Bullet Hell Shooters

Codename_M308

Can somebody tell me why people are still so amazed by these shooters? Putting lots of bullets on the screen is not very innovative, especially when done for the thousandth and one time. The concept doesn't work without throwing so many at once that pixel-perfection and bomb-spamming are both required. Also, the no-continuing rule among bullet-hell crowds is just an excuse for the fact that the games are usually impossible to lose due to infinite respawning. If companies like Cave really cared for the HARDCORE BULLET MASTER GAMER, they would've at least implement a checkpoint system or limit the continues, for both the arcades and the console ports.

Chagen

...What? Almost all STGs have lives.

And the point is to memorize your way through the intricate (and quite often Beautiful, as in Touhou) patterns. It's really more like a puzzle than flat-out shooting.

Vorpy

....so you mean Personal Record Obsessed Touhou otaku? They are fucking stupid to begin with. Either way, Bullet Hell Shooters usually appeal to the gamers who enjoy difficulty.

DYRE

Shooters of that sort allow continuing for two reasons: The first being that in the context of an arcade, where such games originated, allowing unlimited continues means people who aren't good will be willing to play longer, and therefore spend  more money; the second is that it's helpful for practice, but the first is really the main reason, since these sorts of games tend to be very traditional and not really change things any more than necessary, so they just sort of leave in unlimted continues even when they're making the game for a console.  That said, some of these games do have finite continues in the console ports, so... yeah.

Anyway, as for it not being innovative...  Why does that matter?  I don't think anybody claims that it's innovative, merely that it's fun.

Stormtroper

Related: It's The Same So It Sucks

And what about pixel-perfection and bomb-spamming? Besides being an overstatement, it's there because it's fun.

Codename_M308

And the point is to memorize your way through the intricate (and quite often Beautiful, as in Touhou) patterns. It's really more like a puzzle than flat-out shooting. It's really more like a puzzle than flat-out shooting.

I played a bit of a Touhou demo, and quite frankly, those patterns aren't beautiful at all. Beautiful games like Shadow of the Beast, Yoshi's Island, Braid, and R-Type put more thought in making stuff beautiful. Touhou's idea of beautiful, with the bullets, is more like modern art, which doesn't fit. (Okay, Shadow of the Beast's gameplay sucks, and Braid doesn't seem to be that good either, but whatever.)

There are much better games with puzzling elements, like R-Type, R-Type II, and Metal Storm. Lemmings also counts, but that's cheating.

Allowing unlimited continues means people who aren't good will be willing to play longer, and therefore spend more money.

Except you usually never see those guys that credit-spam through bullet-hell in forums. It's usually the ones that aim for no-continuing that stay with the genre for long. It implies that these people usually play one of those games, credit-feed through it, and quit the genre altogether, so it makes sense to limit continues so that people would put the time to finish those games, and thus more money and longetivity. Which means that bullet hell companies wouldn't have to make the same games over and over again to feed from those that put up with this.

Anyway, as for it not being innovative...  Why does that matter?  I don't think anybody claims that it's innovative, merely that it's fun.

It's strange, then, that Capcom is usually made fun of for making the same games over and over again with little changes to mechanics at most, yet the bullet hell genre is simply fun all the way, no matter what.

And what about pixel-perfection and bomb-spamming? Besides being an overstatement, it's there because it's fun.
It's weird how people complain about the Kaizo genre of rom-hacks, yet they turn around and like bullet hell. Moving around with such a small hitbox is like Gradius with max speed-ups; It's easy to bump to something no matter how light you tap the button. For bomb-spamming, look at videos with apparently some of the best gamers ever beating guys like Zatsuza, Larsa, or Hibachi. They usually bomb spam a lot.

DYRE

It's strange, then, that Capcom is usually made fun of for making the same games over and over again with little changes to mechanics at most, yet the bullet hell genre is simply fun all the way, no matter what.

You're only seeing the arguments you want to see.
Plenty of fans of Capcom games love the fact that they're the same over and over. This is why the Megaman series has been able to survive for so long and spawn so many spinoffs.

Likewise, there are plenty of people who have the same complaints as you about bullet hell games. And I think I actually see them more than bullet hell fans, but that's probably just confirmation bias.

GLORIOUSLeader

The same could be said for many games.

Gah, now I need to know how to quote. The markup is rather inconvenient. 

Anyways, on the subject of Bullet Hell I own exactly one, rRootage. It's free, and has an incredibly even fun/hard ratio. 

DYRE

Gah, now I need to know how to quote. The markup is rather inconvenient.

In HTML editing mode, it's

Vorpy

We need a quote button.

GLORIOUSLeader

 In HTML editing mode, it's  

At this point I think it's been pretty well established that my computer hates me, so I'll just use quotation marks from now on.

DYRE

You have to click on the "show source" button first.

That is, the last one on the second bar of the post editor.  The one that looks like a piece of paper with <> on it.

GLORIOUSLeader

You have to click on the "show source" button first.

Here's the part where I feel like an idiot.

inkblot

It's weird how people complain about the Kaizo genre of rom-hacks, yet they turn around and like bullet hell.

I don't think those are the same groups of people.

I played a bit of a Touhou demo, and
quite frankly, those patterns aren't beautiful at all. Beautiful games
like Shadow of the Beast, Yoshi's Island, Braid, and R-Type put more
thought in making stuff beautiful. Touhou's idea of beautiful, with the
bullets, is more like modern art, which doesn't fit. (Okay, Shadow of
the Beast's gameplay sucks, and Braid doesn't seem to be that good
either, but whatever.)

Even if Touhou isn't a beautiful game, the point of a bullet hell game is the entire playfield becomes a maze of bullets that the player has to traverse.

Saigyouji

...Most non-arcade bullet hell games do have limited continues.

And by definition, arcade versions limit your continues to how much money you have.

Glowsquid

"It's weird how people complain about the Kaizo genre of rom-hacks, yet they turn around and like bullet hell."

The "raw" difficulty and (especially) fairness of bullet hell and kaizo-hacks is in no way comparable.

"For bomb-spamming, look at videos with apparently some of the best gamers ever beating guys like Zatsuza, Larsa, or Hibachi. They usually bomb spam a lot."

Of course, because all the examples you cherry picked are the purposefully unfair secret bosses put there for pro players, and that can only be reached by playing the games on the hardest mode twice in a row. That's like complaining that players on Doom's Nightmare mode have to abuse speed-running tricks and co-op respawn to get anywhere, and thus the entire game is obviously unbalanced garbage.