genres. I know there are some story driven shmups out there but I've yet to encounter one that keeps me interested in this way though I'm sure it's possible as there are some that I have been influenced and prefer to play based on setting / theming aesthetics.
Perhaps that's why I remain 'casually' interested as the next stage involves more of the 'planning ahead' stuff that isn't the component that draws me in; if anything it can put me off digging deeper.
Interesting enough subject though - as your content inspires me to share my unrefined thoughts on the matter and I probably wouldn't have thought about this stuff let alone try to articulate it otherwise. ;)
Thanks so much for watching my vids! yes I agree completely. In addition to the core gameplay for shmups, I do think it would be a cool idea for shmups to start diversifying a bit more to bring in more gameplay styles and tastes.
I dunno man. With Aleste Branch, rebooted cotton game and a new pocky and rocky I don't think its finished yet. Agreed, a new cave game would get me excited dont think it would be a big turning event.
I'm pretty hyped for new Cotton and Pocky and Rocky games. I think they'll be breakout hits.
They need to add co op, 2 player mode with rollback netcode. I think past finishing the game with infinite lives there's no incentive for new players to continue.
Unless they have that competitive drive that encourages them to 1CC. And that's extremely niche, but that is why I am here.
That would be lit!!! Yeah if they could create a compelling coop game with rollback that would be amazing
Social capital would probably be the term you are looking for with social credit
Sounds good ha, I was pretty close then.
it is quite interesting to watch this now. I think since the publication of this video, things have changed. At least, the trend has changed. Many more shmups are being developed, both old ports and new ones. Also so many of them are physical. There was a time when you could only find Sine mora on Switch, now you can find easily 2 o 3 new physical shmups every month. Also I feel like it's increasingly more accessible to play them, such as Andro Dunos 2, or any M2 games which have so many options to adapt the difficulty to your taste.
hello^^ haven't finished the video but o recently got into "shmups" from maiden and spell and a bit of acceleration of suguri 2. when you said what could be the counterpart of rollback i immediately thought of them. I can enjoy regular shmups, but, man, vs ones are incredible to me and i need more (with rollback, lol)
Yes, that would be fantastic! I d love that too
_Dying_ is the wrong word.
A more accurate term would be _Evolving._
Much like how the large dinosaurs died after the meteor crashed and smaller animals starting populating the Earth, AAA SHMUPs are gone but smaller, more experimental indie SHMUPs have started to rise.
Also, while Arcade-style SHMUPs may be at a very low point, many genres have begun adopting SHMUP mechanics.
I'd argue that this era will be defined by Hybrid SHMUPs.
@6 mins ish: The living off of (playing) chess part . There's plenty of large channels, and streamers that exclusively play, and analyze chess matches and make huge bank off of it.
Oh yes for sure, especially among the elite players. I was referring more towards the lower tier grandmasters and such. From what I remember (my friend is deeply involved in chess), being a grandmaster in itself does not outright equal money, but if you know how to use the social credit that is associated with being a GM, then you are able to turn that into a living. That's the larger point I was aiming for ha, that being a shmup grandmaster does not have the social credit to convert into coin like a chess GM has.
From where I stand seems like shmups is making a slow resurgence. It was dead a few years ago, especially dead in the early 10, but with all the indie and what amounts to western doujin games on the rise I feel like it's coming back up again, but yeah there needs to be competition to drive the player forward. It's just like the Souls series, player retention was mainly due to the PVP element in the game. Though it's tough to implement that competitive pvp elements in shmups besides scoring and what amounts to just a puzzle game wrapped in shmups skin like in say Twinkle Star Sprites.
There needs to be something that goes further than just 1ccing a game or scoring the highest point.
I feel like it could happen. Just needs that lightning in a bottle moment.
so basically I am just repeating what you said.
The reason shmups have close to 0 player retention is only neuro-divergent people enjoy playing the exact same level over and over again. People are enthusiastic when they start playing shmups because they believe there's variety, when you get bored of 1 shmup you just hop to another. But there is no variety, if you've played one you've played (almost) all of them. Shmups had their golden age in the arcades because for 90% of people, these games stop being fun after 10 or so credits. It's not that shmups are intrinsically unfun so much as 2D autoscrollers suck. You fix the autoscroller crap, and you save the genre.
how tf do you fix the autoscroller on a shmup
Just had an amazing idea. Why has no one ever created a battle royale shmup? Think Tetris 99 or Super Mario 35. Everyone starts on the same level, and levels get progressively harder. You can attack other players like in Tetris 99, but if players gang up on you, you can change modes to amplify your power for how many people are attacking you. And the best part is, there are so many shmups you could do this with. Imagine Cave Royale where everyone is assigned a random level from a random cave game then every subsequent level is a new level from a different game with steadily inclining difficulty. Last person standing wins. And even better, if you wanted to get good at cave royale, you could buy the old cave games and practice.
