Less of a feature, more of a survey
I've been racking my brains for most of this afternoon, because it's too humid to do anything that involves physical movement. I've drawn a blank, so I figured I may as well ask the millions of readers of WoSland for help.
Can anyone think of a single really good shmup in the entire history of gaming that's ever been created by an English-speaking developer?
For the avoidance of doubt, I'm talking about shmups in the most traditional sense – horizontal or vertical forced scrollers, none of your arena-based affairs. I mean your classic arcade titles in the mould of Flying Shark and Scramble, that kind of thing.
I've got nothing. Every single great shmup I've been able to think of was made in Japan. The only thing that even got a bit close was Defender, from all the way back in 1980, but with its free movement that doesn't really fit the genre. It's really an arena shooter, just with restricted firing directions.
All the big-name series, certainly, come from Japan. Gradius/Nemesis/Salamander/Parodius? Japanese. R-Type? Japanese. Raiden? Japanese. Giga Wing, Shikigami, Psyvariar, Darius, 194X, Strikers 1945 – all Japanese. Everything by Cave/Raizing/Eighting, obviously.
And no matter how far back I went, and even if I picked out single games that weren't part of a long line, the story was the same. Radiant Silvergun and Ikaruga, from Treasure? As Japanese as it gets. Twin Cobra, from 1987? Japanese (Toaplan). Tiger Heli, 1985? Japanese (Taito). Vanguard, 1981? Japanese (SNK). And so on, seemingly for all eternity.
I've given up for now. I don't know why people whose first language is English – a designation encompassing hundreds of millions of the world's population – would be somehow genetically or culturally unable to craft a successful and popular scrolling shoot-'em-up, especially with three decades of tried-and-tested examples to draw on. But it seems they can't.
The best I could come up with in an afternoon, even with my legendarily encyclopaedic gaming knowledge, was Banshee for the CD32, which isn't all that good. (And turned out to be Danish anyway – see below. Even extending the criteria to the entire Western hemisphere only brought me that and Apidya for the Amiga, both from 20 years ago.) Can you set me right? Anyone?
The first person to say "Xenon 2" gets a lifetime IP ban.
August 1, 2011 at 5:01 pm
Jamestown?
http://www.finalformgames.com/jamestown/
August 1, 2011 at 5:02 pm
Clearly, as a modern PC game, I have no idea. But it looks like it would suck for a single player, having to cover the entire width of the screen.
August 1, 2011 at 5:04 pm
I'm not a seasoned shmup player, but I have liked:
Uridium & Uridium 2 (Hewson, UK)
Mutant Storm & Astro Tripper (Pom Pom, UK)
August 1, 2011 at 5:06 pm
Oh, and SWIV: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzD81DjnLl0
August 1, 2011 at 5:09 pm
Uridium and Space/Astro Tripper come under Defender, and Mutant Storm is an arena shooter. FAIL.
I'll just about give you SWIV – sluggish but inventive – although again we're going back over 20 years for that one.
August 1, 2011 at 5:09 pm
Shame you're not counting defender-like games as I would have suggested DropZone and Iridis Alpha. Can't really think of any western vertical scrollers that were any good tho.
August 1, 2011 at 5:13 pm
Banshee? Swedish developers IIRC but er, multi-lingual as I recall.
Katakis/Denaris if you use the Apidya origin contingency and ignore the coin-op origin. Er.
I don't think I ever played SWIV, so dunno, but there – that?
Sky High Stuntman was about as good as the speccy got for vertical shmups.
I assume that the like of Uridium and Cybernoid aren't being included for not being 'proper' scrolling shmups, or not being 'pure' enough.
As for why – I don't think western developers ever properly understood the concept of the end-of-level Boss Of Doom. That would be my suggestion for 'next' question. What western games have big, impressive, tough bosses to get past, in the 8/16-bit era? Only Doom springs to mind for me, and that was arguably of the 32-bit era.
August 1, 2011 at 5:19 pm
You're (almost) right about Banshee – seems to have been chiefly Danish. And wasn't Katakis/Denaris actually German?
