That one used to be patented so no one would approach it with a ten foot pole. The habit has likely remained.
As Broco surmised there’s also some implementation problems, as combos and special moves have enough leeway and oddities in their input parsers that teaching a strict timing is harder than it seems. For a special move it’s usually the duration of the whole motion that matters, not specific inputs. Also, extraneous button presses are often ignored a long as they don’t affect the state of the character in a way that’d make your desired move invalid (and might be needed for some shenanigans like charge characters), so there’s no such thing as pressing a button too early if you can press it again in time, and so on.
I also suspect devs have caught on to the fact third party youtube training mode tutorials are always gonna be more complete and more up to date in respect to the current meta and whatever new option combinations have been cooked up by the community.
Ah, so the original reason was a patent, I stand corrected! And now the community doesn’t ask for the feature because “everyone” knows about the workaround methods I mentioned.
Definitely iframes and hitstun are near-universal. But frame advantage and blockstun are more specifically fighting game concepts, and I don’t think I’ve ever played a non-fighting game where frame advantage is a relevant thing to think about, actually. From software bosses always have some delay before they act, however small, so whether you’re mildly plus or mildly minus doesn’t affect anything. In non-fighting games what matters is “stagger” and “recovery time”, which refer to rare situations of noncancelable, extreme plus or extreme minus frames respectively.
Why do single-player communities not worry about any finer increments of advantage? Because you only need to think about it if the opponent reacts instantly, and a From software boss with instant reactions would feel unfair.
Conversely, why do all fighting games involve frame advantage? Because players in a meta, unlike programmed bosses, train until they can react instantly when the opponent’s pressure resets, and you can’t stop the community from getting that good. Then every other mechanic needs to adjust to that reality, and the whole tree of fighting-game concepts unfolds naturally, up to and including expert techniques like rock-paper-scissors “layers” and option selects.
yeah that makes total sense! i guess i said “frame advantage” here to vaugely refer to how a lot of popular action games operate internally on systems of like, this move takes this many frames for its hitboxes to become active, and this move takes this many frames to recover from, etc. etc. in a very similar way to fighting games
Super Glitter Rush. Its a boss rush game but extremely accessible. It controls like a shmup but plays almost like a puzzle game. Its possible to complete it in just a few hours. It has my highest recomendation.
For a more traditional shmup, Crimzon Clover is my big winner. It’s hard but looks great and is a lot more accessible than some other ones i’ve tried:
Battle Mania Daiginjou, mainly because I’m not into shumps but it’s my favorite. Very goofy boss fights, incredible graphics and music. Also there’s an english rom
Revisiting this point about fighting game special moves. My interpretation about why they why make the play more interesting is a bit counterintuitive. The skill involved in learning to execute a half-circle is dry, arbitrary, not very compelling in itself, as critics have tirelessly pointed out from the day they were introduced.
Why are they so common then? It comes back to what I was saying about why frame advantage exists: players just get too damn fast and consistent. At 100% levels of consistency, fighting games risk turning into brief minigames of rock-paper-scissors in between robotic execution of flowcharts. The special moves help to slow players down and make them whiff sometimes. It’s a necessary element of clumsiness and chaos to prevent the game from degenerating into boring perfection
yeah my thing is that that’s 0% intuitive to a new fighting game player. there’s really no reason it ‘should’ be that way even if it’s the easier solution in the eyes of people who already play these games
yeah i think deathsmiles is kind of explicitly their game for ppl who are new to the cave style like it has ur character hitbox highlighted for you… i also dont think theres anything rlly wrong with it aesthetically its rlly just cute. idk i think there’s a big disconnect with how a lot of japanese pop culture stuff is marketed in the united states and what that stuff actually is… like obviously “death smiles lolis smile back” is ad copy worthy of a tribunal but i also think of bayonetta where the marketing was like “this character is a playboy model :~)” when it’s way more like shes a drag queen or w/e.
i think a lot of it dates back to the way they marketed old vhs anime tapes as this prurient genre of sleaze where absolute trash ovas like angel cop and broadcast anime and feature films were all sold as cut from the same cloth… like yeah i guess the major gets her boobies out in ghost in the shell or w/e thats not really the same thing tho.
anyways this is kind of a tangent
zeroranger is fun but it’s too long and a lot of what’s fun about it is how it makes constant reference to other games in the genre… it might be the only good shmup made outside japan tho lol
I’ve been having a lot of fun with Eschatos as an STG novice. pretty straightforward, pretty intuitive to figure out the pros/cons of the three shot types, killer music.
i can’t believe the explanation gets particularly more accurate than “commercial tradition”
there may or may not be some complicated deterrence effect on these apparently perfect robot matches but that seems really unlikely to be The Reason
seconding the dodonpachi, eschatos, battlemania recs
i started with dodonpachi and then became totally obsessed with espgaluda 1 for a while. i think sound is a bit off in mame still but the ps2 port is great
batsugun special is beautiful and you’ll probably find the first loop very approachable, also:
Batsugun was one of my first attempts at getting into the post-Toaplan microcosm of STGs and it’s very good for that! It has ICEMAN!
The first (I think) STG that I was able to 1CC is Blazing Lazers. It was pretty cool to munch on that for awhile and figure out a strategy that would pay off in the end.
My advice is to try a lot of different games because there are so many subgenres and you’re bound to form an overall impression of what you like and dislike. I mean, in the late 80s Gradius set the mold for so many horizontal shooters with Darius, R-Type, Thunderforce, and many others following it. But those are so categorically different than what Toaplan was doing, and a lot different than what came after.
Probably the nicest thing about STGs is that you can get a good impression of the game in just 10 minutes or so. They really don’t demand that much commitment if you just want to have fun.
This always amuses me because while it’s true of the adaptations, the GitS manga is absolutely Shirow’s gun mommy in high heels and form fitting outfits fantasy put to paper, which just happens to also be a great cyberpunk universe.
There’s at least a number of balancing elements and constraints that come from the specific motions used that haven’t gotten appropriate substitutes. Like, it’s not just that you can fumble your fireball, but the classic fireball motion, like all forward motions, also requires you to open up your guard unless the circumstances allow a special cancel, while backwards or downwards motions break your advance (and risk you being sent into blockstun) and charge moves require a whole dance in themselves, etc.
The usual substitute used, cooldowns, doesn’t really replicate the intricacy and flexibility of those inputs.
feels like one could solve some of that by just forbidding the fireball button to work unless the stick was in neutral but fuck if i know - the only person i have any exposure to who make fightgame is, well, you actually!
and a lot of what’s fun about it is how it makes constant reference to other games in the genre… it might be the only good shmup made outside japan tho lol
