I HATE SMUPS!

Hello all, if my inbox is going to be filled with hate mail, here it comes. I hate shoot em ups (smups) games. I mean I can’t stand planning them at all. I see them in an arcade, plunk in a quarter or two, and then get bored with them. For some reason whenever I bring this up with other classic gamers they look at me oddly and are just confused as to why. Well consider this a formal reasoning as to why I cannot stand them.

First is the concept of them, you are in a ship flying shooting random crap coming out and attacking you for no reason what so ever. Anyone ever heard of story? I know back in the day story was something that was not perfected at this point, but would have it killed them if they were to include a text box stating that the earth was at war with an enemy and you are the red baron sent in to take them out, is it that hard to include that? Just something simple so I have motivation to kill these bastards.

Next is the power up system, kill a certain enemy collect the icon, get a better weapon. Well I am not sure about the future, but if I am going to go into enemy territory with a shit load of bad guys, shouldn’t I be armed to the teeth? I mean before I fly out couldn’t I ask them to give me a shield or missiles before I took off. The icon itself always frustrated me, when you touch it what happens? It is like a driver update to your ship saying, “Oh I forgot we had this lazer option, would you like to use it? “ YES DAMN IT, I want to use the most powerful weapon you have. Also Gradius had this select the power up option on the bottom of the screen thing going on. You need to collect so many power ups, but not too many in order to get your desired effect, and something you are fully powered up, have a shield in reserve and accidentally get a power up making it reset back to the wimpy missiles…WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA! Also when you die you revert back to piss ant mode and are void of all power ups…that’s bull.

Next are the enemies, while your common foe is taken out in one hit there are some that require a boat load of fire. Here is where I get upset, as the screen auto scrolls up to the next area the enemy can see you but you cannot see them. They fire at you off screen and kill you as you are trying to evade current enemies, and you die IN ONE HIT which will revert me back to piss ant and screwing myself when it comes to the boss. Yes the boss gets me mad every time, they have an arsenal of fort knox and you are going to take them out with a pea shooter. I mean if it was the USA should you get cover fire from another giant ship, or even better, wingman that actually help you defeat these bastards…wait that would make too much sense.

Also the graphics are always questionable when it comes to these games; all it entails is a simple background and a few sprites to tell you what you are shooting at. The NES days this was fine to get the games, but when the SNES came out we went overboard. The super FX and mode 7 never got a better workout in these games. I mean Starfox is a great example, even when I was growing up I thought the graphics were terrible, and still do. I mean they are blocky you can barely tell if you are shooting a good or bad guy, and the AI was terrible. Who really thought flying through rings was such a good idea….wow I can move the plane I must be 1337 at this game now w00t!

Another thing about smups that I could not stand was the lack of originally, I mean there are few things you can justify shooting the shit out of other people but couldn’t we get a little creative? We have the spaceship, we have the war tank, and that’s about it. Yes there are few exceptions like the Adventures of Dino Riki where you are a caveman killing dinosaurs with a smile, and Road Blasters where it adds a racing element, but that’s about it. Come on, if someone can create a game like Rez shouldn’t someone find a way to make this genre a bit more interesting?

Then there are games like Axelay that had such good innovations…like selecting what power ups you have (and a limited supply of them), moving both to the left and right of a boss, and having people shooting at you from the ground. Oh wow, I haven’t seen this since….PILOTWINGS. The last mission had the same gimmick and it made more sense in that game because they told you that you were rescuing your instructors from an evil organization. While in axelay….you are attacking Earth….I think. Do we really need all these bells and whistles in these games? The n64 didn’t help the genre either, all the shooters were generic as hell and didn’t have any innovation to it, so I thought they were slowly going away until I saw this.

Yes this is Ikaruga, a smup that had some unique qualities that might make me see the wrongs in my way. If you can find it, be prepared to shell out a ton of cash for it, it was one of those games that they didn’t make many of and I have to pay $50 for a used GameCube version…WTF! Oh well I played it and can truly say…it is getting better. It is not quite what I am looking for in a smup but there are several things that have it going for it.

First the shield idea was kick ass, there are two bullets and you have two shield, you need to switch your shield to absorb one type of bullet while avoiding the other one. This causes a gauge to fill and allow you to unleash a super weapon on enemies and cause all hell. Here we go a ship that is decent from the beginning of the game and make sense. The graphics, even when ported from the Dreamcast look outstanding in terms of the current generation of systems. Also the music kicks ass, if there was a soundtrack for this game, I may consider buying it, since it goes well with the action. The modes vary and are for those smup fans that like different types of smups.

However it is lacking in several areas, first off no story, seriously no story in this game. You are a ship flying around shooting shit down without a rhyme or reason. The boss battles are insane with patterns you need to master and the shield flipping every second to absorb the right bullet. Also the only way to earn killer points is to create super long combo chains that allow you multiply it to a higher amount and thus earning you a free plane or continue. Also there is no back up again. Couldn’t I get something from HQ in the form of cover fire or a power up station? Also the time limit on bosses are really close, I mean you are going to go to single digits in order to beat these bosses and when time expires, you need to memorize the patterns of enemies and bullet patterns in order to charge your super weapon in order to beat the bosses in time without blowing up due to getting hit with the wrong bullet or the time expiring. In a game like Sin and Punishment when the time expires you can continue on with your health slowly draining as a penalty of the time expiring, but here you just blow up and have to start again. Also the bonus features are for those who are insane enough to try to get an S++ ranking on expert mode, something that was voted as the hardest achievement to get in video game history….seriously.

I have met other people who also hate smups, but qualify themselves as modern gamers, but anyone who likes the game of old has to be a smup fan for some reason; am I just the odd man out or are there other people that feel the same way?

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