The next question is more likely to be “Why can’t Westerners do original puzzle games either?”
August 1, 2011 at 6:47 pm
Jets’n'Guns ain’t half bad (though Western not English), and Jamestown appeals to me more than any shmup since Ikaruga.
August 1, 2011 at 6:54 pm
I remember Jets'n'Guns, though not why I didn't like it. Anyone got any views on Jamestown from the perspective of the single player specifically? It does look good.
August 1, 2011 at 6:57 pm
Oh, and on Front 2 Capy's Clash of Heroes is one of the finest things I've ever played, with unique puzzle mechanics on the block-to-block level and variety one layer up in the battle parameters. Also, technically, Sudoku. Not that notably unique, recent releases have any effect on your thesis.
August 1, 2011 at 7:00 pm
It's nice that Jamestown has co-op but it's irrelevant to me; I'm looking at it purely from a singleplayer perspective. Sold mainly by Totalbiscuit's Let's Play: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1eoE3wkPLQ
August 1, 2011 at 8:39 pm
Hmf. You talked me into trying it, only to find there's no detectable demo and I have to piss around with all manner of stupid bollocks (Steam or worse) just to install it.
August 1, 2011 at 9:07 pm
No doubt I'll be shot down in flames for this, but for good original Western puzzle games, Portal, surely?
August 1, 2011 at 10:15 pm
I thought of Apidya immediately, and am sad to realise you mention it at the bottom of your post.
Hmm.
My gut feeling is that Western developers made enough money copying Japanese conventions (and even whole games) to not need to innovate. This is also pretty true in the platforming genre – perhaps most especially gun’n'run. And what are the truly Western genres? Arguably FPSs, C&C strategy games, point’n'click adventures, and Flight Sims.
August 2, 2011 at 4:20 am
Zynaps?
August 2, 2011 at 5:29 am
Yah, sorry. It just barely came out on the positive side of my Steam Tax algorithm.
August 2, 2011 at 7:44 am
Agh, last one I promise. ‘Five-finger’ demos, small and plentiful.
August 2, 2011 at 8:33 am
How about Sanxion and Delta on the C64, by Thalamus? They were OK.
August 2, 2011 at 9:10 am
wiv was the first one i though as well… who would have thought that, the Amiga as beacon for western hemisphere shmups…. Time for an Apidya session, wonder if that holds up today..
August 2, 2011 at 9:15 am
retroganmer had an interview with apiday's german makers a few months back btw, including why they took the japanese name (i suppose to given their shmup more credibility the if they would be called Wehrmacht Entwikkelung GMBH…
August 2, 2011 at 9:57 am
Raptor: Call of the Shadows, from Apogee? Derivative, perhaps, but if you were there for the 'golden years' of shareware PC gaming in the mid-nineties this was a stand-out title.
Zone 66, from Epic Megagames (not sure if it qualifies)?
Blast Works: Build, Trade, Destroy is of course based on Kenta Cho's Tumiki Fighters, but on a technicality was made by a US dev and never saw a release in Japan.
Other than that I've got nothing.
August 2, 2011 at 10:18 am
Don't be such a grumpy old man, Stu. Steam is great. You put up with iTunes, so why not start using Steam?
August 2, 2011 at 11:58 am
Battle Squadron? (Amiga/Megadrive)
August 2, 2011 at 12:21 pm
Lightforce (Gargoyle/FTL IIRC).
August 2, 2011 at 4:02 pm
Gunbee, a total rip off of Twinbee/ Bells and Whistles.
Came out on the Amiga when it was well and truly dead but was actually pretty good. Gets further credit by being made in Peru too.
Cybernoid for C64 also, mental hard as well.
August 2, 2011 at 5:55 pm
Project-X for the Amiga was sort of good, but can't really compare to their japanese counterparts.
Sad thing is, my favourite Shoot Em Up on the Amiga is probably the Shoot Em Up-levels of Turrican II, they were awesome and a complete game with that engine would have kicked ass!
August 2, 2011 at 7:28 pm
Fren-ze and Leave Home?
