Date : 2025-01-31 Entry ID : 16681
Shoot 'em ups are great fun, but many of them are incredibly difficult. This takes a look at the evolution of the genre, and gives some examples of shoot 'em ups that have a difficulty level that is fair for beginners.
Contents:
"Shoot 'em ups" or 'shooters', also known as Shooting Games (STGs) in Japan or 'shmups' for short was the dominant game genre in the 1980s, before it was usurped in the 1990s by platformers, brawlers, and fighting games.
The genre originated in the arcade. Early shooters like Space Invaders and Defender were highscore-based games where players would play as long as possible, but without ever completing the games. Instead of stopping, the stages would repeat forever.
In the early 1980s new shooters started having a stage or sequence of stages that could be completed. We'll refer to these shooters as completable shooters.
Konami released one of the first completable shooters in 1981, Scramble. It had 6 continuous stages with different color schemes. The last stage, 'BASE', housed the Konami headquarters, giving players the opportunity to bomb the developer of the game. The whole game lasted for around 5 minutes, after which you got the message:
CONGRATULATIONS
YOU COMPLETED YOUR DUTIES
GOOD LUCK NEXT TIME AGAIN
Xevious was the vertical scrolling shooter that was a big part of defining the genre. It had a looping continuously scrolling level that lasted about 20 minutes 1.
Gradius has 15 minutes of incredibly tough and varied stages before starting over 2.
Unlike the games that focused only on high scores, the completable shooters were getting players interested in finishing the games.
To optimize how much money the game could extract from the players, the difficulty of the completable shooters was ramped up to crazy levels to keep stealing quarters from players that were getting more and more skilled.
After losing your lives, completable shooters had two ways of allowing you to continue:
So the Monkey Completable games are trivially easy to play for beginner players, however they don't necessarily feel fair of satisfying from a gameplay perspective, they are more just spectacles that can be enjoyed at any skill level. The hardcore shoot 'em up fans often recommend that you instead play these games with a single credit and try to achieve the best high score you can (like the first arcade shooters). This does seem more enjoyable than just paying your way through the game, and encourages players to actually learn the games, even though they may never actually complete them.
All of these are trivially completable, as long as you have enough coins (or use emulation). Consider not completing them, but instead play them using a single credit per game to get your best high score:
Game | Released |
---|---|
1943: The Battle of Midway | 1987 |
Cotton | 1989 |
Carrier Air Wing | 1990 |
Xexex | 1991 |
Vimana | 1991 |
Batsugun | 1993 |
Sorcer Striker/Mahou Daisakusen | 1993 |
Gunbird | 1994 |
DonPachi | 1995 |
19XX: The War Against Destiny | 1995 |
Twin Cobra II | 1996 |
DoDonPachi | 1997 |
Armed Police Batrider | 1998 |
Guwange | 1999 |
Dimahoo | 2000 |
ESPgaluda | 2003 |
The console games were a different story, as all the coins were grabbed up front, and the difficulty had to be a fun challenge, rather than a method for stealing money from players. Most arcade ports had a set limit on the number of continues, and games that were designed for the console were free to have a different structure.
A lot of games for the NES are very difficult. In the 1980s, games would get negative reviews if they were too easy.
Two great Konami shooters existed for the platform, and they both feature the famous Konami Code on the title screen, making their difficult reasonable:
UP UP DOWN DOWN LEFT RIGHT LEFT RIGHT B A START
In the great Crisis Force, the Konami Code gives you 15 lives, which also makes the game fair and beatable.
Life Force is not exactly easy, but inputting the Konami Code on the title screen gives you 30 lives, which makes the game reasonable. Even using the cheat, this is still one of the harder games on this list.
Game | Released | Mode/difficulty |
---|---|---|
Crisis Force | 1991 | 15-lives cheat |
Life Force | 1987 | 30-lives cheat |
There was no shortage of difficult shooters on the SNES, but the TwinBee sequel Pop'n TwinBee has 8 difficulty levels, the easiest of which is very fair. It's a fun game with great graphics, well worth playing through.
The R-Type series is known for being fiendishly difficult, but the SNES version of R-Type II, Super R-Type, has a resonable difficulty level: Novice.
The Raiden series has some extremely difficult games, but Raiden Trad was surprisingly fair.
