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125-529: MUSHA is a vertically scrolling shooter developed by Compile and released for the Sega Genesis in 1990. An entry in Compile's shooter series, Aleste , MUSHA places the player in the role of a flying mecha pilot who must destroy a large super intelligent computer threatening planet Earth. The game had a working title of Aleste 2 and originally featured a style similar to the first game, but this

250-558: A clock frequency between 8 and 10 MHz and also offers an optional 8086 card because the V30 has different instruction cycles. The V30 has unique instructions which are not implemented in other Intel x86 processors. Some PC-98 applications use them, so the PC-9801VX (1986) was designed to run Intel 80286 and V30 selectively. The PC-9801RA (1988) has an Intel 80386 and a V30. The PC-9801DA (1990) does not have this, but its clock speed

375-541: A clock speed of 5 MHz, with two μPD7220 display controllers (one for text, the other for video graphics), and was shipped with 128 KB of RAM that can be expanded to 640 KB. Its 8-color display has a maximum resolution of 640×400 pixels. When the PC-9801 launched in 1982, it was initially priced at 298,000 yen (about US$ 1,200 in 1982 dollars). It can use PC-88 peripherals such as displays and floppy disk drives, and it can run software developed for N88-BASIC with

500-408: A side-scrolling format. Later notable side-scrolling run and gun shooters include Namco's Rolling Thunder (1986), which added cover mechanics to the formula, and Data East's RoboCop (1988). In 1987, Konami created Contra , a side-scrolling coin-op arcade game, and later a NES game, that was particularly acclaimed for its multi-directional aiming and two-player cooperative gameplay. By

625-407: A speed metal soundtrack which would match the fast scrolling action of the game. At the time MUSHA was developed, Sakoda felt most shooting game soundtracks were primarily fusion and mechanically sounding games that lacked a cohesive theme. He wanted this soundtrack to be the first heavy metal game soundtrack, or how he called it, a "heady metal suite " or "heavy metal rhapsody ". To compose

750-431: A sub-genre of action games . There is no consensus as to which design elements compose a shoot 'em up; some restrict the definition to games featuring spacecraft and certain types of character movement, while others allow a broader definition including characters on foot and a variety of perspectives. The genre's roots can be traced back to earlier shooting games , including target shooting electro-mechanical games of

875-471: A "shmup" or "STG" (the common Japanese abbreviation for "shooting games"), is a game in which the protagonist combats a large number of enemies by shooting at them while dodging their fire. The controlling player must rely primarily on reaction times to succeed. Beyond this, critics differ on exactly which design elements constitute a shoot 'em up. Some restrict the genre to games featuring some kind of craft, using fixed or scrolling movement. Others widen

1000-438: A MUSHA. She is sent to fight the human-built Dire 51 supercomputer that has begun attacking Earth from space in the year 2290. The gameplay conventions are largely retained from earlier Aleste titles. The player has a main gun that can be powered up by collecting "Power Chips". There are also three different special weapons that can be picked up: piercing lasers, fire-based explosives and rotating shields. They can be upgraded if

1125-401: A black background. It had a more interactive style of play than earlier target shooting games, with multiple enemies who responded to the player-controlled cannon's movement and fired back at the player. The game ended when the player was killed by the enemies. While earlier shooting games allowed the player to shoot at targets, Space Invaders was the first where multiple enemies fired back at

1250-549: A business software package with the FM-11 (predecessor to FM-16β) which discouraged users from purchasing third-party software and forced them to use it for a specific purpose, which caused Fujitsu to fail to expand their platform. NEC introduced the PC-9801M2 that has two 5¼-inch 2HD floppy drives against the release of FM-16β. This model cannot read 2DD floppy disks. The PC-9801VM uses an NEC V30 CPU clocked at 10 MHz, and

1375-582: A custom chipset GRCG ( GRaphic CharGer ) to access several planar memory in parallel. The PC-9801VX introduced a blitter chip called the EGC ( Enhanced Graphic Charger ). It had raster operations and bit shifting. In 1993, NEC introduced a 2D Windows accelerator card for PC-98, called the Window Accelerator Board , which employed a S3 86C928. Video cards for C-bus, local bus and PCI are also available from other manufacturers. DirectX 7.0a

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1500-490: A few modifications. For new buyers, it required either an expensive 1232 KB 8-inch floppy drive or a smaller capacity 320 KB 5¼-inch floppy drive. The basic system can display JIS X 0201 characters including numbers, English characters, and half-width kana , so most users added an optional kanji ROM board for using a Japanese word processor . Its successor, the PC-9801F, employs an 8086-2 CPU, which can selectively run at

1625-766: A hard drive. If the OS was installed on the hard drive, MS-DOS would assign the hard drive as drive "A:" and the floppy as drive "B:"; this would cause incompatibility among Windows PC applications, although it can be resolved with the SETUP command in Windows 95 by turning on the "/AT" switch to assign the Windows system drive to the standard "C:" drive. The PC-98 uses several different interfaces of hard drives. Early models used Shugart Associates System Interface (SASI) or ST506 , and later models used SCSI or IDE drives. A standard PC-98 has two μPD7220 display controllers (a master and

1750-586: A mid-range Windows PC, the PC-9821 which contained an Intel 386SX processor, a CD-ROM drive, 16-bit PCM audio playback, MS-DOS 5.0A, and Windows 3.0A. In January 1993, PC-98 desktops were expanded into three lines: a high-performance Windows-based line named "98MATE", a low-priced MS-DOS line named "98FELLOW", and an all-in-one desktop line named "98MULTi". PC-98s were still popular among Japanese users because they had many applications. NEC managed to adopt industrial standards and reduce costs. From 1993 to 1995,

1875-567: A more successful attempt to incorporate a 3D perspective into shooter games; Tempest went on to influence several later rail shooters. Sega's Zaxxon (1981) introduced isometric video game graphics to the genre. The term "shmup" is believed to have been coined in 1985 by the British Commodore 64 magazine Zzap!64 . In the July 1985 issue, the term was used by the editor Chris Anderson and reviewer Julian Rignall . 1985 saw

2000-555: A number of MS-DOS applications, but there is no difference between PC-98 and PC/AT clones for using Windows 95. The status of the PC-98 series is not based on its hardware feature or the number of softwares and peripherals, but its strength in promotion, parts procurement and faith in the NEC brand." In 1997, NEC introduced the PC98-NX series as a main personal computer line that conformed to