August 2, 2011 at 9:23 pm
“retroganmer had an interview with apiday’s german makers a few months back btw”
Whaaaaaat?! There was Kaiko stuff in RG?! What issue was this?
August 2, 2011 at 9:56 pm
Lightforce was indeed pretty superb. How about Xenon II?
August 2, 2011 at 10:36 pm
I guess if we're counting Europeans-who-probably-spoke-English then (Miggy) Battle Squadron is worth a mention, as is (Speccy) Thunderceptor.
August 2, 2011 at 10:42 pm
"Don't be such a grumpy old man, Stu. Steam is great. You put up with iTunes, so why not start using Steam?"
1. When a man is in pain, why would he want to double his pain?
2. I unfortunately have to use iTunes, because I have to play iOS games to maintain Free-App Hero. I don't ever need to play PC games.
August 2, 2011 at 10:43 pm
Jeff Minter isn't Japanese is he?
August 2, 2011 at 10:46 pm
Battle Squadron was meh – almost impossible until you got powered up, then absurdly easy. Lightforce was an amazing technical achievement but not so great a game, largely because of the lack of autofire. Raptor was just barely better than Tyrian, which is to say just barely better than totally awful. Thunderceptor I don't even remember.
August 2, 2011 at 10:47 pm
"Jeff Minter isn't Japanese is he?"
Which scrolling shooters has he written, though? That one with the camels was rubbish, and just a rip-off of The Empire Strikes Back anyway.
August 2, 2011 at 10:47 pm
Armalyte (c64) was pretty special., though borrowed somewhat from Gradius.
Katakis was indeed Rainbow Arts (German). In fact, I can only think of German developers doing anything significant for shoot 'em ups in recent times in the west: the NG:Dev team who produced a few mediocre homebrew shooters for the DC (and also ported the half-decent Fast Striker to iOS).
August 2, 2011 at 10:52 pm
I was thinking of Gridrunner Revolution, but maybe that doesn't count.
August 2, 2011 at 10:58 pm
Oh, Shoot 1up on Xblig is pretty cool, by US citizen Nathan Fouts.
August 2, 2011 at 11:08 pm
I'd say it's down to a lack of shmups in Western arcades. Not much money to be made from that genre either so there aren't many trying.
The Japanese aren't much interested in PC gaming so they can't seem to make any decent FPS or RTS despite many hundreds of big budget attempts.
There were a few western guys knocking out homebrew games on the shmups.com board that weren't entirely awful. Trying to remember the one that was like a Cave shooter with Gradius powerups. Cavdius or something but Google isn't turning up much.
August 2, 2011 at 11:09 pm
Tyrian/Tyrian2k?
August 2, 2011 at 11:10 pm
oh skimming fail. I liked Tyrian. It has weird streetfighter-type moves for undocumented special abilities.
August 3, 2011 at 1:37 am
Phobia on the C64 I thought was pretty good. I think it was by Mirrorsoft.
August 3, 2011 at 2:15 am
Have you played Hydorah, Stu?
August 3, 2011 at 2:16 am
[i]"1. When a man is in pain, why would he want to double his pain?"[/i]
Steam is really very good, especially if you wait to pick up the bargains when they do a crazy sale. 'Bit.Trip Runner' I'd never heard of, but at 90p it's mine.
August 3, 2011 at 2:17 am
It's important to recognize that video arcades themselves became an almost exclusively Japanese arena by the mid-80s, and the great paradigm shift at the time was the shift away from single-screen arena games to scrolling adventures. I'm thinking NES, Super Mario, Contra, Gradius, R-Type, Double Dragon, yadda yadda.
Western video game developers moved on to home computers – C64, Amiga, PC. Within a few years, they shed their early arcade roots (say, Asteroids or Ms. Pac-Man) and embraced simulations, adventure RPGs, and generally away from twitch games. This is the "video games as movies" crowd. Long story short, the arcade (Japanese) games have since faded away, while the adventure and "games-as-movies" (Western PC) crowd has taken over, like rock 'n roll being replaced by country.