That would be pretty fun!!
I feel like devs are missing a reaallly fondamental factor in making a shmup appealing : it must instantly look and feel good. Shmup are those kind of games where you simply do the same things over and over. You just want to make those 4 levels, those 25 min of game as beautiful and dense as possible. Because that's all there is.
Cave siglehandedly managed to make the shmup genre last a decade more by making their games irresistibly beautiful and their gameplay so tight that it is instantly catchy. That's the thing that make it so cool.
The gameplay is as old as video games. You got to add something to make it interesting for the player.
I was playing shmups years ago thanks to the french streamers DamDam, A-M, Cdv or Ben Shinobi back in the 2000's. I came back thanks to your videos and now I want to get better at them with an arcade stick :)
I'm really happy to hear that! Glad my vids have helped!
The last shmup I can remember getting traction in the mainstream media was Sine Mora, probably because of its production values and connection to Suda 51.
We've seen shmup mechanics make their way into Undertale and Nier Automita, ensuring a large amount of people are engaging with shmups, all be it in a condensed, bite sized manner.
I've recently seen trailers for the new R Type game coming out next year on IGN, probably because of the heritage of the name and also because of the highf production values- I genuinely think shmups will neeed to have graphics on par with other modern games to grab people's attention on a large scale, either that or a sensibility and style that stands out from the crowd, such as Undertale or Zero Ranger.
I'd like to see a shmup that plays in a similar way to the recent Mario game where people are playing together, sending enemies and bullets back and forth in real time- the aspect ratio of vertical shmups would allow enough space to each side to show other peoples gaming window.
It will be interesting to see where the genre goes.
Yeah I agree for sure!!!
That sounds like Twinkle Star Sprites. TSS99 when?!
Edit: Uhh, turns out there is such a game: Star99. Coming out soon too.
@@lunaria_stg Similar, but not really what I described.
its hilarious that in 2020 Sine Mora is still the shmup with best 3d graphics (well, people who did environments and modelling in sine mora were more talented than those who did gameplay) cause all big releases since then were much weaker visually. Welp, r-type final 2 should change this funny fact finally
and yes, most game news sites ignore genre, by not doing reviews or never including shmups in "results of the year, best 40 games"
I dont know my guy. Maybe its because I own a Switch, but I think shmups are making a huge comeback, & you talkin to someone who owned a Japanese Xbox :) Crimson Clover world re- ignition drops in a few days & just yesterday, I caught the trailer for R -Type Final - 2! If you hinting around about some future Fortnite streaming you wanna try, have at it bro. No skin off my Einhander loving ass lol
Absolutely not, I hate fortnight, battle royal modes with resources and building is the worst combo I could ever imagine. Been playing a bunch of Bayonetta today, but I don't think that's gonna bring in the big numbers either ha.
Lol, you are a man of great tastes I see ;) Cant go wrong loving Bayonetta & hating Fortnite. I swear bro, I got 2 nephews & a niece I know has spent at least $2000 on Fortnite season passes, skins, etc, while Im begging them TRY SOMETHING ELSE!!! Anyways, now that they all have Switch consoles, all 3 have had enough of the " rinse & repeat" lameness & pretty much despise Fortnite lately. Tell your shmup dev friends, there IS light at the tunnel, its just slow af :)@@TheElectricUnderground
@@ronniepatterson2827 i still wait for a game that would deserve Battle Royal name. should be as eccentric as original movie was (unlike all those br games with generic assets from unity store), and should be much more use of environments/traps instead of sniping in grass field and randomloot
Nah. Shmups are like Berserk, not mainstream but far from dead.
This is a genre that can only get worse with popularity. Not necessarily difficulty wise but designing the game around minimizing frustating and usually the way they do that is through RPG mechanics.