2125-411: A presence in the consumer market, and its subsidiary, New Nippon Electric (later NEC Home Electronics), had limited success with consumer products. NEC's Information Processing Group, which developed mainframes and minicomputers , had not developed a personal computer because they assumed microprocessors were not suitable for computing as they suffered from a lack of performance and reliability. However,

2250-417: A rail shooter released in 1985, broke new ground graphically and its wide variety of settings across multiple levels gave players more to aim for than high scores. In 1986, Arsys Software released WiBArm , a shooter that switched between a 2D side-scrolling view in outdoor areas to a fully 3D polygonal third-person perspective inside buildings, while bosses were fought in an arena-style 2D battle, with

2375-459: A self-contained application package. It occupied half of the Japanese personal computer market at the end of 1983. As of March 1984, 700 software packages were available for PC-98. In 1987, NEC announced one million PC-98s were shipped, and about 3,000 software packages were available. Masayoshi Son recalled in 1985 that: The gap in share of the personal computer market is growing. Even though

2500-541: A shoot 'em up, as opposed to an action-adventure game . The success of Commando and Ikari Warriors led to run and gun games becoming the dominant style of shoot 'em up during the late 1980s to early 1990s, with the term "shoot 'em up" itself becoming synonymous with "run and gun" during this period. Konami 's Green Beret (1985), known as Rush'n Attack in North America, adapted the Commando formula to

2625-466: A slave ) with 12 KB and 256 KB of video RAMs respectively. The master display controller provides video timings and the memory address for the character generator , and the character generator generates a video signal from two bytes of the character code and a single byte of the attribute. The font ROM contains over 7,000 glyphs including the single-byte character set JIS X 0201 and the double-byte character set JIS X 0208 , although early models provided

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2750-403: A speed of either 5 or 8 MHz. The F2 model contains two 640 KB 5¼-inch 2DD (quad density) floppy drives, a JIS level 1 kanji (2,965 characters) font ROM, and was priced at 398,000 yen (about US$ 1,700 in 1983). It was positively received by engineers and businesses. Ozawa explained the reason why the PC-9801F used a 640 KB floppy drive, "For Japanese business softwares, 320 KB is small, 640 KB

2875-526: A straight line at constant speeds. The player's character can collect " power-ups " which may afford the character's greater protection, an " extra life ", health, shield, or upgraded weaponry. Different weapons are often suited to different enemies, but these games seldom keep track of ammunition. As such, players tend to fire indiscriminately, and their weapons only damage legitimate targets. Shoot 'em ups are categorized by their design elements, particularly viewpoint and movement: Fixed shooters restrict

3000-576: A third-person view, and featured the use of force feedback , where the joystick vibrates. Over the course of the 1990s, a new subgenre of shooters evolved, known as " danmaku ( 弾幕 , "barrage") in Japan, and often referred to as "bullet hell" or "manic shooters" in English-speaking regions. These games are characterized by high numbers of enemy projectiles, often in complex "curtain fire" patterns, as well as collision boxes that are smaller than

3125-487: A vehicle or spacecraft under constant attack. Thus, the player's goal is to shoot as quickly as possible at anything that moves or threatens them to reach the end of the level, usually with a boss battle . In some games, the player's character can withstand some damage or a single hit will result in their destruction. The main skills required in shoot 'em ups are fast reactions and memorising enemy attack patterns. Some games feature overwhelming numbers of enemy projectiles and

3250-555: A wrap-around game world, unlike most later games in the genre. The scrolling helped remove design limitations associated with the screen, and it also featured a minimap radar. Scramble , released by Konami in early 1981, had continuous scrolling in a single direction and was the first side-scrolling shooter with multiple distinct levels . In the early 1980s, Japanese arcade developers began moving away from space shooters towards character action games , whereas American arcade developers continued to focus on space shooters during

3375-535: Is Windows 2000 . The PC-98 is different from the IBM PC in many ways; for instance, it uses its own 16-bit C-bus ( Cバス ) instead of the ISA bus; BIOS, I/O port addressing, memory management and graphics output are also different. However, localized MS-DOS, Unix, OS/2, or Windows will still run on PC-9801s. All PC-98 desktop models use a 100-pin expansion slot. It has 16 data lines and 24 address lines. The bus frequency

3500-500: Is a smooth playable blast, but it's a shame it's so unoriginal and unchallenging". Retrospective reviews for the re-release of MUSHA on the Wii 's Virtual Console in 2009 were much more positive. Both Lucas M. Thomas of IGN and Damien McFarren of Nintendo Life praised the title's detailed graphics, fast-paced soundtrack, and tough difficulty. Since the original cartridges have become rare and expensive, both reviewers also commended

3625-482: Is a subgenre of shooters in which the screen becomes crowded with complex "curtain fire" enemy patterns. It is also characterized by collision boxes that are smaller than the sprites themselves, to accommodate maneuvering through these crowded firing patterns. This style of game, also known as "manic shooters" or "maniac shooters", originated in the mid-1990s as an offshoot of scrolling shooters. The DonPachi and Touhou Project series are early titles establishing

3750-594: Is configurable. NEC focused heavily on financing advertisements and exhibitions, from ¥1,000,000,000 in the 1970s, to over ¥25,000,000,000 in 1985. While NEC did not market these specific machines in the West, it sold the NEC APC III , which had similar hardware as early PC-98 models. However, NEC began selling an IBM clone (APC IV) outside Japan in 1986. By 1990, 2 million PC-9800/9801 units were sold in Japan. Toshiba had developed laptop computers since

3875-464: Is divided into pages (2 pages × 4 planes × 32 KB in 640 × 400 with 16 colors), and the programmer can control which page is written to and which page is output. The slave display controller synchronizes with the master, so the text screen can be overlapped onto the graphics. The high-resolution machines (PC-98XA, XL and PC-H98) offered an 1120 × 750 display mode and aimed for tasks such as CAD and word processing. The PC-9801U (optional) and VM introduced