I'd like to think that the rise of social games, or whatever we end up calling Facebook-iPod-Wiimote games, mean a shift back to the arcade values, and a revival of those classic 2D Japanese games. I think we're seeing that now, but there's also a learning curve as there's no real history of these sort of games in the West. We never had an American Toaplan or Technosoft.
Of course, it would be cool if the Japanese video game scene was still healthy, but that market is nearly in terminal decline. I'm not sure why that is, or how one would turn things around. Of course, I'm also aware that we no longer have pinball, drive-in movies or surf music. Everything fades away, everything dies. There's no reason to think it won't happen to video games. Anyway, that's my take on the matter.
August 3, 2011 at 2:41 am
Pastfinder on the Atari 800?
August 3, 2011 at 3:22 am
I had a fantastic time with Irukandji (http://www.charliesgames.com/wordpress/?page_id=11). Not particularly long, but I've kept coming back to it regularly over the past couple years trying to unlock the last ship.
August 3, 2011 at 3:40 am
Whoop. Puzzlers: <a href="http://www.arcengames.com/w/index.php/tidalis-features">Tidalis</a>. Also every great thing Popcap's done.
August 3, 2011 at 4:38 am
Anarchy was a great shooter for the Amiga from Psygnosis (although it was a Defender clone, so I guess you're not counting it?)
Hybris?
August 3, 2011 at 4:57 am
Yeah, Hydorah (http://www.locomalito.com/juegos_hydorah.php) is a really well-crafted homage to Gradius / Japanese-shmup style, done by Spaniards. The level called "Path of Scylla" about 3/4 through is a highlight: moving scenery, water pushing you around, exciting.
It's as if Western developers generally feel that scroll/dodge/shoot is not sophisticated enough as a base to build a game on, and try for more conceptual innovation from the get go. Look at Williams and Atari in their arcade heyday: every game a different control method. Atari released Tempest, an evocation of its designer's monster-filled nightmares (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_%28arcade_game%29#Production) in the same year that Namco released Galaga, a souped up version of Galaxian.
The other driving force in Western game design has been technological innovation, though of course we're now long weary of it. Tempest was pushing that too: (according again to the Wiki page) it was meant to be a 3D remake of Space Invaders. I'm slightly too young to remember first hand but I think I've read stuff with Eugene Jarvis saying that the scrolling playfield of Defender was a feat of programming at the time.
On home computers, games tended to be more complicated than in the arcades for a host of reasons anyway. Camels aside, bizarre control schemes and rule sets were almost Jeff Minter's USP on the C64: multiple guns to control simultaneously (Hellgate), 360-degree platforming and shooting (Ancipital), a mirror world, multiple energy bars and the hell else (Iridis Alpha) – all good games though fundamentally different in play from (and less intuitive than) trad. shmups. Some of Andy Braybrook's other games were pretty unusual compared to Uridium.
(In relation to Daniel Thomas MacInnes' comments: If as I'm saying, Western developers felt that a certain type of game was 'too simple' to be worthwhile, maybe that's an early form of the embarrassment about itself that the industry seemed to take on that caused it to rush towards stories and movies in the desire for credibility.)
Conversely the Japanese style has been one of iteration and refinement; adding elements to a basic design that already works. Gradius didn't change Scramble's basic controls; instead it added an interesting weapons system. The modern 'hardcore' shmups may have complicated scoring systems and be more difficult but the basic integrity of scroll/dodge/shoot is not compromised. If done with enough purity, this sort of design can lead nicely to extra levels of gameplay for monastic players; crazy fools gonna try and finish Gradius with only speedups, or Giga Wing without using the Reflect Force (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ8RqXNtxC8) (Maybe it's impossible to do the whole game like that. Maybe not the best example).
I don't know about this paragraph, but. I wonder if starting from that solid base; that having less of an anxious need to change everything up; coincides with a greater attention on the feeling of the gameplay itself. Feeling as in mushy, intangible sensations. There's a lot of Japanese shmups in MAME and by definition they're all pretty similar, but when you play them they all feel slightly different. In one the explosions go 'KRAKOW' and in another the explosions go 'KRIKAW'. I'm just saying that if I want to play a game to relax, I tend to go for those games first. @Daniel: Games as rock and roll.
