The general shmup fandom

Or more precisely, how 90% of it seems to consist of two groups - A) People who say "You can't 1cc (X) on the hardest difficulty? Stop playing shoot 'em ups!" B) People who say "You play on the hardest difficulty? You don't know what having fun is!"

I know that pretty much every fandom has idiots, but that doesn't stop it being really annoying. Maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places.

I'm closer to the second category, but I don't really care.

I have little shame in using savestates while playing shmups. I don't really care if you like it or not. You can play them however you like.

Because at the end of the day, we all play to have fun.

Closer to the first, because I don't really get the point of playing any arcade game if you aren't trying to improve at it and 1cc it and get high scores and whatnot. That said, you can play it however you want. It doesn't bother me.

edited 18th Nov '10 10:34:37 AM by DYRE

I play shmups for the experience of playing through them, fighting the bosses, and dodging projectiles.

Shmups, though, really are very nice spectator games.

Darxzero, in my experience, people who tend to be really interested in games are generally very skilled at them. The only places I have really seen the second mindset you bring up is when something like "snaking" in Mario Kart or competitive battling in Pokemon is discussed, or in complaints about no items, Fox only, final destination in Super Smash Bros. I might be hanging around the wrong places though.

Even then, I think the first mindset is more likely to appear, since the games I mentioned are generally not considered as serious or competitive as something like Street Fighter or Starcraft and I think the scrub view is more popular in games that many see as being for "casual" players.

Anyway, I am not good at games so I would much rather have discussions with the latter group than the former. I think that people should be able to play games as they wish, but I admit that I am not a fan of the so-called competitive mindset frequently leaking into any online discussion of a game (as I think it sometimes does with Super Smash Bros. or Pokemon).

I am sorry that I do not really have anything to say about shmups though since I do not play them.

edited 18th Nov '10 11:31:24 AM by LouieW

I haven't seen many bash on me for playing the Touhou games on Normal, at least.

Though there's still EASY MODO.

Where the hell is the "EASY MODO" meme from?

^^^^ Fair enough. Like I said, it's fine if you do it. It's just that I personally don't get much satisfaction from shmups (or any arcade game really) when I have to use continues, or if I don't at least try to get decent scores (even though I am pretty bad at shmups so my scores suck anyway).

I don't bother with the score, unless I'm way too good at a game and have nothing better to do.

My objective is to get to the end of the level alive. Well, I do try to shoot down everything in the process.

edited 18th Nov '10 11:41:08 AM by GlennMagusHarvey

I don't usually care about score in Touhou games, mostly because I keep forgetting there even is a score display, but once I learned the scoring system in Triggerheart Exelica, I basically became unable to not take advantage of it. Not so much in Ikaruga, since getting chains is really hard and the game is too hard anyway for me to bother, until I get good enough to not die all the time. Other shmups vary in whether or not I try to get high scores.

I am, or rather, aspire to be, an appreciator of games for their narrative value. Great gameplay is nice, but what I'm paying for is the story being delivered.

So I usually pick normal for a first playthrough of any game, that tends to be the mode the game is intended to be played on, and the first time you approach a work of art you should try to expirence it the way the artist intended, if only for the sake of politeness.

That being said, I'm not much for shmups, they're more puzzle games than shooters and the puzzle is memory. They do take skills and reflexes, but they require more memory than anything else. Plus I've got clumsy fingers.

I don't really think about remembering the patterns and rather just dodge everything I can...

Than you've better reflexes than I.

Easy Modo's from this Flash. I haven't seen it, but I did see a translated screencap, in which two extras from Haruhi mock someone for playing on easy mode.

So I usually pick normal for a first playthrough of any game, that tends to be the mode the game is intended to be played on, and the first time you approach a work of art you should try to expirence it the way the artist intended, if only for the sake of politeness.

Mostly, I just want to say that normal difficulty isn't always the intended difficulty. Most rhythm games, for example, seem to be based on playing on the highest difficulty (or something close to the highest difficulty, at least. Elite Beat Agents, for example, seems to be based on the second-highest difficulty), and modes easier than that are just intended as, well, modes easier than that. I've seen that in other games as well, I think, but I can't name any specific ones and it's not as widespread as in music games anyway.

EDIT: Oh, and yeah. I don't usually play by memory. Well, a little bit, I guess, but it's not like I know all the patterns and how to dodge them beforehand.

edited 18th Nov '10 11:53:43 AM by DYRE

I've never worried about score in shmups. I typically play on easy or normal though I do play on harder difficulties to see how far I can get. I do want to clear every mode on one credit, but can I? CAN I!?! Well I can try.

I haven't seen many bash on me for playing the Touhou games on Normal, at least.

Maybe it's because a good chunk of the Touhou fandom isn't part of the shmup fandom.

edited 18th Nov '10 11:58:34 AM by Stormtroper

Truuuuuueee but still.

A) People who say "You can't 1cc (X) on the hardest difficulty? Stop playing shoot 'em ups!"

Shmup fandom can be abrassive, but the general attitude is "You can credit-feed all you want, but don't complain a shmup is too easy/short/simple if you do". But of course there are elitist wankers everywhere.

I only play for score when the score gives me more lives to survive. I'm not quite good enough to worry about score for the sake of score :|

That said, I'm also trying to 1cc Mystic Square on Hard.

edited 18th Nov '10 12:33:49 PM by Pykrete

^^ Yeah. Most of the time I see people complaining about other people playing on easy mode and abusing continues was in response to reviews and such that claim that [insert shmup here] is just a 20 minute game without much challenge. Because there really are reviews that say that.

I see no reason to play shmups on hard mode. Fighters on the other hand...

I've found that I mainly care for score if it's a Cave game; if it's something like Touhou or the Ray Series I'll maybe play 1 stage for score and say "screw it" on the rest.

I don't think either viewpoint's worth abiding, but what does the second group think the first group plays for? Boredom?

^^^ Fighters on hard mode? Are you suggesting fighting games have single-player modes?