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[Billy_Pilgrim]

Jank.

 

[djtiesto]

You need to study COD, a twitch shooter where different guns have recoil, viewkick and centre speed vs ROF hence feel as well as balances to range and time to kill,

Then take Destiny and such which has slower bullet travel and requires cover and movement, but also has so unique gun feel gameplay.

For me the detail in the gunplay is why they are popular in the west.

Eastern shooters dont have that attention to those finer points and focus on other things.

For example, a KF 44 in BO3 has unique view pitch kick and yaw, and a centre speed to bring back the recoil vs ROF and the range to which it is effective. This gun feels very different to every other assault rifle in Bo3.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1k7jVpX782zoAIDGqj61l1Yw5qoPf1QVHpM01mwa-tTI/edit#gid=0

Eastern games dont do anything close to such gun play, and many posters dont appreciate why such games click with players who play shooters..

Why are you talking about Call of Duty and Destiny in a shmup thread?

Anyways, I haven't played too many euroshmups, and the only real things immediately apparent in the ones I've played were - The levels seem much longer, hitboxes seem bigger, and there's usually more of a focus on purchasing/acquiring new upgrades. Some of the ones I've played have life bars as well.

I think the difference between western/Euro and Japanese platformers is much more pronounced than the difference between western/Euro and Japanese shmups, honestly.

 

[DeadTrees]

Broad strokes? Japanese shooters are games, Western shooters are immersive sims. Compare Asteroids (from Spacewar) with Space Invaders (from Pong, via Breakout): Asteroids offers the player a lot of freedom in a world governed by systems, Space Invaders offers the player a focused challenge in a more restrictive world. It doesn't matter how far you go from there, through Defender and Xevious and beyond, Western developers will always regress towards valuing emergent behaviour for its own sake, while Japanese developers will ultimately fail to understand the appeal.

This post is only a few terrifying synapses away from "White people are culturally defined by wearing leg warmers and listening to Journey, while black people gravitate towards fried chicken and so-called 'rap music'. Now, hand me my PhD."

 

[NathanS]

As noted they have a history of appealing to different audiences this article gives an interesting run down on the view of someone more into euroshumps explaining where they feel the differences come from:

IN DEFENSE OF EUROSHMUPS, A RETROSPECTIVE

In reality, while some of those things might make a game less fun (my personal pet peeve is something that often happens in browser-based shmups when you can either keep all the money found in a level even when you don't beat it or replay early levels ad infinitum, making it possible to grind your way to victory), they're not universally bad. They simply make the game less arcadey – and this is the essence of the subgenre. Euroshmups are shoot-em-up games designed for computers.

An even clearer view of the divide in shmup audiences isin Ross' review on Tyrain. He digs into Japanese shmups, most notably against one hit kills, something most big Japanese Shmup fans hold as a strength; somethign that forces the game to be tightly made and forces the developer to make sure perfect play is possible:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w025kQRMZwA&t=6m2s (warning a little bit of cultural essentialism going on at the end.)

From where I linked to 8:50 is the part I'm talking about, just before the part I've linked to he's described the recharging shields, armor life bar, armor pick ups, lack of lives and saving system of Tyrain.

The most important line has to be :

...as many as three lives? But what the hell is the point of that? To make you die so you have to stick more coins in your computer or consoles, expect you can't do that? I don't like games that demand perfection and will punish me for anything less.

 

[Jerry Orbach]

This post is only a few terrifying synapses away from "White people are culturally defined by wearing leg warmers and listening to Journey, while black people gravitate towards fried chicken and so-called 'rap music'. Now, hand me my PhD."

Nice "satirical" racism. BTW I call it trap music because it traps young black men in a perpetual cycle of violence and misogyny.

"Culturally speaking, Japanese culture is firmly rooted in wet-rice agriculture and its status as an island nation," says [Keiji] Inafune. "Japanese want to be able to plan, they want to have guidance, they want to have focus. To put it simply, Japanese people feel uncomfortable with the unknown and not understanding the future. RPGs illustrate this well -- it is your turn to attack, it is the enemy's turn to attack. You pick a magic spell and you have a predictable result. You progress through the game with clearly defined goals. Japanese enjoy having these clearly-defined goals, and it progresses all the way through to the actual game implementation. Japanese people don't like just being dropped into a sandbox with no guidance. If you tell a Japanese person they are free to go anywhere, often times they will choose to go nowhere.