Seeing how RPG mechanics ruined the better chunk of beat em ups, I'd say we are lucky for shmups to still be made but out of the spotlight. Nobody wants to see Ikaruga made forever.
*frustration
As I go over in the video, I do think shmups are "dead" in the criteria I outline, in that if there is no directed effort to help them grow, they will continue to be stuck in their very niche status right now, where we are losing as many people as we are gaining and the viability to invest in the genre remains pretty low. The goal of reviving the genre would be creating an ecosystem where shmups are able to sustain and grow the community around them more naturally and where people outside the genre see it as a solid investment. Right now everyone in development that I speak with about this side of things do mention how brutal it is and how larger companies will flat out refuse to invest in shmups because they do not make returns and such.
I can't say I disagree with any of the points you made.
It DOES make it interesting that companies like Rising Star Games, NIS, Kadokawa and M2 make such an effort for our community though despite knowing that the return investment is low. It's probably why we see so many re-releases versus brand new titles.
I've seen shmups get brought up in fighting game discussions a lot. Where fighting games have the spectator aspect on lock but fail to gain new players outside of sales and because of how difficult (and oversaturated) they are to play.
I dunno I think shmups do a particularly good job of lampshading rpg mechanics as shmup conventions (the ubiquitous shop/currency system, weapon levelups from collecting exp in many games (radiant silverfun?), ship building in euroshooties, boss health meters in shmups look a lot like boss health meters in RPGs) and the resulting diagetic mechanics are more intuitive than abstract rule systems (chain meter? multiplier? double hyper? I thought this was a shooting game). Where I see designers (with any level of genre savvy) getting into trouble is not in the RPG mechanics but the RPG storytelling. The shmupitudal shmup plot is a frame story where the narrative doesn't intrude on the action and needs to be that way to not impact the pace. If there is room for innovation in this area it will stretch the definition of shmup.
shumps arent dead they just went home
I got into these games recently through playing centipede chaos at the arcade. Navigating around bullets is strangely cathartic to someone with my kinda ocd.
Hey everybody I'm new to the comunity. I've been binge watching this chanel and binge playing shmups. My interset in gaming has been revitalized by shmups. I can't get enough. I feel like I've played through all the tough side scrollers i. E. Battletoads, hagane, ghost's n goblins etc and was kind of burnt out. Then I sat down one night and tweaked out (figuratively)on Lords of Thunder. Now I'm hooked. I love being fully engrossed in a game.
My question is- where is everybody at? I am active on r/crtgaming and I just joined r/shmups. Is this a good community? I'm basically interested in checking out what games people are playing abd posting my progress on games. I also post youtube videos. Got a few lined up right now.
Oh Definetly check out my discord! It s linked in the vid description
@@TheElectricUnderground okay thanks. I don't use discord but I will look into checking out.
dont forget good old system11, aka mekka for all shmuppers for last 15+ years
@@harmannsmith5653 . Thanks. I've been lurking that forum for years now for non shmup related gaming stuff. Maybe it's time I joined.
fuck, i'm loving this dude
:-D :-D :-D
Shoot em ups at one time was some of my favorite games! Then I put them down and stopped playing them completely, now I'm completely into them again! Been buying shmups left and right!
I m really glad to hear that! I m hoping we see a new upswing over the next few years
@@TheElectricUnderground I really think it will! Everything tends to go in circles! Like music 80s retro is kind of making a come back, there's a few bands that have a 80s sound making hits! Just when it comes back there needs to be a strong scene built up and players to look up to! Hell classic tetris has a pretty big scene and the tournaments are crazy!
First and foremost shmups are not dead because shmups are not A thing. The shmup scene is a cluster of smaller subscenes that do not go with each other. They are pretty disconnected and most of the time disregarding each other blatantly. If they do not get together with each other and work on something mutual none of them will have the critical mass to survive. The fighting scene is a good example. None of the game scenes will survive and thrive without the rest. Players of SF might not care about Smash but their communities get together and work on events like EVO and such. This immediately brings more attention to any of the smaller groups, it might even bring sponsors and even more attention because of that.
Currently I do not see anything connecting people who try to 1cc some games, people who grind scores, smaller developers who try to breath new life and innovate some of the aspects of the genre, people who just watch and are interested from a casual standpoint. You need an actual collaboration between the subscenes, of shmups, you need to get behind new games regardless if you all like everything in them. Metroidvanias did not start with Ori, Hollow Knight and Bloodstained 15 years ago. To get there you need a critical mass of interest. You need events together and you need to try and get people to be interested in shmups as a whole and see the merits in other types of shmups. Unless that happens "Are shmups dead?" will not be a single question but a bunch of questions the answer of which will be "Yes!"