It's when 'Westerners' (putting that in scare quotes now as I start remembering the Japanese developers with more wacky conceptual tendencies like Treasure that scruff up my theory, and also not to trend towards 'hemispherialism') attempt to imitate the Japanese style and give in to their complexifying urges in the manner of adding something like an /energy bar/, you get the dreaded 'Euroshmup' as they call it on the forum at shmups.com. Man, I don't know what they're talking about. Xenon 1 was okay!
August 3, 2011 at 5:15 am
And wasn't Katakis/Denaris actually German?
Yeah, thus the Apidya origin contingency. In hindsight I should have just said "it's also German".
August 3, 2011 at 6:28 am
Yes, as someone said…
"Have you played Hydorah, Stu"? If not, why not?
It's as shmuppy as they come, released in 2010 and the dev's definitely not Japanese.
August 3, 2011 at 7:08 am
@mr. D. , a quick google suggest is november'09 so that should be around 72.. i'll ook in my (" very well organised archive" -ed) later today..
August 3, 2011 at 7:25 am
issue 67, with a bomberman cover..
http://www.retrogamer.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=16562&hilit=apidya+67
while looking for this discovering just how many RG-magazines there are by now is incredible.. we're nearing 100!
August 3, 2011 at 7:35 am
I do remember Hydorah, but Spanish isn't "English-speaking", is it? And while some of these homebrew titles are indeed pretty good, I was really after something released commercially. Should have said so, I guess.
August 3, 2011 at 12:56 pm
Gridrunner++?
August 3, 2011 at 1:30 pm
Revisited Banshee on my Cd32 (had to find my english-to continental connector first), first minute isn't that good, but then it starts to click and it really is a fine game, never forget how ap decribed the feeling of killing a polar.. it still makes too go into you
it's also a very amiga game, with the typical rain effect, the superstardus explosions (which still look nice, but now very repeating, more so than pre AGA explosions) and the post chaos engine standard metallic scoreboard look..
August 3, 2011 at 7:46 pm
English shmup – Harrier Attack for the spectrum.
Fun with a capital FUN and you can bomb your own aircraft carrier!
English puzzle game – umm, pipemania anyone?
August 3, 2011 at 7:56 pm
When thinking about how all this came about, I wonder if it's possible to overstate the influence of the tech? I mean, arcade boards and Japanese 8-bit consoles generally took a tile-based approach to graphics whereas the popular 8 (and, in fact, 16)-bit western computers didn't. If there's a whole layer of technology that's perfectly suited to scrolling shooters built into the hardware then that's going to lead to more developers opting for the genre and being able to devote a higher percentage of dev time to gameplay design; If getting a scrolling tile-map up and running at a decent speed is a feat in itself then your wings are clipped from the off. I don't think it's all that surprising that the less specialised graphics systems of the western machines led to more varied output and generally weaker scrolling shooters.
August 4, 2011 at 1:53 pm
Z-Out by Rainbow Arts was really good R-Type homage and the sequel to X-Out.90% in Amiga format!
August 4, 2011 at 5:57 pm
I’m not sure if you’re aware how much you just undermined your argument at the end there.
August 4, 2011 at 6:40 pm
Hey, but Amiga Format at least gave Worms the love it deserved.
The only game that ever scored higher in the mag was Workbench, a true Amiga classic.
August 4, 2011 at 11:04 pm
Did you like
or was that someone else on AP? Probably the only vertical scroller I ever really spent any time with on the Amiga, despite looking like C64 homebrew.
August 4, 2011 at 11:04 pm
Bloody formatting.
August 4, 2011 at 11:06 pm
(and for "homebrew" read "PD", obv. What has happened to my brain?)
August 4, 2011 at 11:42 pm
Yeah, I was the one who liked Plutos. Nice little game, albeit basically a ripoff of Star Force.