GBAtemp book game club #74 today. Probably surprising nobody the site otherwise known as GBAtemp has something of a fondness for games and the things surrounding games. This feature is one of several we have that aim to showcase games at least worth knowing about, unlike most others though this is less about a single reviewer or reviewer team discussing the merits of a title and more about having those that wish to join in do so instead.
Our selection pool is largely the ROM hacks, commercial games, leaked code and homebrew titles for the GBA, DS and Wii, although if the DS can emulate something well then that is an opening for a title not strictly within our remit.
Top ? games lists certainly have their place, but by their very nature they omit titles that might have fallen short in execution though they have interesting ideas. Other than stating we are not aiming to slowly build such a list with this feature we tend not to discuss what goes into making a selection. Being a weekly feature we like to focus upon a single game or series of closely related titles (either in name, in spirit or in play style). Like last week we are deviating a bit from that but when it comes to these sorts of games it is all but impossible not to start lining them up.
#74 - DS Shmups discussion (NDS)
We used to have a feature called GBAtemp recommends homebrew and the issue of that which was not was going to focus on the homebrew shmups, in some ways this is a continuation of that but in reality the thing that really kicked this off was playing through Veggy World on a whim and discovering it was actually pretty good.
The temptation now would be to comb the DS library and list everything that could be considered such a title, experience says that does not necessarily make for the most readable of features so we will resist the urge to do such a thing. That said anything that could be labelled a shmup is fair game for discussion in this topic.
This being the third paragraph of the meat of the topic it would probably be best to quickly discuss shmups and what they are about, whether you know the term or not you have probably seen or played such a title at some point. Some might argue that Asteroids is one of the things that kicked the "genre" off and a fair case could be made for it, others will look to Space Invaders or even to what was considered one of the first ever computer games in Spacewar, but when you ask someone not overly familiar with the gameplay style to pick one out the chances are you will end up with R-Type or something similar. Today trying to use genres to categorise this is as hard or harder than everywhere else (made even more confusing by people still using the original term "shooter" which others have co-opted as a synonym for FPS) as certain mechanics that might be employed in them have their own subgenres (vertical, horizontal, bullet hell......), beyond that they gameplay style has branched a bit with one of the more popular offshoot being the so called twin stick shooter (a staple of the online distribution platforms like XBLA and PSN). If any one style of gameplay could be considered timeless it would be this as indeed several classics get ported and remade almost as much as tetris and pong when it comes to homebrew (and commercial games).
As mentioned we are limiting ourselves severely for suggestions here and will almost certainly omit your favourite title but share it with everybody anyway
Retrorocket DS
First selection and already veering off topic? Perhaps, but when it comes to these sorts of lists the oddball selection can be what makes them.
Warhawk
If you ever needed another reason why you should pay attention to homebrew development....
Ketsui Death Label
The division between Japanese shmups and others is almost as divisive (and pointless) as the equivalent debate concerning the term JRPG. This is a fine game though from one of the premier Japanese developers of such games.
Geometry wars
We actually had this as a game of the week back in February.
Little Red Riding Hood's Zombie BBQ
We mentioned it a couple of weeks back in another GBAtemp book game club but if you are not exactly in the mood for the more traditional shooter then look here.
NES Talespin- one of our go to test games for any new NES emulator and one of the reasons we fell in love with the rewind function of nesDS
Bangai-O Spirits- another not quite traditional shmup but something we could not omit
Nanostray- an early DS game and some dislike the sequel/prefer the developer's GBA shmups (the Iridion series) but we could not make this thread and not include it
The GBA also features several great homebrew, commercial and unreleased/leaked shmups as well which are well worth checking out if the have the ability to play GBA games. So then GBAtemp.... shmups on the DS- what do you do?
gbagotw should get you other links in this series
