I also like “brawler” as a substitute for “beat-em-ups”. If you’re primarily fighting with your fists it could be a brawler but if it’s something like Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat it’s a “fighting game”. “Belt-scroller” has more clarity if you understand it as a game about brawling but by itself it requires explanation to anyone not already familiar with it. But maybe that shouldn’t matter as much.
2 Likes
The Bouncer-likes
4 Likes
The term “search action” ostensibly comes from Japan. I first heard it in reference to Team Ladybug’s work around the time Touhou Luna Nights was new.
3 Likes
“belt scroller” is a fun term because it refers to the perspective/playfield, rather than the mechanical genre. most belt scrollers are beat em ups (and vice versa), but there’s nothing stopping you from making belt-scrolling fighting games or shooters or metrovaniae or racing games or whatever else if you’re not a coward
1 Like
Action, Adventure, Strategy
Puzzle, Dungeon, War
7 Likes
The thing about “brawler” or “beat-em-up” IMO is it also encompasses games like God Hand or Ninja Gaiden (Xbox) as well as the classic belt-scroller style. Not that this is a bad thing - I think those 3D games tap into what makes belt-scrollers so fun! - but rather that it’s just… a thing.
Related, I think a key difference here is that brawlers are primarily about mechanical/executional skill (how good you are at pressing buttons) whereas hack-and-slash is more about strategic/tactical skill (how good you are at coming up with builds or funneling enemies). Hack-and-slash is an offshoot of rogue-likes and so inherit the RPG trappings, whereas brawlers are an offshoot of platformer-action games and so inherit mechanical skill trappings.
2 Likes
Action or Romance
and that’s it
2 Likes
What’s Dynasty Warriors then you ask?
4 Likes
it’s kinda weird that i here the terms “romantic VN” and “dating simulator” regularly applied to games, but rarely just the term “romance” by itself even when it would be perfectly adequate
“horror” feels like the only literary/filmic genre that people apply to games unvarnished, but even then people cling to malapropisms like “survival horror”
1 Like
Full chaos mode: only refer to the literary genre of the games you play.
3 Likes
I think all genre names should just be the name of the most notable game in the genre. It’s a zelda, it’s a doom-like, it’s a call of duty, it’s a metrovania, it’s a roguelike, it’s a sokoban (it’s only a sokoban if you push boxes), it’s a street fighter, it’s a vampire survivor, it’s a gambling game.
1 Like
“Doom clone” was pretty common terminology for FPSes in the early days. Which is wild because we all knew about Wolfenstein.
2 Likes
i remember seeing diablo 2 referred to as a hack & slash and it was one part of making me doubt you can actually communicate genre with “agreed” upon names
anyway, every action game that is a hack & slash is just a beat em up
1 Like
I feel like I remember most people calling that type of game dungeon crawlers, but I might just be misremembering cause I was never particularly drawn to diablo or it’s many derivatives.
Dungeon crawlers are definitely different; that’s the like of Wizardry et. al, which later morphed into stuff like FPS and imsim.
Hack-and-slash (original meaning) is derived from tabletop RPGs, where it refers to rules or adventures which prioritize heavy combat over role-playing. This meaning echoed through the likes of MUDs and Roguelikes until it reached Diablo. Diablo is definitely in the historical tradition of the genre, and it’s imo a natural culmination of the design ethos (an all-combat RPG with minimal execution barrier)
I’ve also heard people call brawlers which have swords as hack-and-slash games, but I personally don’t really agree with this definition.
1 Like
I live in a constant state of aggrievement from popular misuse of terms, like I probably take 1d6 psychic damage every day from the widespread misunderstanding of “liminal”.
But when it comes to videogames I think my only major true gripe is when people call things an FPS when it is not played from a first person perspective.
5 Likes
@Tulpa new poster bust out your genre thesis (don’t forget book!!)
2 Likes
this was, as far as i knew back then, the widespread use
1 Like
I can understand using it, but imo since “hack and slash” existed as a game genre long before brawlers with swords, I lean towards the former as the “default” definition
I think of a game like Gauntlet as a hack and slash, but I feel like I have had my eyes opened ITT that this is just a brawler in different clothes