I might share a bunch of thoughts in separate comments under this one just for readability sake.
I do no think retro arcade shmup will be able to keep existing the way it does in the past. It is rooted in mechanics and gaming mindsets that are considered obsolete for the most part. Pretty much no genre relies on lives now, punishing players for tiny mistakes is not the norm, grinding the game over and over for marginally different scores is not a thing. Hell, scores in themselves are not a thing. No bigger developer can justify spending on developement of a game that is guaranteed to have so many unpopular staples.
Unless people are ready to embrace some changes and mainly some variety in the genre, it is not going to work. See for example the RTS genre. Throughout the years a lot of developers tried to bring something new to the table. The audience arrogantly met all of that with hostility. RTS, albeit more popular than shmups and having some E-sport scene, are going to be a dead genre in time as well unless they accept some changes. Even now major or even medium developers cannot justify working on an RTS (and most probably do not want to because of the lack of creative freedom they will be allowed from the fans). That, of course, is not a problem of the fandom. You are not obligated to support something you do not like just because it will help the bigger picture.
Does being a shmup player give you social credit is the wrong question but it will lead you to the right answers. The comparisons with speedrunning, some e-sports and chess are great ones. The social credit depends on the socium (not surprisingly). And to impress the socium you need something that seems official. Being a good speedrunner does not give you too much social credit but whatever credit it does give you is because of the organizitations that tie different communities like ESA, GDQ and most importantly speedrun.com. E-sports are the next step. They have associations, teams and paid events. Chess is even higher because it is acknowledged as a regular sport, people are more familiar with it, it has a longer history, different formats etc.
You need to have something behind your backs that seems official. Whether it is an event, a joint leaderboards or something like that, does not matter. The latter will be a great first step. You migh reach game autors to give you access to the online data they capture for their games and leaderboards. There is no reason for them not to provide it as it will bring publicity. Also, it will give smaller players something to strive for. People who will be in the genre for the competition would find it more enjoyable to start in a leaderboard they can see themselves in and not try to go against some established players that look too oppressive and intimidating.
dunno, under impression that EVO is piece of shit and overall "muh umerica" fighting community as well, they only promote "trendy games" and diregard anything else
anyway, i wonder why roguelikes and twinstick got popular nowodays, but shmups are still niche that alienates most people
@@nerdzone rts... like shmups, didnt really had "grand" new releases for 10+ years. "grand" as ones having huge impact and well known.. yeah.. just small experiments here and there
It's way off the beaten track that's for sure. Shmups haven't been mainstream since the mid 80s really. As long as there is a trickle of releases and a community ongoing - even if it's small - then they aren't dead in the strictest sense. Some of the old franchises still have a high recognition - Space Invaders, Xevious, Galaga/Galaxian etc could still be a mainstream thing on smartphones in the same way casual games of Tetris and Pacman are. Pacman CE showed the way how something can be updated though. You might get the occasional sleeper hit but for I don't see it ever becoming mainstream as the genre is - let's face it - too hard for the average mainstream gamer. Shmups are about delayed gratification so they won't ever get the high volume of players that won and done style of games get. That's just the way it is. Shmups don't have a 1 versus 1 format either - versus fighters are just as hard core but they are attractive to greater volumes because of the direct competitive nature. Shmups aren't really like that.
last arcade-heavy consoles were saturn and dreamcast. with ps1, industry turned into epic/cinematic side. and many people now grew up on such, plot-heavy or not
my definition of dead on this genre in my opinion are probably really basic. The big shmup dev like Taito/Cave/Capcom/Takumi/Treasure/Rizing/Eighting/Moss/Toaplan/ are....barely release a new game lately. if it was a new game, it probably the update/port version from the previous old games. and the doujin/indie shmup dev like Shanghai Alice(AKA Zun) are more active imo. im still wondering if capcom revive Shmup like they made a shmup in 80s-90s. but it's probably the age that devour shmup into a void today. and that is a pretty sad.
A new cave game would interest no one outside of the shmup world. The only thing that would bring shmups into fokus again would be a shmup from Nintendo with mario in it...
still waiting a new cave's arcade game after SDOJ since 2012.........
