Best Shmup?

[Dazarath]

Maybe I'm wrong here, but I always thought bullet hell was just a sub-genre of shmup. Specifically, it refers to the shmups that have tons of bullets on-screen. Wikipedia seems to agree with this.

[Bytebrain]

Originally Posted by Dazarath

Maybe I'm wrong here, but I always thought bullet hell was just a sub-genre of shmup. Specifically, it refers to the shmups that have tons of bullets on-screen. Wikipedia seems to agree with this.

You and Wikipedia are right, I guess, at least in principle..
Without traditional Shmups, there wouldn't be any bullet hell shooters.

However, talking strictly from my own personal biases, the actual gameplay is so vastly different.

When I play a bullet hell, all I see is bullets. I hardly glance at backgrounds, enemy formations or anything but the bullets, and it gets terrible repetitive for me, otherwise I don't survive.
Add to that strange multiplier and gracing rules that gets more and more bizarre to the point where it almost require a manual to figure out and it becomes so different than a traditional western Shmup.

Take for instance Raptor: Call of the Shadows or Tyrian, which have constant upgrades for my ship, evolving enemies, ground and air weapons, different environments , boss battles etc. and the experience and gameplay is is like night and day.

Granted, bullet hell shooters also often have boss battles, some only have boss battles, I guess because they contain more bullets?

I don't have anything against bullet hell shooters, I just haven't been able to find any joy in them personally, even after buying and trying most of cave shooters on my iPad.
Maybe it's because I'm a child of the eighties, and I spent way too much of my allowance on any shmup I could find in the arcades in my childhood...

For me at least, it's two different genres of games, where one is an evolution from the other.

[Royce]

So you don't like the subgenre, that doesn't make it a different genre. It's also not as simple as bullet hell vs traditional western shooter. Many great traditional style shooters were/are eastern in origin. Bullet hell is just a more recent evolution of trends that had been going on in pre-bh shmups (complex scoring systems, increasing numbers of bullets/lasers (lots of bullets does not define bh, there are manic shooters with crazy bullets that are not bh which is better identified by the types of bullet patterns/curtains, bullet speed, hitbox size, etc.), these things are not an invention of bh, just the extreme of trends that created a subgenre). I like comedies, I don't like romantic comedies, but it's still a subgenre

[TorbenLarsen]

Originally Posted by Bytebrain

I've played most of these shooters and there's some pretty good ones among them, but one of the best IMO is missing:
Battle Squadron One.

That's on my top five best Shmups for iOS. I believe it's iPad only, not sure though.

Hi Bytebrain, great to hear

We actually just released Battle Squadron ONE for Android devices this week and it is just like on iOS with all the fun and blasting.

http://cope-com.com/2012/04/09/world...w-for-android/

[Bytebrain]

Originally Posted by Royce

So you don't like the subgenre, that doesn't make it a different genre. It's also not as simple as bullet hell vs traditional western shooter. Many great traditional style shooters were/are eastern in origin. Bullet hell is just a more recent evolution of trends that had been going on in pre-bh shmups (complex scoring systems, increasing numbers of bullets/lasers (lots of bullets does not define bh, there are manic shooters with crazy bullets that are not bh which is better identified by the types of bullet patterns/curtains, bullet speed, hitbox size, etc.), these things are not an invention of bh, just the extreme of trends that created a subgenre). I like comedies, I don't like romantic comedies, but it's still a subgenre

I'll concede to your points.
However, whenever people is asking the question on the forum "best iOS shmup", at some point, someone is asking for a separation of the recommendations into Bullet Hell and traditional Shmup to find what they're looking for in a crowded genre on iOS.
However you choose to slize it it, the actual gameplay between the two is incredible different.

[Bytebrain]

Originally Posted by TorbenLarsen

Hi Bytebrain, great to hear

We actually just released Battle Squadron ONE for Android devices this week and it is just like on iOS with all the fun and blasting.

http://cope-com.com/2012/04/09/world...w-for-android/

Can't wait for your upcoming shooter Hybris One.

[HLW]

Anyone got any suggestions of games like Raptor: Call of the Shadows (so not bullet hell) with retina graphics for iPhone 4 or non-retina iPad 2? Most of the ones I've found are just ports of old PC games so look all blurry on iPhone.
I've got Space Invaders.

[RCranium666]

Originally Posted by Dazarath

Maybe I'm wrong here, but I always thought bullet hell was just a sub-genre of shmup. Specifically, it refers to the shmups that have tons of bullets on-screen. Wikipedia seems to agree with this.

+1 ftw.

[Bytebrain]

Originally Posted by HLW

Anyone got any suggestions of games like Raptor: Call of the Shadows (so not bullet hell) with retina graphics for iPhone 4 or non-retina iPad 2? Most of the ones I've found are just ports of old PC games so look all blurry on iPhone.
I've got Space Invaders.

I would recommend Tyrian.
It's a huge game with gorgeous graphics and lots and lots of ship and weapon upgrades.

Also it's full of humour and also contains some fun mini games.

It is a pc port, however, it's not blurry at all.
An absolutely excellent port, and much better a port than Raptor, which doesn't fit well on touch screen, because they've kept every menu and button from the pc, so it's very hard to play on its, IMO.

There is a lite version, so I would recommend trying it on for size.

It's universal, but I've only played it on my iPad 2, so I don't know how good it is on iPhone, but I doubt it's retina.

[syntheticvoid]

well... there's just a couple I don't think were listed... a couple for decent reason... I guess... they aren't really shmups, but do fit in the same genre... if that makes sense. But since Gods Of Nibiru, Space Tripper, Velocispider and a couple other non-shmup shmups were listed... I figured these could be listed as well. There are a couple actual shmups here as well... like G-Shooter, Invasion Earth...


Enborn-X
BlastZone2
Hypership Out of Control
G-Shooter
Space Junk
Invasion Earth 1953
Parallax
Assault Squadron
SpaceBoss
Tumiki Fighters

I'm sure there's more... but that's just what's coming to my mind not listed so far...