How To Enjoy SHMUPs (and 5 different games worth trying)

The genre that is known formally as SHOOT 'EM UPs may very well be better known as DODGE 'EM ALLs. This is not advice to disregard your own weapons. It's my way of telling you that dodging enemy attacks is just as important as defeating enemies. If you're a player who looks at the entire screen and focuses on where enemies are in order to shoot them, it's likely you can't also concentrate on where all the enemies and their bullets are. Put another way, it's better to focus on where you are on screen than where the enemies are. Since most SHMUPs are one-shot kills, you could argue that survival is much better than destruction. I'd rather focus on dodging my enemies' attacks and shooting blindly at the enemies above me. Some of my shots are bound to hit, and even if they don't, the screen continues to push on and the enemy is likely to disappear. The goal in SHMUPs is to get to the end of the level, not defeat every last enemy.

This is a very important basic skill. Usually, memorizing patterns, layouts and maps in an NES game is considered an advanced strategy for speedrunning or for those determined to beat a more challenging game. In SHMUPs, not knowing the pattern each enemy or wave of enemies takes is the easiest way to lose. Very few SHMUPs have dozens of different enemies, so it's not so much memorizing the patterns as understanding how each enemy moves and attacks. Remember, as the player you're the only one in control of what you do. The enemies are forced to take the same paths each time. Knowing where to be, or even better, where not to be, is the biggest advantage you can give yourself on a map.

If we spend most of our time dodging enemies and understanding their powers, then when should we shoot? The answer, of course, is always. There is probably never a time not to be mashing that button and continuously shooting at the enemies above you. However, where you shoot matters way more than what you shoot. Don't shoot in a straight line. Don't target specific enemies (assuming you're trying to learn the genre). Don't stop shooting so you can focus elsewhere. Instead, focus on covering as much of the map as you can with your bullets. If you control the bottom half of the screen, and enemies are likely to appear anywhere at the top of the screen, then two objectives become clear: keep control of the bottom half, and anticipate enemies coming from all areas. If you continuously move while shooting, you may not hit every ship, but you're more likely to hit ships you weren't anticipating. This tip becomes even more useful when power-ups come into play. The larger the spray of your weapons across the map, the more likely enemies will run into those bullets.

Even the better SHMUP players will likely tell you that they're more likely to die in Gradius or 1942 than they are in Super Mario Bros. The point I'm trying to make? Dying in SHMUPs is part of the gameplay. There's a reason most of them don't stop progression and restart the level: you just respawn immediately in the place where you died. Losing a life in most NES games leaves the feeling that you did something wrong, that you as the player need to get better, and, most importantly, that you've lost progress in the game. In this genre, dying is painless, though you won't have your power-ups. You might even have to start over. This is how you get better at these games. SHMUPs are not the kind of game you beat. I like to think of them like pinball. You're playing for a personal high score. In most SHMUPs, when you “beat” the game they just loop you back to the beginning anyway. You shouldn't be tracking whether or not you complete these games, but your score and how much further you've progressed than in previous attempts. I recommend keeping a play journal with little stats for the game you're trying to conquer. It makes a neat souvenir.