Tomonobu Itagaki: Hardcore players killed shmups.

**gameoverDude** · 26 Jan 2015, 02:37 PM

Orochinagi: Emperor Cow meets Tomonobu Itagaki

Originally Posted by Tomonobu Itagaki, DOA series creator & Emperor Cow

Itagaki: Hey, Do you know why the 2D shooting game genre kept shrinking until it eventually disappeared? A player like you would know why. It’s basically the same situation.

Cow: I suppose it’s because it was getting more and more aimed towards hardcore players.

Itagaki: Exactly. The fighting game genre is at risk of facing the same dilemma. Of course, there is a market for hardcore players. It was for that reason I created Ninja Gaiden.

I wouldn't say it disappeared totally, but I see what he's saying. This could be one reason Cave called it quits. Casual players could very well find Battle Garegga or the DDP series intimidating and shy away from them, especially if they put 50 cents/100 yen in and have their first credit last 45 seconds.

One thing they could've tried is to have a 90 second timer at the start of the game, where any ships destroyed within that would not cause a lost life. But now back to fighters. Do YOU agree with Itagaki that the fighting genre is in jeopardy? While I will buy GGXrd, I have to admit I don't generally get interested in fighters as much. So I'll say "maybe".

**Joust Williams** · 26 Jan 2015, 02:45 PM

if anything casual fans think it's too easy because it takes 20 minutes to see everything

I get his point and I don't totally dismiss it, but there isn't H2H shmupping. Of course, any superplay makes me think 'Wow, I will never be that good'...but that can be said for any genre. I still have fun being crap at shmups.

**YellerDog** · 26 Jan 2015, 02:51 PM

Fighting games have lost me again already, so yeah.

**Yoshi** · 26 Jan 2015, 03:09 PM

Shooters kept shrinking because the collective taste went to shit. It seems as though more fighters are available that accommodate shitty taste, so that genre's chances of undeath are better.

**dog$** · 26 Jan 2015, 03:17 PM

In the widest view, calling shooters a dead genre is incorrect.

Look at this thread we had a while ago - http://www.the-nextlevel.com/tnl/thr...-Gen-s-Shmup-s . It's only a year old. Look at the number of individual titles named there. Now look at how many shooters are coming up on Steam and might be coming through Kickstarter, and how many more are on portable crap that I don't even know about.

The genre is really only dead if you're not paying attention to anything about it.

What Ninja Gaiden has to do with shooters or fighters being dead is really what should be questioned here.

**YellerDog** · 26 Jan 2015, 03:17 PM

I don't know anybody who doesn't import shmups that cares about them.

Anime Fighters seem to do a good job canniblizing one another inside of a closed audience, Mortal Kombat and KI both seem to have their own following, and I'm not sure what Capcom's doing since Arcade Edition.

A bunch of mutants play Injustice, but it keeps them off the streets so that's fine.

**No One** · 26 Jan 2015, 03:19 PM

The fact that nearly every high profile release was a bullet hell shooter or some moe garbage (or both) didn't help.

I think the last interesting traditional shooter I played was Strania.

**bVork** · 26 Jan 2015, 04:03 PM

Developers catering to the hardcore and only the hardcore reduced the audience. Don't blame players for this - blame the trend of focusing only on the pre-existing audience to the expense of all others. Admittedly, making a shmup (or a fighter) that caters to both hardcore score-chasers and new players is extremely difficult, but definitely not impossible. Mushihimesama Futari did a good job with this. So did Soldner-X2. And Eschatos, too.

And that's only talking about the gameplay and not the awful aesthetics of lots of modern shmups. I'm embarrassed to show Deathsmiles 2 to people who don't play shmups. The disturbing overlap between heavily sexualized aesthetics and hardcore shooting means that anyone not into both is going to be turned away by a great many recent releases, including one of the three I listed above that managed to balance casual and hardcore play well.

As for fighting games, I'm terrible at them and don't play them too much these days, but I think the major problem with a lot of them is the lack of good training modes. I shouldn't have to hit up Youtube to learn how to play a game. Netherrealm is the developer that all others should mimic in this regard: their games include good story modes, thorough training modes, and entertaining challenges that also happen to teach new techniques. Meanwhile, I have read that GG Xrd's story mode doesn't even include fighting! Is that true!?