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4000-708: Is fixed at 5, 8 or 10 MHz. The PC-H98 and PC-9821A series computers use a proprietary 32-bit local bus slot along with 16-bit slots. The 16-bit expansion bus was also called C-bus (Compatible Bus). The PC-9821Xf introduced in 1994 shipped with C-bus slots and PCI slots on the motherboard, replacing the proprietary local bus slot. Many PC-9801 models can increase system memory by installing expansion boards, daughterboards, or proprietary SIMMs. They are limited to 14.6 MB, due to 24-bit address pins and reserve space. EMS memory boards for C-bus are also available. The PC-9821Af introduced in 1993 shipped with standard 72-pin SIMMs, broke

4125-608: Is just barely enough, and 1 MB is preferable. We want to choose a 1 MB floppy drive, but its 8-inch drive is expensive, and its 5-inch drive lacks reliability. So, we think 640 KB is the best choice. Also, it can read a 320 KB floppy disk". The Electronic Devices Group launched the PC-100 in October 1983 and attempted to present a GUI similar to the Apple Lisa . The PC-100 did not sell well due to its time and high cost. Moreover,

4250-477: Is notable for using a traditional fantasy setting in contrast to most shoot 'em up games filled with science fiction motifs. R-Type , an acclaimed side-scrolling shoot 'em up, was released in 1987 by Irem , employing slower paced scrolling than usual, with difficult, claustrophobic levels calling for methodical strategies. 1990's Raiden was the beginning of another acclaimed and enduring series to emerge from this period. Run and gun games became popular in

4375-864: Is still a single axis of motion, making these a subset of fixed shooters. Rail shooters limit the player to moving around the screen while following a specific route; these games often feature an "into the screen" viewpoint, with which the action is seen from behind the player character , and moves "into the screen", while the player retains control over dodging. Examples include Space Harrier (1985), Captain Skyhawk (1990), Starblade (1991), Star Fox (1993), Star Wars: Rebel Assault (1993), Panzer Dragoon (1995), and Sin and Punishment (2000). Rail shooters that use light guns are called light gun shooters , such as Operation Wolf (1987), Lethal Enforcers (1992), Virtua Cop (1994), Point Blank (1994), Time Crisis (1995), The House of

4500-442: Is sure that we cannot deny contributions of Electronic Devices Group as a parent of the personal computer. However, if personal computers are considered computers, Information Processing Group should handle them in NEC. Also, if personal computers are considered home electronics, we cannot deny a proposal from New Nippon Electric. In April 1981, NEC decided to expand their personal computer lines into three groups: New Nippon Electric,

4625-495: Is the last official supported version for PC-98. The first generation of PC-9801s (the E, F and M models) only have an internal buzzer. PC-9801U2 and later models can change the sound frequency by controlling the programmable interval timer , like the PC speaker . The PC-8801mkIISR home computer, introduced in 1985, has a Yamaha YM2203 FM synthesis , an Atari joystick port and BASIC sound commands. The optional PC-9801-26 sound card

4750-512: The Alone in the Dark series. The higher display resolution and higher storage capacity allowed better graphics, but because of the PC-98's lack of hardware sprites, most of the games made for the system were slow-paced. As a result of this limitation, adult dating sims and visual novels appeared as a revival of 1980's adventure games and gained popularity, such as Dōkyūsei and YU-NO . After

4875-515: The Geometry Wars series, Space Invaders Extreme , Super Stardust HD , and Resogun . The concept of shooting games existed before video games , dating back to shooting gallery carnival games in the late 19th century and target sports such as archery , bowling and darts . Mechanical target shooting games first appeared in England 's amusement arcades around the turn of

5000-718: The Romance of the Three Kingdoms series were particularly popular and they established PC-98 as a PC game platform. Towards the end of the 1980s, the Japanese PC game platform slowly shifted from PC-88 to PC-98, as the X68000 and the FM Towns also had a niche market. In the 1990s, many computer role-playing games were developed for the PC-98 or imported from other platforms, such as Brandish , Dungeon Master and

5125-570: The FM-16β  [ ja ] in December 1984. It has an Intel 80186 CPU at 8 MHz and a 1.2 MB 5¼-inch 2HD (high density) floppy drive. The FM-16β failed because it bundled CP/M-86 , not MS-DOS, and was marketed by Fujitsu's Electronic Devices department instead of the Computers department. They modified their policies in mid-1985, but it was too late. In another incident, Fujitsu bundled

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5250-575: The Front Line tank shooter format with unique rotary joystick controls, which they later combined with Commando -inspired run and gun gameplay to develop Ikari Warriors (1986), which further popularized run and gun shooters. Ikari Warriors also drew inspiration from the action film Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), which it was originally intended to be an adaptation of. Contemporary critics considered military themes and protagonists similar to Rambo or Schwarzenegger prerequisites for

5375-462: The Intel 8086 processor, and Nishi replied, saying that he wanted to talk with Bill Gates . Three months later, Nishi rejected Hamada's request because Microsoft was busy with the development of GW-BASIC , and they did not want to produce more variants of Microsoft BASIC. Nishi told him, "Microsoft is rewriting a BASIC that has the same function with more structured internal code, and it will be sold as

5500-557: The PC Open Architecture Developer Group (OADG) organized by IBM Japan and Microsoft. In October 1992, Compaq released a DOS/V computer priced at ¥128,000 compared to the lowest priced PC-98 at ¥248,000 , causing a price war in the Japanese PC market. In 1993, Toshiba introduced DOS/V computers, Epson founded Epson Direct Corporation to sell DOS/V computers, and Fujitsu started selling DOS/V computers branded as FMV. In November 1992, NEC introduced

5625-640: The PC System Design Guide and was Windows-based IBM PC compatible but not DOS/V compatible. The PC-9801's last successor was the Celeron -based PC-9821Ra43 (with a clock frequency of 433 MHz, using a 440FX chipset-based motherboard design from 1998), which appeared in 2000. NEC announced that the PC-98 would be discontinued in 2003. 18.3 million of PC-98s shipped by the end of shipments in March 2004. The last version of Windows to support PC-98

5750-466: The Xbox 360 , PlayStation 3 and Wii online services, while in Japan arcade shoot 'em ups retain a deep-rooted niche popularity. Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved was released on Xbox Live Arcade in 2005 and in particular stood out from the various re-releases and casual games available on the service. The PC has also seen its share of dōjin shoot 'em ups like Crimzon Clover , Jamestown: Legend of

