Basic Trope: A Shoot 'Em Up or Rail Shooter level in a game that is otherwise of a completely different genre.
- Straight:
- Elise's Adventure is a 2D platformer. However, after defeating the fourth boss, Elise hops on a dragon and takes to the sky to travel to the Cloud Kingdom, so the next level plays out like a horizontal scrolling Shoot 'Em Up.
- Bob Saves The Galaxy is a 3D Hack and Slash game. However, the fifth level is a Rail Shooter where you control Bob's spaceship as he tries to break into Emperor Evulz's space fortress.
- Exaggerated: The last stage is a Marathon Level that plays like a danmaku shmup, and the Final Boss is also fought in this format.
- Downplayed: The shmup section is very short and only takes up a third of the level rather than its entirety.
- Justified:
- Elise got attacked by monsters on the way to the Cloud Kingdom.
- The fortress is very well defended and located in a dense cluster of asteroids, so Bob must shoot down enemy artillery and dodge space rock debris before he can land there safely.
- Inverted: Galactic Tropers is a Shoot 'Em Up. However, during the penultimate level, the player character's ship malfunctions and has to stop at a nearby planet, where the player must complete a short platformer level to get a replacement for the broken ship part.
- Subverted: At the start of the level, the monsters are scared off by a thunderstorm.
- Double Subverted: But the thunderstorm attracts sky jellyfish that Elise must fight her way through while dodging lightning strikes, so she has to go through a shmup level anyway.
- Parodied: The level starts in a grassy field. Then an NPC appears and says "Surprise, shmup level!", then turns the screen like a book page to reveal the level will take place in the sky while riding a dragon.
- Zig-Zagged: During the sixth level, gameplay alternates repeatedly between 2D platformer and horizontal scrolling Shoot 'Em Up.
- Averted: No shmup gameplay appears in the entire game.
- Enforced: The developer really likes shmups, so they added one shmup level as a stylistic choice.
- Lampshaded: ???
- Invoked: The Big Bad uses powerful magic to create a massive pit between his castle and the player character's location, forcing the latter to fly across on a dragon and shoot down monsters along the way.
- Exploited: ???
- Defied:
- Elise's dragon roars at the start of the Shoot 'Em Up level, causing the monsters to fly away in fear, abruptly ending the level before the player gets to shoot down anything.
- When the Rail Shooter level starts, Bob sees the defenses surrounding the fortress, says "...nope!" and retreats, ending the level. He instead decides to get in by sneaking into an enemy cargo ship.
- Discussed: An NPC asks Elise if she thinks she will run into a shmup level during her adventure.
- Conversed: "Why do platformers always have a Shoot 'Em Up level?"
- Implied: ???
- Deconstructed: ???
- Reconstructed: ???
Back to Unexpected Shmup Level... but first, clear this Rail Shooter stage!