Game | Released | Mode/difficulty |
---|---|---|
Super R-Type | 1991 | Novice difficulty |
Pop'n TwinBee | 1993 | difficulty 1 |
Raiden Trad | 1992 | Easy difficulty |
The PC Engine is famous for great shooters, but a lot of them are very difficult.
The great shooter developer Compile made a great shooter for the PC Engine CD, Sylphia, where you control a fairy. It has a fair difficulty, and seems to have infinite continues.
The weirdly named W Ring: The Double Rings is not one of the best games for the console, but at least it's easy.
Game | Released | Mode/difficulty |
---|---|---|
Sylphia | 1993 | Easy difficulty |
W Ring: The Double Rings | 1990 | Beginner difficulty |
The Commodore Amiga was where I started playing scrolling shoot 'em ups, and it has some great arcade ports, a few great original games, and a lot of really bad ones as well. Luckily, two of the great ones also have a very reasonable difficulty. Hybris has weapon upgrades that makes you almost invincible, and you can even tweak all the difficulty settings if you press SPACE on the title screen. DMA Design's Menace has infinite continues and is not too hard if you have autofire enabled.
Game | Released | Mode/difficulty |
---|---|---|
Hybris | 1987 | Default settings |
Menace | 1988 | Rookie difficulty |
The Darius series have a lot of spectacular and are great examples of how crazy and imaginative Taito was. G-Darius for the PlayStation is no exception, and on BEGINNER difficulty, the game has a fair difficulty.
Game | Released | Mode/difficulty |
---|---|---|
G-Darius | 1998 | BEGINNER difficulty |
In the PlayStation 2 era, the genre was losing relevancy, but some of the shooters that came out in this time were as good as they ever were. Raiden III was surprisingly fair, and R-Type Final can be started on the Baby difficulty, and then replayed again and again on harder difficulties, as you unlock more powerful ships.
Game | Released | Mode/difficulty |
---|---|---|
Raiden III | 2005 | VERY EASY difficulty |
R-Type Final | 2003 | Baby difficulty |
In the Xbox 360 generation, the genre was almost dead. Sine Mora seemed like a blast from the past, as it was an ambitious game with great graphics and even music by Silent Hill composer Akira Yamaoka. Bullet hell shooter developer Cave were one of the last standing shooter developers, and they would put out games such as Deathsmiles: Deluxe Edition and Guwange on consoles with very fair difficulty settings, although they fall into the Monkey Completable category.
Game | Released | Mode/difficulty |
---|---|---|
Sine Mora | 2012 | |
Deathsmiles: Deluxe Edition | 2007 | 2/4 difficulty |
Guwange | 2010 |
In the PlayStation 4 era, shooters were a niche product for a small group of players. The R-Type Final sequel was not difficult, but also not as cool as the PS2 games. Another reasonable Darius game came out for the PS4, Dariusburst Chronicle Saviours.
Game | Released | Mode/difficulty |
---|---|---|
Dariusburst Chronicle Saviours | 2015 | EASY difficulty |
Hyper Sentinel | 2018 | Arcade Mode |
R-Type Final 2 | 2021 | PRACTICE difficulty |
Compile made some of my favorite shoot 'em ups, and in the 1980s, they were at the top of their game. However, they are all quite difficult and require intense concentration to get through. They did make one beginner-friendly game for Sega's handheld, the Game Gear, GG Aleste.
The DonPachi-inspired Windows game Jamestown is fair on the easier difficulties.
Game | Platform | Released | Mode/difficulty |
---|---|---|---|
GG Aleste | Game Gear | 1990 | |
Jamestown | Windows | 2011 | Normal |
Check out an anonymous shooter beginner's guide: Why every gamer should give SHMUPs a try: Bullet Hell Hath No Fury 3
Or ProMeTheus' guide The Full Extent of The Jam - A guide to playing Shooting Games competitively. 4
Also check out this handy spreadysheet.
The Development of Xevious
The Arcade Blogger 2022 ↩
Completable shooters would often loop after you finished them, starting over on the first stage with a higher difficulty level. Thus, very skilled players could play through a game multiple times on the same credit. ↩
Why every gamer should give SHMUPs a try: Bullet Hell Hath No Fury
Anonymous 2022 ↩
The Full Extent of The Jam
A guid to playing Shooting Games competitively
Dimitri (ProMeTheus) Aupetit 2010 ↩