5875-404: The bytecode matched Microsoft's. It was unclear if the copyright law could apply to the bytecode. Nishi suggested to Hamada that NEC must have purchased the same amount of Microsoft's product as it corresponded to the license fee, and N88-BASIC(86) must show copyright notification for both Microsoft and NEC. Hamada approved it. The team considered third-party developers to be very important for

6000-430: The vertical scrolling format later popularized by Capcom 's Commando (1985), which established the standard formula used by later run and gun games. Sega's Ninja Princess (1985), which released slightly before Commando , was a run and gun game that was distinctive for its feudal Japan setting and female ninja protagonist who throws shuriken and knives. SNK 's TNK III , released later in 1985, combined

6125-634: The 14.6 MB barrier, and supported memory up to 79.6 MB. Later desktop models shipped with standard SIMM or DIMM memory. The PC-98XA (1985) and its successors, called high-resolution machine or simply hi-reso machine , are capable of 768 KB base memory , but their I/O ports and memory addressing are quite different from normal PC-98s. Early PC-9801 models supported 1232 KB 8-inch floppy drives and/or 640 KB 5 + 1 ⁄ 4 -inch floppy drives. Each used different IRQ lines and I/O ports. Later models support both interfaces. High density 5 + 1 ⁄ 4 -inch and 3 + 1 ⁄ 2 -inch floppy disks use

6250-498: The 1980s to early 1990s, diversifying into a variety of subgenres such as scrolling shooters, run and gun games and rail shooters. In the mid-1990s, shoot 'em ups became a niche genre based on design conventions established in the 1980s, and increasingly catered to specialist enthusiasts, particularly in Japan. " Bullet hell " games are a subgenre of shooters that features overwhelming numbers of enemy projectiles , often in visually impressive formations. A "shoot 'em up", also known as

6375-530: The 20th century, before appearing in America by the 1920s. Shooting gallery games eventually evolved into more sophisticated target shooting electro-mechanical games (EM games) such as Sega 's influential Periscope (1965). Shooting video games have roots in EM shooting games. Video game journalist Brian Ashcraft argues the early mainframe game Spacewar! (1962) was the first shoot 'em up video game. It

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6500-511: The Dead (1996) and Elemental Gearbolt (1997). Light-gun games that are "on rails" are usually not considered to be in the shoot-em-up category, but rather their own first-person light-gun shooter category. Cute 'em ups feature brightly colored graphics depicting surreal settings and enemies. Cute 'em ups tend to have unusual, oftentimes completely bizarre opponents for the player to fight, with Twinbee and Fantasy Zone first pioneering

6625-629: The Electronic Device Sales Division developed the microprocessor evaluation kit TK-80 , which became unexpectedly popular among hobbyists. Tomio Gotō ( 後藤 富雄 ) , a developer of the TK-80, observed the rise in popularity of personal computers at the 1977 West Coast Computer Faire in San Francisco . Goto and his section manager, Kazuya Watanabe ( 渡邊 和也 ) , decided to develop a personal computer despite criticism from

6750-848: The Information Processing Group, and the Electronic Devices Group, with each specializing in a particular series. New Nippon Electric made 8-bit home computers ( PC-6000 series ), while the Information Processing Group made 16-bit business personal computers and the Electronic Devices Group made other personal computers such as the PC-8000 , the PC-8800 and the PC-100 series . In the Information Processing Small Systems Division, Shunzō Hamada ( 浜田 俊三 ) directed

6875-492: The Information Processing Group. The division only had a small distribution network of electronic parts stores, so they asked New Nippon Electric to sell the personal computers through their consumer distribution network. The Electronic Device Sales Division launched the PC-8001 in 1979, and it dominated 40% of the Japanese personal computer market in 1981. The vice president of NEC, Atsuyoshi Ōuchi ( 大内 淳義 ) , stated: It

7000-660: The J-3100SS branded as the DynaBook , a true laptop computer which was light and battery operated. It made annual sales of 170,000 units. Four months later, NEC released the PC-9801N and branded it as the "98NOTE". The DynaBook started off well but the 98NOTE outsold it in 1990. Microsoft and other PC manufacturers developed the AX specification in 1987. It allowed IBM PC clones to handle Japanese text by using special video chips,

7125-647: The Japanese PC market. In October 1987, Epson released the PC-286L which was a PC-98 compatible laptop before NEC started development of their own laptop. In March 1988, NEC released the PC-9801LV which was a 100% PC-98 compatible laptop. It was accomplished by three custom VLSI chips. These chipsets are also used in other desktops such as the PC-9801UV11 and the PC-9801RA. In July 1989, Toshiba released

7250-411: The Japanese PC market. The PC-98 is a non-IBM compatible x86 -based computer and is thus capable of running ported (and localized) versions of MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows . However, as Windows spread, software developers no longer had to code their software separately for each specific platform. An influx of cheaper clone computers by American vendors, and later the popularity of Windows 95 reducing

7375-464: The Japanese keyboard, and software written for it. However, the AX could not break into the Japanese PC market due to its higher cost and less compatible software. Sharp X68000 and Fujitsu FM Towns intended to offer a multimedia platform for home users. Both have rich graphics and sound capabilities in comparison to the basic configuration of PC-98. They enjoyed modest success, but not enough to threaten

7500-475: The Lost Colony , Xenoslaive Overdrive , and the eXceed series . However, despite the genre's continued appeal to an enthusiastic niche of players, shoot 'em up developers are increasingly embattled financially by the power of home consoles and their attendant genres. PC-9800 series The PC-98 was initially released as a business-oriented personal computer which had backward compatibility with

7625-476: The PC-98 adopted 72-pin SIMMs , the 3.5-inch 1.44 MB floppy format , IDE storage drives, a 640×480 DOS screen mode, 2D GUI acceleration GPUs , Windows Sound System , PCI slots, and PCMCIA card slots. NEC had outsourced manufacturing of motherboards to Taiwanese companies such as ECS and GVC (acquired by Lite-On ). Aside from other Japanese domestic platforms which had disappeared, Windows 95 overturned

