2D Shmup/Shooter Guide

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The Shoot ‘Em Up Defined
They’re about as common as a multi-million dollar Power Ball winner these days, but in the ’80s and ’90s shoot ‘em ups (or “shmups” or “shooters” in their original sense) once saturated the gaming scene as deeply and thoroughly as first person shooters do in the present. It didn’t matter if you were an arcade goer or console jockey, if you had an itchy trigger finger and unchecked xenophobia, it was your go-to genre for committing obscene levels of digital genocide against faceless alien hordes. Big guns and lots of explosion does not a shooter make–not entirely. In order to separate any action game from a legit Shoot ‘Em Up certain criteria must be met.

A typical shmup features a player controlling a lone ship (sometimes robots, human warriors, or fantasy creatures) against an enemy in horizontal or vertical scrolling battlefields. Games in this genre feature a wide array of weapon and power ups, and amongst them is typically a large, screen-clearing bomb or mega-weapon. Usually, there is no jump button, which separates shmups from action/run-and-gun games such as Guerrilla War.

Horizontal Shooters/Shoot ‘Em Ups
Horizontal shooters are played against a field that scrolls from left to right. Examples of this genre are Einhander, the Gradius series, Gates of Thunder, and Lords of Thunder.

Vertical Shooters/Shoot ‘Em Ups
Vertical shooters are played against a field that scrolls from top to bottom. Examples of this genre are the games in the GigaWing series, Raiden series, Slyphia, and Star Parodier.

raiden fighter aces

Bullet Hell: The Sado Masochist Sub-genre
Bullet hell shooters (also known as “Manic” shooters) is the exclusive realm of the hardcore; weak-willed, Pansy McPansyingtons need to cuddle up to their mothers’ teats. Unlike traditional shooters in which enemies provide obvious safe zones between their attacks, bullet hell shmups such as Mushihimesama fills the screen with a seemingly never-ending stream of fire. Most manic shooters are played against a vertical scrolling backdrop. The insanity can only be captured with video: