What shmup are you playing now?

[Ack]

Hey, it's cool. Sin and Punishment is an on-rails shooter. It's from the same shooter genre, but different subgenres.

Anyway, lately I'm playing a lot of Super Earth Defense Force. I'm honestly terrible and am currently plateauing at the end of the fourth level. But every time I play, I notice some slight improvements on how I handle the level, so I get a little farther every time. Hopefully I'll eventually be able to get to level 5.

[Breetai]

New to the Shmup genre, (which means I have committed a forum-wide sin for waiting this long to pick one up) and have been playing the hell out of Sin and Punishment: Star Successor. My god, if all Shmups are like this...what have I been missing out on all these years?

Sin and Punishment is not a shmup.

It's...not?
Proves how much I know of the genre. -__-
So...off to go find a copy of Ikaruga then.

For the record, these are shmups (shoot 'em ups, or more traditionally, "shooters"):

Horizontal Shooter (ex. Gradius Gaiden)


Vertical Shooter (ex. Soldier Blade)


Rail Shooter (ex. Galaxy Force II) (Sin & Punishment is a rail shooter)

[dsheinem]

For the record, these are shmups (shoot 'em ups, or more traditionally, "shooters"):

Horizontal Shooter (ex. Gradius Gaiden)


Vertical Shooter (ex. Soldier Blade)


Rail Shooter (ex. Galaxy Force II) (Sin & Punishment is a rail shooter)

I wouldn't put rail shooters in the shmups category. Panzer Dragoon, Space Harrier, Light Gun games, etc. are all rail shooters but not traditionally shmups. They are "borderliners":

I'm going by this glossary, which I find to be quite good and specific, written boy those who know: http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9665

Borderliner: Broad term used to describe “shooting” games that many, but not all, players do not consider to quite qualify technically as shmups. Examples include “Run n’ Gun” shooters (Contra, Metal Slug), “Rail” shooters (Panzer Dragoon, Star Fox), and “Tube” shooters (Gyruss). As with shmups themselves, there really is no hard-and-fast definition of what exactly constitutes a “borderliner,” and individual conceptions of it vary widely.

[Breetai]

I wouldn't put rail shooters in the shmups category. Panzer Dragoon, Space Harrier, Light Gun games, etc. are all rail shooters but not traditionally shmups.

I wasn't going to, but the guy who seemed confused on the subject was referring to a rail shooter (Sin & Punishment), so I threw it in there. Besides, in my point of view, I can't not consider games like After Burner, Space Harrier, Galaxy Force, Soul Star, Star Fox, Panzar Dragoon, etc. to be shooters. Besides, what do you do with Gradius III if these aren't shoot 'em ups? If you don't include the 4th stage in the shoot 'em up category, it throws the whole game, and then series, and then genre into a tear in the space time continuum. It could destroy the universe as we know it!!!

I figure that I am in the know, so I can say they are shoot 'em ups! Anyway they have space ships (or substitutes in the case of Panzar Dragoon or Space Harrier) and you can shot stuff, so they are shoot 'em ups in my book.

Light gun games aren't included because they are gun games! It's true because that's how I arrange my stuff.


Gradius III: borderline rail shooter or traditional shmup?

[Gamerforlife]

Playing deathsmiles.

God, the graphics and sound are AMAZING!

I'm a newbie to bullet hell shooters, so I'm playing rank 1. First two stages down, haven't taken a hit yet. I'm having fun

[Yukima]

Playing some of Macross 2036, since I finally got a copy of it. It's hard...

[noiseredux]

For the record, these are shmups (shoot 'em ups, or more traditionally, "shooters"):

Horizontal Shooter (ex. Gradius Gaiden)


Vertical Shooter (ex. Soldier Blade)


Rail Shooter (ex. Galaxy Force II) (Sin & Punishment is a rail shooter)

I wouldn't put rail shooters in the shmups category. Panzer Dragoon, Space Harrier, Light Gun games, etc. are all rail shooters but not traditionally shmups. They are "borderliners":

I'm going by this glossary, which I find to be quite good and specific, written boy those who know: http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9665

Borderliner: Broad term used to describe “shooting” games that many, but not all, players do not consider to quite qualify technically as shmups. Examples include “Run n’ Gun” shooters (Contra, Metal Slug), “Rail” shooters (Panzer Dragoon, Star Fox), and “Tube” shooters (Gyruss). As with shmups themselves, there really is no hard-and-fast definition of what exactly constitutes a “borderliner,” and individual conceptions of it vary widely.

I think the same way about them.

[ggg]

i'm playing espgaluda in arrange mode on ps2 and guwange on mame in very hard mode.
or better... i'm trying to play those games but i suck.

[Breetai]

Playing some of Macross 2036, since I finally got a copy of it. It's hard...

The parallax scrolling in that game is amazing, especially considering that the PC Engine doesn't have any built in hardware support for it. A really nice example of how big of an upgrade System 3.0 was.

[saturnfan]

Been playing Cotton 2 and Paridius