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7750-572: The PC-98 declined, many Japanese PC game developers shifted the game platform to video game consoles , except for eroge distributed by computer stores. In the 1980s and early 1990s, NEC dominated the Japanese domestic PC market with more than 60% of the PCs sold as PC-9801 or PC-8801. In 1990, IBM Japan introduced the DOS/V operating system which enabled displaying Japanese text on standard IBM PC/AT VGA adapters. Other Japanese PC manufacturers joined

7875-515: The West in 2009. It was re-released again on the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack in 2021. MUSHA has been more well-received in retrospective reviews, where it is cited for its challenging gameplay, strong soundtrack, and graphics that were ahead of its time. MUSHA is a vertically scrolling shooter. The player takes on the role of Terri, a pilot who flies a specially designed mecha vehicle with advanced weaponry called

8000-541: The autumn of 1983, while their desktops were a failure in the Japanese PC market. In October 1986, they introduced the J-3100  [ ja ] which allowed the T3100 to handle Japanese text. NEC did not expect it to become the first successful laptop computer. In Japan, a typical office layout is an open office that is made up of rows of tight desks, so laptop computers received a good reception from corporate customers. In

8125-589: The claim that its BIOS infringed their copyright. Epson canceled their PC-286 model 1-4 and released the PC-286 model 0 whose BIOS was made by another team under a clean room design ; it did not have a built-in BASIC interpreter . NEC countered that the PC-286 model 0 lacked compatibility with the PC-98. Although it seemed NEC would not be able to win the lawsuit, Epson settled with NEC in November 1987 after considering

8250-634: The closure of Toaplan, the following year, a number of studios formed from former Toaplan staff that would continue to develop this style, including Cave (formed by Batsugun's main creator Tsuneki Ikeda) who released 1995's seminal DonPachi , and Takumi, who would develop the GigaWing series. Bullet hell games marked another point where the shooter genre began to cater to more dedicated players. Games such as Gradius had been more difficult than Space Invaders or Xevious , but bullet hell games were yet more inward-looking and aimed at dedicated fans of

8375-460: The damage that would be done to their reputation. The PC-286 model 0 employs an Intel 80286 processor operating at 10 MHz - 25% faster than NEC's PC-9801VX using the same CPU at 8 MHz. In June 1987, NEC released a 10 MHz version of the PC-9801VX (VX01, VX21 and VX41 models). They added a BIOS signature check to their operating systems to prevent non-NEC machines from booting the OSes; it

8500-399: The definitive 16-bit version named GW-BASIC. We'll provide a BASIC sooner if you choose the Japanese adoption of GW BASIC." Hamada replied, "As I said, we want a BASIC that is compatible with the previous ones." They could not make an agreement. Hamada could not decide which plan they should develop, a small business computer or a personal computer, because the possibilities of Watanabe's plan

8625-405: The demand for PC-98 legacy applications, led to NEC abandoning compatibility with the PC-98 platform in 1997 and releasing the PC98-NX series of Wintel computers, based on the PC System Design Guide . NEC developed mainframes since the 1950s. By 1976, the company had the 4th highest mainframe sales (10.4%) in Japan after IBM (29.6%), Fujitsu (20.1%) and Hitachi (15.8%). NEC did not have

8750-425: The domestic market. Global PC manufacturers, with the exception of Apple , had failed to overcome the language barrier , and the Japanese PC market was isolated from the global market. By 1990, average CPUs and graphics capabilities were sufficiently improved. The DOS/V operating system enabled IBM clones to display Japanese text by using a software font only, giving a chance for global PC manufacturers to enter

8875-550: The dominance of the PC-98. The difference in the architecture was not only ineffective for platform-independent environments but also increasing development resources to adopt them. During the development of Windows 95, NEC sent an average of 20 engineers to Microsoft's office in Seattle . Even though the PC-98 uses some IBM clone components, Windows requires the special driver or HAL to support its IRQ, I/O and C-Bus. The Nikkei Personal Computing magazine wrote, "The PC-98 features

9000-611: The domination of the PC-98. The Nikkei Personal Computing magazine stated in January 1992 that "users choose a PC with considering compatibility and expandability. The PC-9800 compatibles is the most popular, and the IBM PC/AT compatibles also gains their strong support. PC users are stubborn and conservative. We conclude these opinions are related to the slump in other PC sales including Fujitsu FMR, Sharp X68000, AX machines, Canon Navi and rapidly declining 8-bit machines like MSX." In

9125-402: The double-byte character set as an option. Each character has a variety of display options, including bits for secret, blinking, reverse, underline, and three intensity bits ( grayscale or RGB ). The other display controller is set to slave mode and connected to 256 KB of planar video memory, allowing it to display 640 × 400 pixel graphics with 16 colors out of a palette of 4096. This video RAM

9250-622: The early 1980s, home users chose 8-bit machines rather than 16-bit machines because 16-bit systems were expensive and designed exclusively for business. By the mid-1980s, the Japanese home computer market was dominated by the NEC PC-88 , the Fujitsu FM-7 , and the Sharp X1 . In this era, simulation games was the most popular genre for PC-98, which took advantage of higher clock speed and larger memory reserves. The Daisenryaku series and

9375-629: The early 1980s, up until the end of the arcade golden age. According to Eugene Jarvis , American developers were greatly influenced by Japanese space shooters but took the genre in a different direction from the "more deterministic, scripted, pattern-type" gameplay of Japanese games, towards a more "programmer-centric design culture, emphasizing algorithmic generation of backgrounds and enemy dispatch" and "an emphasis on random-event generation, particle-effect explosions and physics" as seen in arcade games such as his own Defender and Robotron: 2084 (1982) as well as Atari's Asteroids (1979). Robotron: 2084

9500-400: The early 1990s and the popularity of 16-bit consoles , the scrolling shooter genre was overcrowded, with developers struggling to make their games stand out, with exceptions such as the inventive Gunstar Heroes (1993) by Treasure . Sega's pseudo-3D rail shooter Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom demonstrated the potential of 3D shoot 'em up gameplay in 1982. Sega's Space Harrier ,

9625-503: The emergence of one of Sega's forefront series with its game Fantasy Zone . The game received acclaim for its surreal graphics and setting and the protagonist, Opa-Opa, was for a time considered Sega's mascot . The game borrowed Defender's device of allowing the player to control the direction of flight and along with the earlier TwinBee (1985), is an early archetype of the "cute 'em up" subgenre. In 1986, Taito released KiKi KaiKai , an overhead multi-directional shooter. The game