I like your realistic takes, I'm surprised this is the first time I come across your channel! Subscribed, see ya on discord :) I hope my retention will be ok
Hell yeah!!! :-D
Thankz for this. "I want to see it grow & florish" 🦁
🕹📺📼SHMUPZ📲🎮🎃
Shmups are coming out again. Just going to buy one on steam: Wing of Bluestar
I think the genre is mostly dead because they were designed for arcades, they perfected that arcade design but now that arcades are gone it doesnt work anymore
Also technology has grown a lot and sensibilties have changed
When the console landscape supplanted arcades they failed to captivate audiences in part because of their gameplay design not adapting and in part because of their visuals not adapting, or maybe people got bored of the established formula
Its hard to visualize a shmup that blows up in popularity in current years but if the game looks good/charming in a modern sense and has engaging gameplay outside of an arcade environment/philosophy then maybe
I still think its really cool that you are bringing more awareness to the genre so people who would enjoy these games can get to know about them
awareness and availability is a big part why the genre is not as prominent as it could be
..my way to support the shmup genre is to pay the full price for the games and not wait for sales. Btw. thx for the great content on this channel, its like a hidden treasure in a jungle, i learn so much about shmups here.
Make a FRAXY 2
Of course not! Shmup never end!
Any thoughts on the Studio Mudprints meltdown?
I talked about it on the patreon podcast :-)
what happened?
Very good.
Shmups messiah? Ikaruga 2 but this will probably never happen.
8:21 Real classy, Mark ;)
Haa!! :-D that was from a previous run where I died on the last boss and got salty
I am unable to make a game myself but I have some ideas that I feel would be pretty revolutionary. Is there anyone I can talk to that might be interested in taking cues from my ideas?
You could write up a design outline for your game ideas, I could feature it on my website if you are interested, sounds pretty interesting!
@@TheElectricUnderground I have several ideas but one I have been thinking aBout lately is a vertical top down game where the ship would enter trenches. These would have branching trench paths that you can choose to enter progressively become harder to navigate without hitting the walls but give more points if you can deftly fly the trench destroying all enemies lining the trenches with a short aura laser and a few bombs to blow the most obtuse obstacles out of the players way and you could even have super narrow ducts where the craft rolls knife edge as in star fox to get through the narrowest trenches. This would encourage precise exciting stick tapping and yanking movement and would appeal to speed runners too as a clean run through a trench would be the quickest. The trenches would have staggered bends and cut backs to really test your flying skill.
Do you think that sounds interesting?.
You are not unable to make a game. Learn, practice, and you can make anything. The only obstacle between you and your creation is the amount of effort you are willing to put into learning new skills. Learn how to use GameMaker Studio, anyone can do that, they just need motivation and perseverance.
i'd say there are more shmups than point n click adventures, and yet both are more alive then, say, 2d beatemups or rail-shooters/cabal-shooters
The story of rail shooters is tragic, one of my fav genres :-(. I m a bit more divided on beat em ups though, as they do tend to get more mainstream coverage than shmups do (like streets of rage 4) but it is hard times for these genres as well, no doubt. I consider them part of the shmup family as well.
th-cam.com/video/eGW_Bg7Cdcw/w-d-xo.html
@@TheElectricUnderground they do get coverage, but if u take a look, there are really very very few of them if u dont count unofficial stuff like openbor
@@TheElectricUnderground and yeah, rail and cabal-likes... even more extinct. last cabal like before wild guns remaster was Zombie panic in wonderland, i think
With all this said, what about that Touhou shmup divide?
The way I see it, Touhou dodged this particular bullet by being able to evolve beyond shmups.
touhou has definetly done a ton of stuff right in that regard, for sure!
Speaking of Mike Matei, how would hardcore shmup men rank his skill?
I have no idea ha, I don t know much about his gameplay
@@TheElectricUnderground He seems to be really good at old school games, but I never see him play the hardcore shmups that I only hear about from guys like yourself. Bullet hells like DoDonpachi and the like
Mike was terrible at Sin and Punishment. Didn’t even know how to change the aiming reticle
I'd say the issue with shmups, from the outside looking in, is that shmups don't get "rebooted" with better features.
