Nothing's as bad as metroidvania, and I had to shut up about that. It's too late to change something when it's out there already, spreading like a virus.
It used to be “shmups” were more bullet-hell type games (often but not always the scrolling ship vs millions of enemies type) & “shoot ‘em up” was a wider genre.
Then people got lazy.
Same with “beat ‘em up” btw; that’s a genre. The traditional side-scrolling style is a “belt scroller”.
I feel like people say something stuff on the Internet and it makes people also want to say it too to feel like you're in a secret club, instead of like the rest of human history when people had the time to think about whether it makes any sense or not
Right, but if we acknowledge that there are different types of "shooters" then shooter by itself has no specific meaning. It's a bit of a misnomer - probably an simplified amalgamation of horizontal shooter and vertical shooter which disregards a whole load of other types.
That's fine, personally I also don't see a need to fit everything into a subbox. Like "horizontal shooter", "vertical shooter" are all I would use for shooters.
And then there's FPS/TPS/battle royale for run n gun 3D games
This is a long way of saying why I think shmup is stupid haha that's all
Shooter is usually reserved for grouping up FPS and TPS. GoW and games like it are also often referred to as shooters, as well as third person or cover shooters. Games and genres expanded and changed too much, so it created the need for more specific labels.
Here's my question though then: if anyone is calling GoW games a shooter, which is a newer genre, and then possibly confusing them with other shoooters genres (which I am not convinced by) how did OG shooters lose the default moniker "shooter"??
I think it's a mix of:
1. FPS and other "shooter" subgenres becoming far more popular, which made them *the* shooters when someone uses that word.
2. People using newer and more specific terms to refer to what used to be just shooters. Like side-scrollers, fixed screen, STG, bullet hell, etc.
The huge difference here is no one says those. People just sort of started saying shmup, and like every other word in existence, it caught on. Doesn’t matter why. It just did. Same with Metroidvania and Rougelike.
I have heard people say it out loud in person multiple times. But I have also heard like 10 other words for the genre, so I don’t think there is a right or wrong answer anymore. The English speakers of the world have screwed it up.
Although technically, when shoot 'em ups are typically in the air or space, isn't a shoot 'em up more of a shoot 'em down? In which case we should call them shmowns
I hate the term shmup.I usually call them shooters. That's what they were and that's what I'm still call them. So the others have their own subtype so people should use them.
You said their sub name so they're distinct. I've never used shooter as a blanket term. It's always referred specifically to what people refer to as shmups. That being said I'm not offended or mad by the term shmup. I just don't like it or feel it necessary. But I am old so maybe that's why, lol.
Is that because in NA you called the NES an N E S so you were following an already established convention? In the UK it was the nez (at least where I was), so made sense for SNES to follow
Not really, as acronyms are pronounced as words - like NASA, NATO, scuba, laser or gif.
In that sense, it's actually really weird to pronounce it N E S, and off the top of my head I can't think of many examples of legit, pronouncable. acronyms that are pronounced as initials. USA might be one.
I have a simple solution for this. I call them Raiden.
Or R-Type.
Or Battle Garegga.
Or Darius.
Or Salamander.
Or Star Soldier.
Or Battle Mania.
Or Trouble Shooter.
Or Aleste.
Or some other names that I otherwise forget at the moment, but as you can see, it's a very easy & elegant solution.
I’m not so sure, FPS has always been a term once we retired “Doom Clone”. But then run and gun games like Contra fell off. Shooter would describe Gradius and Contra for me back in the day, but Halo and Ikaruga both couldn’t be “shooters” anymore.
I'm with you on this, I'd always called them "brawlers". Then, games like Power Stone, War of the Monsters, and Heavy Metal Geomatrix came on to the scene, stealing that name for a while. That genre eventually rebranded as "arena fighters", and the "brawler" term disappeared.
This makes me want to make uncomfortable eye contact with you and say shmups as slowly as I can 🤣🤣🤣 also now I'm wondering if there is a meaning of skeets I don't know about
I like BotSS (bottom-of-the-screen-shooters) half-ironically. At least I know they're not talking about Fantasy Zone or Deathsmiles when someone drops that term.
Nope. I've only ever seen it written online or in magazine articles. I have never once in my 40+ years HEARD a human being say "shmup." Never. Ever. Nobody I know would say it or understand what I was saying if I dropped it into conversation. I'd probably have to explain it and that's too much work.
They probably deleted the post. Still tho, I totally see where you're coming from. They tried that smash word thing for a little while & thank god it didn't stick. Can't imagine playing games like 1943 & going "this is a shmup."
I just think it's good when a word exists to describe a genre I like, same for metroidvania. Why care what the word is as long as I know what it means and it's useful to me?
People still act like I’m a weirdo when I say Shmups but most of them have never heard the term. It’s mostly old guys like us that say it. So I done quit saying it
They should just be called this. No one in the history of ever has confused Goldeneye with Battle Garegga. It was a piece of cake for humanity to adopt "FPS".
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Then people got lazy.
Same with “beat ‘em up” btw; that’s a genre. The traditional side-scrolling style is a “belt scroller”.
I'm pretty sure since the '90s we've been saying FPS so you prob can't be confused on that.
Are Gears of War-style games known called "shooters"? Not to my knowledge
And then there's FPS/TPS/battle royale for run n gun 3D games
This is a long way of saying why I think shmup is stupid haha that's all
Does that make sense?
1. FPS and other "shooter" subgenres becoming far more popular, which made them *the* shooters when someone uses that word.
2. People using newer and more specific terms to refer to what used to be just shooters. Like side-scrollers, fixed screen, STG, bullet hell, etc.
(Not really, this is all in jest)
Platformer = plforms
Hack & slash = slups
Puzzler= puzz
RPG = erpuhguhs
JRPG = jerpuhguhs
Dating Sims = dups
It just stuck around.
I remember how bad the Wii sounded at the time.
None in my group wanted to say it, yet we got used to it.
They are literally shoot em UPs
(this is a joke, but it sounds real doesn't it?)
I don't think the term ever went away in Japan. I remember seeing it in some US mags up to the late 80s/early 90s, but it just never caught on.
The more proper term would be "Brawlers". Belt scroll would be a subgenre, like horizontally scrolling shooter vs a vertically scrolling shooter.
This whole "proper term" thing just feels like old man yells at cloud
How often it's used? Because if that's the case, then shoot'em already lost the war to shmup
Shoot'em up is correct, shmup is correct, STG is correct. They're all correct. Same for beat'em up, belt scroller, etc.
Rail shooters and FPS can be shooters, but they're distinct from shmups
In that sense, it's actually really weird to pronounce it N E S, and off the top of my head I can't think of many examples of legit, pronouncable. acronyms that are pronounced as initials. USA might be one.
Or R-Type.
Or Battle Garegga.
Or Darius.
Or Salamander.
Or Star Soldier.
Or Battle Mania.
Or Trouble Shooter.
Or Aleste.
Or some other names that I otherwise forget at the moment, but as you can see, it's a very easy & elegant solution.
Ooh! What about Doomheads? I like the sound of it
I was probably like 9 or something when those forums first started poppin' off but those shmup forum boomers got us stuck with "shmup" and here we are
When I was a kid, shoot 'em ups were "juegos de naves" (Spaceship games) and beat'em ups "juegos de pelea callejera" (street fighting games)
I'd come off as a brain dead idjit. 😅
https://store.steampowered.com/category/shmup?snr=1_5_9__409