9750-494: The first games to popularize twin-stick controls was Robotron: 2084 (1982). Space shooters are a thematic variant of involving spacecraft in outer space . Following the success of Space Invaders , space shooters were the dominant subgenre during the late 1970s to early 1980s. These games can overlap with other subgenres as well as space combat games . Tube shooters feature craft flying through an abstract tube, such as Tempest (1981) and Gyruss (1983). There

9875-457: The game featuring a variety of weapons and equipment. In 1987, Square's 3-D WorldRunner was an early stereoscopic 3-D shooter played from a third-person perspective, followed later that year by its sequel JJ , and the following year by Space Harrier 3-D which used the SegaScope 3-D shutter glasses . That same year, Sega's Thunder Blade switched between both a top-down view and

10000-431: The genre looking for greater challenges. While shooter games featuring protagonists on foot largely moved to 3D-based genres, popular, long-running series such as Contra and Metal Slug continued to receive new sequels. Rail shooters have rarely been released in the new millennium, with only Rez and Panzer Dragoon Orta achieving cult recognition. In the early 2000s, the genre achieved recognition through

10125-481: The market's expansion. They provided 50–100 prototypes and technical information for independent companies without a fee. In 1981, the Terminal Units Division of the Information Processing Group also launched the personal computer series N5200  [ ja ] , which was branded as the "personal terminal". It used an Intel 8086 processor and a μPD7220 display controller. Its architecture

10250-502: The marketing competed with the PC-98 of the Information Processing Group, which did not assure distributors. In December 1983, Ouchi decided that NEC would consolidate their personal computer business into two divisions: NEC Home Electronics to deal with the 8-bit home computer line, and Nippon Electric's Information Processing Group to deal with the 16-bit personal computer line. The Electronic Device Group passed off their personal computer business to NEC Home Electronics. Fujitsu released

10375-420: The mid-1980s. These games feature characters on foot, rather than spacecraft, and often have military themes. The origins of this type of shooter go back to Sheriff by Nintendo , released in 1979. SNK 's Sasuke vs. Commander (1980), which had relatively detailed background graphics for its time, pit a samurai against a horde of ninjas , along with boss fights . Taito's Front Line (1982) introduced

10500-411: The mid-20th-century, but did not receive a video game release until Spacewar! (1962). The shoot 'em up genre was established by the hit arcade game Space Invaders , which popularised and set the general template for the genre in 1978, and has spawned many clones. The genre was then further developed by arcade hits such as Asteroids and Galaxian in 1979. Shoot 'em ups were popular throughout

10625-432: The mobile game Space Impact , which is considered one of the important games in the history of mobile games . Treasure's shoot 'em up, Radiant Silvergun (1998), introduced an element of narrative to the genre. It was critically acclaimed for its refined design, though it was not released outside Japan and remains a much sought-after collector's item. Its successor Ikaruga (2001) featured improved graphics and

10750-435: The music, Sakoda used real instruments, then notated the music on an MSX computer and converted it onto a PC-9800 . Since he did not like mechanical sounds, he programmed the virtual instruments to sound like they were played by humans. Sakoda worked closely with sound effects programmer Masanobu Tsukamoto. Since the game had limited sound channels , or tracks, he exercised caution not to create too many simultaneous sounds so

10875-456: The player against multiple enemies descending from the top of the screen at a constantly increasing speed. Nishikado conceived the game by combining elements of Breakout (1976) with those of earlier target shooting games, and simple alien creatures inspired by H. G. Wells ' The War of the Worlds . The hardware was unable to render the movement of aircraft, so the game was set in space, with

11000-401: The player and enemies to a single screen, and the player primarily moves along a single axis, such as back and forth along the bottom of the screen. Examples include Space Invaders (1978), Galaxian (1979), Phoenix (1980), and Galaga (1981). In Pooyan (1982), the fixed axis of movement is vertical, along the right side of the screen. In Centipede (1980) and Gorf (1981),

11125-574: The player has to memorise their patterns to survive. These games belong to one of the fastest-paced video game genres . Large numbers of enemy characters programmed to behave in an easily predictable manner are typically featured. These enemies may behave in a certain way dependent on their type, or attack in formations that the player can learn to predict. The basic gameplay tends to be straightforward with many varieties of weapons. Shoot 'em ups rarely have realistic physics. Characters can instantly change direction with no inertia , and projectiles move in

11250-491: The player in a trance-like state. In trance shooters, enemy patterns usually have randomized elements, forcing the player to rely on reflexes rather than pattern memorization. Games of this type usually feature colorful, abstract visuals, and electronic music (often techno music ). Jeff Minter is commonly credited with originating the style with Tempest 2000 (1994) and subsequent games including Space Giraffe , Gridrunner++ , and Polybius (2017). Other examples include

11375-480: The player primarily moves left and right along the bottom, but several inches of vertical motion are also allowed within an invisible box. Multidirectional shooters allow 360-degree movement where the protagonist may rotate and move in any direction such as Asteroids (1979) and Mad Planets (1983). Multidirectional shooters with one joystick for movement and one joystick for firing in any direction independent of movement are called twin-stick shooters . One of

11500-415: The player's flying vehicle moving forward, at a fixed rate, through an environment. Examples are Scramble (1981), Xevious (1982), Gradius (1986), Darius (1987), R-Type (1987), Einhänder (1997). In contrast, Defender (1981) allows the player to move left or right at will. Run and gun games have protagonists that move through the world on foot and shoot attackers. Examples include

11625-459: The player. A young team at Compile developed MUSHA in less than a year. They originally made a prototype for a new game in the Aleste series called "Aleste 2" for the Sega Genesis , but postponed the project. The team was still feeling pressure to create a game, and also wanted to change the direction of the Aleste series. Designer Kazuyuki Nakashima came up with a design that ignored most of

11750-549: The player. It also introduced the idea of giving the player multiple lives and popularized the concept of achieving a high score . With these elements, Space Invaders set the general template for the shoot 'em up genre. It became one of the most widely cloned shooting games, spawning more than 100 imitators with only the most minor differences (if any) from the original. Most shooting games released since then have followed its "multiple life, progressively difficult level " paradigm, according to Eugene Jarvis . Following