Take Western RPGs for example. Almost everyone who is hardcore says Morrowind is the best, but Skyrim is by far the more widely enjoyed game. From the standpoint of what shmups lack (i.e. mainstream popularity), Skyrim is by far the better game to adopt as a model. But shmups are mostly stuck being Morrowind; cool and deep but too funky and difficult for their own good.
Start making more shmups like Raging Blasters with the aesthetic of Mushihimesama, and you'll get more attention to this genre. Make the games fair, make them less difficult, but keep the looping systems that will retain veterans.
Just my two cents, from someone who is very very new to the genre.
Bullet Hell certainly isn't dead, but the danmaku style and intensity that was once solely the province of shmups got co-opted by other indie/arcade game styles, like twinstick shooters and roguelites, and even something like Nier:automata. If you narrowly define "shmup" as only forced scrolling games where you go for the 1cc, and any time a developer innovates away from that specific style it's not a shmup anymore, then you are basically defining them into oblivion. Be more accepting of the bastard offspring ;-)
Great comment my dude! I know exactly where you are coming from. So I am actually going to talk about this very point in the next video i do!
@@TheElectricUndergroundI'll be watching. Maybe a slightly different point: have you ever wondered how many 'pure shmups' have already been made in total? "Why I want shmups to succeed" is IMHO ironic in a way because they have succeeded so spectacularly that, even narrowly defined, they might be the video game genre with absolute highest number of entries of all genres. Any new entry in the genre is essentially competing with that huge back catalogue.
@@quixoticsounddesign5613 does Suguri and Sora still counts as a shmup?
me encanto la idea de que pongas un juego poco conocido mientras hablas de "x" topico .-
Well speaking as dev here, I kinda have to disagree with you. When I look at the charts the genre is pretty much alive and kicking, just dominated by a bunch of trashy junk. Furthermore, one also needs to consider that something like ZeroRanger takes way more time to produce and sells much less, even though it has all those fancy articles (see wikipedia for example). So obviously there is a much larger problem for those that would want to have quality games.
Yes exactly, and that s Definetly a big issue I think, where quality is not being recognized and rewarded, like Ketsui Deathtiny, that should have been a big release, but it went completely under the radar basically
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZeroRanger
hm, this looks very good, thx. I liked Guxt
💯 Shmup Grandmaster 🎉
🤔 What would the criteria be for being granted the title of GM?
(Random thought: Is the word "shmup" of yiddish origin? 😆)
I think the mistake with shmups is focusing too much on difficulty and less on level design. The point is to make a game where apart from there being variety in the attack pattern of the enemies there is also an interesting interaction with the level environment (for example, dodging falling spikes or rising columns of fire).
I dont think even Cave could get hype to the scene.
A new DDP or Mushi could bring old player back but there probably wouldnt rly be new players. We have seen it with mushi and ddp daifu on steam.
Yeah it s going to be a huge battle to regain any sort of mainstream attention
@@TheElectricUnderground What i think would gain a little bit attention would be if scoring gets a bit of attention and we would be a little louder.
Another problem or savior how you point it? (Im also part of) is touhou. The community grows, we are probably the biggest active shmup community, but sadly many player dont look into any other shmups because we dont mention them enough.
I play mushi and touhou and got into DDP ressurection because someone posted a video about it on our discord.
Funny story about that: Cave announced they're making a Touhou fangame. In the survey they put out about this, however, one of the last questions is about what mobile games you play. That... doesn't make the shmup fanbase happy.
@@IllusionistsBane People should remember that CAVE doesnt have anything to do with shmups anymore. They have other more money friendly things to do. So a touhou game from cave is basically a gacha trash.
Besides, a CAVE design in touhou would probably rly kill the charme of the game. See FDF. Looks good but no love in the characters what so ever
@@niklasstg6957 About that 'CAVE magic' design, the first CAVE shmup I played was the PS2 port of Mushihimesama. I played it to completion (without the True Final Boss), and the only lasting impression of it that I had was "purple vomit".
I think I got into Touhou some time after playing that game, after I found out about its music in Stepmania. Compared to the aforementioned purple vomit, I think Touhou drew me in with its colorful patterns and music. Add to that that each character's own theme and backstory oozed into their Spell Cards. The very first Touhou game I played was Touhou 7, by the way. I went on to play 8, 11, 12, 10, 10.5, 12.3, 12.8, 13.5, 14.5, 15.5, a bit of 6, and a bit of 16.