"Westerners, on the other hand, seem to be excited by the unknown. For instance, as a hunting and trapping society, an American may go deer hunting and encounter a bear. Japanese would be scared by this encounter, whereas the American will probably shoot the bear and go back excited that he got a bear instead of a deer. The unknown encounter becomes even better than the known. I feel this is the key difference."

 

[SM239]

Lifebars in shmups have always bothered me as it seems like it can encourage sloppy play. In most cases I feel like lifebars are used to mask some questionable design decisions like unavoidable attacks. Though the worst is when they decide to implement fuel management mechanics...

You need to study COD

You need to read the OP

 

[sn00zer]

Western: Pew Pew Pew
Japanese: BWWAAAAAAHHHHH

 

[Tain]

One of the things that surprised me about Nex Machina is the way that it follows stricter "modern" arcade conventions. No health bars, a very simple control scheme, and a set of very specifically designed levels with very distinct aesthetic and mechanical progression (using far less procedural enemy placement than what I'm used to from twin stick shooters).

I really like it so far.

 

[REDSLATE]

Japanese shoot-em-ups have a higher likelihood of causing seizures.

 

[zenspider]

This post is only a few terrifying synapses away from "White people are culturally defined by wearing leg warmers and listening to Journey, while black people gravitate towards fried chicken and so-called 'rap music'. Now, hand me my PhD."

C'mon you know that's not true. There are differences in cultures, and it's often reflected in art: literature, movies, cuisine, and yes, games.

Please don't make this something it's not.

 

[nOoblet16]

Would Vanquish qualify as a shoot em up? It'd certainly qualify as a bullet hell game which is a form of shoot em up.

If it does then compare it to any western 3D shoot em up and you'll see the difference.

 

[depths20XX]

Would Vanquish qualify as a shoot em up? It'd certainly qualify as a bullet hell game which is a form of shoot em up.

If it does then compare it to any western 3D shoot em up and you'll see the difference.

No, it's an action game.

 

[Deft Beck]

Would Vanquish qualify as a shoot em up? It'd certainly qualify as a bullet hell game which is a form of shoot em up.

If it does then compare it to any western 3D shoot em up and you'll see the difference.

No, it is a third person shooter with bullet hell elements.

 

[LQX]

For one they tend to be a lot more varied. Emphasis on twin sticks. I also think they tend actually give you more space to kill shit and you are not as prone to die every few seconds.

 

[Deft Beck]

For one they tend to be a lot more varied. Emphasis on twin sticks. I also think they tend actually give you more space to kill shit and you are not as prone to die every few seconds.

Which, Western shmups?

 

[Syril]

One of the things that surprised me about Nex Machina is the way that it follows stricter "modern" arcade conventions. No health bars, a very simple control scheme, and a set of very specifically designed levels with very distinct aesthetic and mechanical progression (using far less procedural enemy placement than what I'm used to from twin stick shooters).

I really like it so far.

Those are actually very old school arcade conventions. Nex Machina is in a lot of ways a modern rendition of its creative consultant Eugene Jarvis' early game Robotron 2084.

 

[Tye The Czar]

I'd like to see more modern takes on Western-style shmups using this era's design philosophies and polish.

Tyrian 2000 and Jets n' Guns just don't cut it for me. The way they throw you in the deep end early on and expect you to swim like Michael Phelps.

Spoiler

Tyrian remake, Epic. UE4. Extra features. Make it happen!

 

[Tain]

Those are actually very old school arcade conventions. Nex Machina is in a lot of ways a modern rendition of its creative consultant Eugene Jarvis' early game Robotron 2084.

I mean "modern" as in post-1985, should have been more clear. Nex Machina has far more of a sense of stage progression than Robotron 2084.