11875-548: The principle of bullet hells. A bullet heaven or reverse bullet hell is a subgenre characterized by the player character collecting or unlocking abilities and attacks whose visuals overlap and clutter the game screen as the game progresses. They also share a feature of many enemy characters, commonly called "hordes", walking toward the player from off-screen. This genre is generally attributed to Vampire Survivors , released in 2022. A small subgenre of shooter games that emphasizes chaotic, reflex-based gameplay designed to put

12000-531: The project and Noboru Ozawa ( 小澤 昇 ) did the product planning. The development team initially planned for the new personal computer to be a small version of the business computer line which originated from the 1973 NEAC System 100. Kazuya Watanabe stated that the personal computer must have Microsoft BASIC , considered compatibility of peripheral devices with previous NEC PCs, and disclosed specifications of its expansion slot. In September 1981, Hamada requested ASCII 's Kazuhiko Nishi to rewrite N88-BASIC to run on

12125-612: The release for providing players an accessible way to play it. McFarren concluded by calling it one of the best shoot 'em ups on the Sega Genesis and the 16-bit era overall. Thomas called it one of the best "classic shooters". Levi Buchanan of IGN placed MUSHA at number five on his "Top 10 Classic Shoot 'Em Ups" list, dubbing it Compile's greatest shooter and one of the best shooters on the Genesis. Scrolling shooter Shoot 'em ups (also known as shmups or STGs ) are

12250-416: The release of Konami's Gradius , which gave the player greater control over the choice of weaponry, thus introducing another element of strategy. The game also introduced the need for the player to memorise levels in order to achieve any measure of success. Gradius , with its iconic protagonist, defined the side-scrolling shoot 'em up and spawned a series spanning several sequels. The following year saw

12375-400: The same logical format and data rate as 1232 KB 8-inch floppy disks. They became a non-standard format while formats brought by IBM PC/AT and PS/2 became the industry standard. The PC-98 supports up to four floppy drives. If the system is booted from a floppy drive, MS-DOS assigns letters to all of the floppy drives before considering hard drives ; it does the opposite if it is booted from

12500-465: The same month, NEC introduced the PC-98LT laptop computer. This model had poor compatibility with the PC-9801 and could not gain a significant profit. NEC understood, despite difficulties, that the PC-98 needed a new custom chipset to make the motherboard smaller. In March 1987, Epson announced the first PC-98 clone desktop computer and named it the PC-286 series. NEC investigated and sued Epson on

12625-562: The same weapon is picked up that is currently being used. If hit while a special weapon is equipped, the player will lose the special weapon but remain alive. Getting hit without a special weapon will result in losing a life. For every three Power Chips collected, the player obtains a drone similar to those in the Gradius series. Only two drones can be equipped at any one moment; extras are stored. These drones can be set to one of six attack modes, such as aiming forward, behind, or rotating around

12750-423: The scope to include games featuring such protagonists as robots or humans on foot, as well as including games featuring "on-rails" (or "into the screen") and "run and gun" movement. Mark Wolf restricts the definition to games featuring multiple antagonists ("'em" being short for "them"), calling games featuring one-on-one shooting "combat games". Formerly, critics described any game where the primary design element

12875-412: The sound effects would not cut out the music. Sakoda only had four channels to use in any given song, one of which was always fixed on drums. After the soundtrack was nearly finished, Compile leadership told Sakoda to change the music to something which fit the Japanese aesthetic. After hearing a new soundtrack with plucky Japanese instruments, leadership told Sakoda to revert to his original music. MUSHA

13000-421: The sprites themselves, allowing the player to fit between the narrow gaps in enemy fire. Bullet hell games were first popularized in Japanese arcades during a time when 3D games and fighting games were eclipsing other games. The flashy firing patterns were intended to grab players attention. Toaplan 's Batsugun (1993) is often considered a pivotal point in the development of this subgenre. After

13125-481: The start was not limited to NEC only, why did this gap cause? It can be said that NEC has taken a positive attitude towards disclosing hardware and operating systems since the early period, and free for third parties to develop software and peripherals. While the competitors adopted the same Microsoft's BASIC, they didn't disclose them. This difference in attitude is reflected in today's share. NEC took care to maintain compatibility and inheritance. The PC-9801VM can select

13250-485: The style of previous Aleste games and instead went with a Japanese aesthetic, including a character with a Noh mask. This change in direction motivated the team to pick up remnants of "Aleste 2" and push it into a new direction. The valley stage in MUSHA utilizes the Genesis's vertical parallax scrolling capabilities, which was later highlighted by critics as one of the game's most impressive technical features. The stage

13375-612: The subgenre, along with Parodius , Cotton , and Harmful Park being additional key games. Some cute 'em ups may employ overtly sexual characters and innuendo. Vertically scrolling shooters present the action from above and scroll up (or occasionally down) the screen. Horizontally scrolling shooters usually present a side-on view and scroll left to right (or less often, right to left). Isometrically scrolling shooters or isometric shooters , such as Sega 's Zaxxon (1982), use an isometric point of view . A popular implementation style of scrolling shooters has

13500-550: The success of Space Invaders , shoot 'em ups became the dominant genre for much of the golden age of arcade video games , from the late 1970s up until the early 1980s, particularly the "space shooter" subgenre. In 1979, Namco 's Galaxian —"the granddaddy of all top-down shooters", according to IGN—was released. Its use of colour graphics and individualised antagonists were considered "strong evolutionary concepts" among space ship games. In 1981 Gorf brought joystick control and (limited) vertical as well as horizontal movement to

13625-615: The successful PC-8800 series . The range of the series was expanded, and in the 1990s it was used in a variety of industry fields including education and hobbies. NEC succeeded in attracting third-party suppliers and a wide range of users, and the PC-98 dominated the Japanese PC market with more than 60% market share by 1991. IBM clones lacked sufficient graphics capabilities to easily handle Japan's multiple writing systems, in particular kanji with its thousands of characters. In addition, Japanese computer manufacturers marketed personal computers that were based on each proprietary architecture for