Yes, 10.5, 12.3, 13.5, 14.5, and 15.5 were fighters, and they also clued me in that the world of Touhou also works outside of shmups. 12.8 was a shmup which had a neat mechanic, though: chain-freezing bullets.
As for other shmups... well, I played the PS1 port of Strikers 1945 2 on the easiest difficulties and didn't bother going to loop 2. I never had the time to 'git gud' at shmups, so instead of going to other shmups, I went on to Touhou fangames instead. I'd been more of an action/RPG guy anyway.
That SDM-themed EDF copy made by Twilight Frontier who also made the fighter games, Genius of Sappheiros, Labyrinth of Touhou 2, Fushigi no Gensoukyou 2 Miracle Party, Touhou Luna Nights, Touhou Genso Wanderer (FnG2MP's sequel), Gensou Skydrift (kart racer-type game), Lotus Labyrinth R (Touhou Genso Wanderer's sequel), Three Fairies' Hoppin' Flappin' Great Journey (basically Touhou FF12 on steroids), Yuu Yuu Jiteki no Yuukarin (action platformer), the list goes on.
Sorry for the tangent.
Anyway, I've recently started thinking that CAVE fans remain stuck in the past and refused to move forward. Doesn't help that CAVE hasn't made any new shmup title since... 2012, I think. Maybe that's when they recognized the death of the Arcade, and started porting their games over to home consoles. Then the PC later on. Too little too late, unfortunately. By the time they did, Touhou was THE bullet hell.
You say shmups are dead but at the same time you don't even consider mobile shmup to be a real game. Maybe it is time to give em a chance? Also supporting developers (including no name indies) of new games in this genre by at least doing some reviews from steam or itchio, from time to time, could help imo
Mobile:
Aka to Blue
th-cam.com/video/P_FAGZWKVPQ/w-d-xo.html
Indie:
Super XYX
th-cam.com/video/vn_AkaAd7KY/w-d-xo.html
Crisis Wing
th-cam.com/video/pRcvIw8u6Sw/w-d-xo.html
Blue wish ressurection:
th-cam.com/video/zaobbELMxJc/w-d-xo.html
Battle traverse
th-cam.com/video/5nvhGCEYGBU/w-d-xo.html
Exceed 3rd:
th-cam.com/video/9ZB17dcqq8g/w-d-xo.html
ZeroRanger
th-cam.com/video/-jlSMNzjbMs/w-d-xo.html
Blue Revolver
th-cam.com/video/XXnmBDedo08/w-d-xo.html
Danmaku Un 3
th-cam.com/video/ti2P8ovO7kA/w-d-xo.html
Refrain
th-cam.com/video/IVXmPorEARg/w-d-xo.html
And more :-)
thre are some great shmups on mobiles, too bad mobiles as platform is too shortliving, and most games die quickly either when OS changes or servers shutdown. Imho, all quality releases MUST be ported to pc or at least consoles, as with those platforms much more abilities to keep game available for decades
@@harmannsmith5653 what are the good mobile shmups? Give me some examples aside from Bullet Hell Monday
@@soratheorangejuicemascot5809 Bullet Hell Monday is good, also i played and liked Aka to Blue, Star Shooter Gaiden and Dodonpachi Maximum (unlike other Cave titles it was made for touch in mind). I also recall playing less good ones, but if you are interested to check for yourself: Galaga Special Edition, Air Barrage, Sector Strike, S.T.G., Shogun, Xerlorians. There might be more... but my most active touchscreen era was around 2010-2016 and since then i went back to portable consoles and pc.
@@harmannsmith5653 I think Star Shooter Gaiden needs some recognition. It looks like a nice caravan style shooter.
No, they are not. I play them almost every day. 😄
I talk about this in the vid ha :-)
well shmups are getting super niche...... i do wish one day some of the flagship title like DDP can steer clear from paedophilliac theme with all the underaged "android" ---> whatever you might argue this.... it's sort of hmm...sickening....but that's just my point of view. Japanese are different and i think they might think it's just normal
I m making a whole video about this topic actually!
are you ironic or really that much puritan sjw ? unless u meant deathsmiles ofc
@@harmannsmith5653 yeah pretty sure you are the kind of guy that is fine with underaged anime girl flauting swimsuit for fan service and other anime weeb shiz. Nothing wrong with it if you are into that stuff (pretty sure you would argue they are fictional character) ---> just pointing out the sort of direction that the whole japanese weeb anime hentai waifu trending at the moment and it's sort sickening to say the least. Aside from that the game is solid
Speaking of DDP, the androids' presence also lead the main story to nowhere.