13750-472: The vertically scrolling, overhead view games Front Line (1982), Commando (1985), and Ikari Warriors (1986). Side-scrolling run and gun games often combine elements from platform games , such as the ability to jump: Contra (1987), Metal Slug (1996) and Cuphead (2017). Run and gun games may also use isometric viewpoints and may have multidirectional movement. Bullet hell ( 弾幕 , danmaku , literally "barrage" or "bullet curtain")

13875-545: The vertically-oriented fixed-shooter genre, while Space Invaders and Galaxian have only horizontal movement controlled by a pair of buttons. Atari 's Asteroids (1979) was a hit multi-directional shooter, taking from Spacewar! the ability for the player's ship to roam the entire screen and to rotate, move and shoot in any direction. The Space Invaders format evolved into the vertical scrolling shooter sub-genre. SNK 's debut shoot 'em up Ozma Wars (1979) featured vertical scrolling backgrounds and enemies, and it

14000-597: The visuals to be smooth and highlighted the parallax scrolling effect in the canyon level. Frank Martinez Jr. from GameFan also praised the parallax scrolling in addition to the enemy and character sprite detail. The writers at Raze positively noted the game's oriental design and explosion effects. The game's difficulty was a common point of criticism. Many noted MUSHA to be too easy and too short. Some wrote that it may be fun for shooter novices, but more experienced players would find it unchallenging. The music also received mixed comments. Leadbetter concluded that " MUSHA

14125-475: Was again acclaimed as one of the best games in the genre. Both Radiant Silvergun and Ikaruga were later released on Xbox Live Arcade . The Touhou Project series spans 26 years and 30 games as of 2022 and was listed in the Guinness World Records in October 2010 for being the "most prolific fan-made shooter series". The genre has undergone something of a resurgence with the release of

14250-421: Was an influential game in the multi-directional shooter subgenre. Some games experimented with pseudo-3D perspectives at the time. Nintendo 's attempt at the genre, Radar Scope (1980), borrowed heavily from Space Invaders and Galaxian , but added a three-dimensional third-person perspective; the game was a commercial failure, however. Atari's Tempest (1981) was one of the earliest tube shooters and

14375-480: Was changed to a more original Japanese aesthetic and speed metal soundtrack. Initial reception for MUSHA was mixed. Critics generally agreed the game was enjoyable with great graphics, but found themselves overwhelmed by the number of scrolling shooters on the Genesis and felt the title was unremarkable and lacked challenge. The game was re-released on the Wii Virtual Console in Japan in 2008 and

14500-790: Was commonly called an "EPSON check". In September 1987, Epson introduced the PC-286V and the PC-286U and also released the BASIC Support ROM to add a BASIC interpreter to their computers. Epson also bundled the Software Installation Program which was a patch kit to remove the EPSON check. Both machines were received well due to their reasonable prices and better compatibility. In 1988, Epson made annual sales of 200,000 units and successfully established PC-98 clones in

14625-506: Was developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1961, for the developers' amusement, and presents a space battle between two craft. It was remade four times as an arcade video game in the 1970s. Space Invaders (1978) is most frequently cited as the "first" or "original" in the genre. A seminal game created by Tomohiro Nishikado of Japan's Taito , it led to proliferation of shooter games. It pitted

14750-408: Was first released in Japan on December 21, 1990. It was released in North America the following year. MUSHA received mixed reviews at release. Critics found themselves overwhelmed by the number of shoot 'em ups on the Sega Genesis, and considered MUSHA to be another standard shooter offering. Many wrote about the graphics in positive light. Richard Leadbetter from Computer and Video Games found

14875-460: Was introduced as a new model of traditional business computers, so it was not notable. In February 1982, the software development team started reverse engineering N88-BASIC and designing N88-BASIC(86). After the team finished in March 1982, they started development on the PC-9801 (named N-10 Project ). A PC-9801 prototype was completed at the end of July 1982. The code of N88-BASIC (86) was written completely from scratch, but Nishi pointed out that

15000-585: Was programmed by Yuichi Toyama , who also programmed the enemies that move in and out of the depths of the valley, and tiles that fall into the screen in other stages. Toyama worked with the sound effects programmer Masanobu Tsukamoto to modulate the frequency of the sound effects when objects moved in and out of the screen to simulate the Doppler effect . For MUSHA 's soundtrack, Nakashima originally presented an idea for what he called " Edo Metal" music to composer Toshiaki Sakoda. They eventually agreed on creating

15125-428: Was released in July 1985. The VM2 model shipped with two 5¼-inch 2HD floppy drives and supports both 2DD and 2HD floppy disks. It became the best-selling computer in Japan, with annual sales of 210,000 units. NEC permitted software companies to bundle a subset of MS-DOS 2.11 without a license fee between 1983 and 1987. ASCII and Microsoft allowed it to enter the market and compete with CP/M-86. NEC also let users buy

15250-404: Was shooting as a "shoot 'em up", but later shoot 'em ups became a specific, inward-looking genre based on design conventions established in those shooting games of the 1980s. Shoot 'em ups are a subgenre of action game . These games are usually viewed from a top-down or side-view perspective , and players must use ranged weapons to take action at a distance. The player's avatar is typically

15375-559: Was similar to that of the PC-98, but it mostly ran the proprietary operating system PTOS . NEC introduced it as an intelligent terminal or a workstation and was distinguished within personal computer lines. For this market, Fujitsu released the FACOM 9450  [ ja ] in 1981, and IBM Japan released the Multistation 5550 in 1983. The first model, the PC-9801, launched in October 1982, and employs an 8086 CPU . It runs at

15500-546: Was the first action game to feature a supply of energy, similar to hit points . Namco's Xevious , released in 1982, was one of the first and most influential vertical scrolling shooters. Xevious is also the first to convincingly portray dithered/shaded organic landscapes as opposed to blocks-in-space or wireframe obstacles. Side-scrolling shoot 'em ups emerged in the early 1980s. Defender , introduced by Williams Electronics in late 1980 and entering production in early 1981, allowed side-scrolling in both directions in

15625-548: Was uncertain. While they were visiting software companies to collect and research applications for the PC-8001 and PC-8801, Hamada and Watanabe discovered that the consumer market wanted a 16-bit machine compatible with both PCs. Hamada decided to adopt two plans for different markets. In April 1982, the small business personal computer became the NEC System 20 model 15, which used a proprietary 16-bit microprocessor. The machine

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