I recently got into video game pinball. One of the things Zen Studios does is acquire licenses to make an Avengers table or a Doom, Fallout, Star Wars, ect. pinball table. I think it would be awesome to have well know IPs be made into shmups. I'd like to play a Halo or a Dragonball z or Star Wars shmup. Something that people know about to pull them into the genre.
I don’t think shmups are dead , it’s just that people are turning out a load of indie crap. We need more crimzon clover level games.
This so called "indie crap" is one of your very few chances of getting the genre somewhere.
@@nerdzone Id rather go without and play fighting games than play games like sky force reloaded. What sort of idiot thought that was a fun game .
euroshmup fans?
I won t call dead. I agree they are on a all time low. The Steam store is full of bad shumps, and it is hard to see the good ones. Most of the reviewers dont know what makes a great shotemup . Euro shooters like sine mora, etc have great scores.plus the style now is dominated by bullet hells. Cave is a good company , but does not take risks like in the past (dangun feveron for instance). Their games lack inovattion.
Yeah now cave just make a mobile shmup :-(
dude i think lightgun ģames are also dead truly sad
I know! Though I am really excited about the new lightgun that came out that can run on modern displays, I'm going to get one soon so keep an eye out for some fun lightgun content soon!
Well, you just said. THE NEXT DODONPACHI arcade and all that… Arcades are dead my friend. I am interested in the genre but i find it impossible in some aspects. Everyone says oh CAVE is the best. THE NEW ALESTE cave game ONLY ARCADES… oh, fantastic. Or the community all the time talk about games that are not available in current gen consoles or steam. And many like me are not modding, are not emulating. I just want to play games in my free time and i dont know the how to do all that and i dont think i have the patience to try and error until i have something running. That is not exactly easy, and you could say: well… then you are not that interested… I think this is were this genre is dying. Accessibility is a key component and expecting people to do all those things to get a game running is kind of ridiculous not to mention ilegal or it feels ilegal, or in a very grey area. I love the genre but i think its most of the time a bunch of elitist people talking about all this fantastic games I can’t play because I can’t pay money and play them. I’m not sure if I’m making my point across. And then when these games make a comeback is in… EXA something… And you check the prices and I’m like that’s fine. I am ok. The companies that are making the most for shmups are the companies who published their games on ps4 and switch and consoles. I got into the genre thanks to city connection ports of old games. I know you find them unplayable… i loved them so much i ended up sticking around. Lol
Guess it's a good thing Touhou started with the PC-98 and Windows.
Also, now that I think about it, someone else also said that Shmups are dead because they'd reached an innovation dead end. No shmup fan wanted to try any shmup that doesn't follow a CAVE/Toaplan/Psikyo/Raizing/Treasure formula and the shmups that do don't sell well.
By the way, I'm a Touhou fan and not a Shmup fan. I tried the Touhou games and got drawn in by the characters and their character-specific patterns based on their identity and backstory. When I played the Touhou games I played them for the lore and music, not to get the highest score possible - just getting to the end without a continue is enough for me. My most memorable moment was dying touching a bullet in Subterranean Sun as Utsuho was exploding. That was baffling and wild.
I tried the PS2 port of Mushihimesama and all I saw was forgettable purple vomit.
As to why I brought that up: Someone said that ZUN refuses to follow the Shmup formula and that there's a reason that formula exists in the first place. What, so they want Touhou to be more like the innovation dead ends?
booth babes
Do we even want shmups to be more popular?
Are schmups dead? From a demand point of view , yes. When the demand is not enough, well there’s no development. Pretty dead in that respect, but in terms of are they forgotten and not played anymore? Absolutely not. Very much alive. Niche, but it’s there and its core is hard. Retro is and has been on the up for a few years especially on the Saturn and on other platforms plus emulation.This is not worth a 20 minute video.
The video will tie in with future videos. The points I discuss will be a lot of the goals of this channel :-)
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I think the problem is the fact that well at least to me video games are dead. Lets also be honest all of the shmups that came out on ps4 really sucked. When you have old school games where the graphics look good like DoDonPachi then new school games that look like garbage and cheap really suck. Well of course the genre is going to die.