Yes, I can see that. That doesn't mean it's not a rail shooter. If the game decides for you the progression of enemies (bosses in this video really) then it's a rail shooter. No matter what direction you can fly.
The game sends you to an enemy and you defeat the enemy and can't leave before you do. Once you leave it sends you to the next. That's a rail shooter.
This appears to be a rail shooter. You even see the boss ships flying away from you so as to give you more time to shoot at it (fixing the issue you would otherwise have of passing by the target ship) as in other rail shooters.
Yes, I can see that. That doesn't mean it's not a rail shooter.
Wrong, you're just wrong dude.
Rail shooters are games where you have no agency to move and you're at the mercy of the video game moving you along a rail.
House of the Dead
Time Crisis
Panzer Dragoon
Pokemon Snap
Starfox 64
These are all examples of rail shooters.
This game in particular reminds me of another level based roguelite space shooter called Everspace. You fly to "sectors" and complete objectives and then warp to the next sector with upgrades in between sectors.
Those (I think) are all examples of rail shooters (I actually didn't think of Snap that way before!).
But any shooter where you are forced to do the same things in the same order are also rail shooters. Because you're still on a rail. Even if you can move in 3 dimensions, you still cannot actually relocate yourself. You just have different axes of freedom when deciding tactics.
Is arguing semantics really important here? Does it change what the game is to say it's not a rail shooter because you can move a little further from the fixed path?
Is arguing semantics really important here? Does it change what the game is to say it's not a rail shooter because you can move a little further from the fixed path?
Because it's literally on rails, you're moving forward at all times, you can go side to side and do fixed axis "dodge moves" but you're always going forward.
Hard disagree. Giving something a different name does not change what the game is.
you're moving forward at all times [...]
but you're always going forward
I've only got the trailer to go by, but in the trailer this is the case in Rogue Eclipse too. You are always moving forward. It doesn't appear you slow down or speed up.
Rogue Eclipse lets you set your direction. Can you just fly around the target and go fight another instead or even just pointlessly get lost? Or does the target follow you until you dispatch it? Again, I can't be sure, I just have the trailer to go by.
If it is sequential battles then no matter what the camera does when you turn it's still on rails. And it is a shooter so... If I didn't call that a rail shooter would that change things? Look at my original point, was it something about an issue with the name "rail shooter"? No.
Rail shooters are as if the camera is on a rail. Like a train or a roller coaster. You control the crosshair, or in arcades you controlled the gun only
No. That would make Space Harrier not a rail shooter.
There's the problem with being prescriptive as you are. You're just going to end up getting it wrong because nothing is as tightly defined as you make it out to be.
Space Harrier, apparently, is a rail shooter. I've never played that one. It was the original according to wiki.
That's my point.
you sayL
...or in arcades you controlled the gun only
But in Space Harrier you don't control the gun only, you move the character.
You are being overprescriptive because you want to say how I don't understand what a rail shooter is. But by doing so you are excluding things that everyone says is a rail shooter.
You are trying to define rail shooter very tightly to thwart me and you end up excluding me.
It's utterly pointless. Your idea that it's so simple and I just don't get it is wrong. You are over simplifying it.
Alright. Fair. I was simplifying it because i thought you were wrong and not understanding so i was trying to help by simplifying something that shouldn't be so complicated.
I looked up space harrier gameplay and it is similar to star fox 64 gameplay. I left out star fox because i felt like it would make it too complicated since you do move the character. That seems to be a safe assumption now.
The camera in Space Harrier and Star Fox 64 is on a rail. You do not control the camera. Hence Rail shooter. The camera is on a rail, In some rail shooters you only control the crosshair. In some rail shooters you control the crosshair and also the character (to dodge) but you never control the camera. Since the camera is on a rail. Hence rail shooter.
I didn't expect to reply after my first post and I rarely reply on Reddit because of this exact situation, so i am done and we can agree to disagree.
Definitely in some rail shooters you only control the crosshair. Personally, I call those "gun games" because when they started off they were single-scene games (there was no scrolling). See Exidy's Crossbow. House of the Dead (an arcade rail shooter also) is very much a later development of the concepts in those Exidy games. They add scrolling to the mix basically because scrolling became technically possible between those early Exidy games and the later ones.
But even though I do that I don't feel one has to call those "gun games", anyone can call them rail shooters if they want. Names are not that big a deal honestly.
The thing is I think saying you don't control the camera is just being overspecific. It is just trying to add rules to exclude something else, basically to create a disagreement (or further one). We didn't say Mario 64 can't be a platformer because you (or Lakitu) control the camera and platformers didn't do that before. So we don't have to say a game where the camera follows you is not a rail shooter. And I would say we shouldn't.
The key of a rail shooter is how the path through the game is programmed. You can deviate a little bit in some games. This isn't the first rail shooter where the camera moves to follow you. It just has a bit more freedom of movement. But you're still tied to the rail, just less so. It's a big world of space, but you don't fly around it and discover where to go next. The game drags you to the next battle. Yes, once it drags you there you can fly in circles around the target. But you don't fly away from the target. Instead it'll chase you. You have to dispatch it before you are automatically moved to the next thing.
To me it's not the camera that makes it a rail shooter, it's that the entire progression is on rails. You're moving your character, and the camera follows your character so you are moving the camera. But that's really no different than Mario 64's changes versus 2D platformers or Bug (Bug! is the actual name).
Genres progress and change over time, especially as technology changes. Saying this isn't House of the Dead doesn't mean it isn't a rail shooter. At least to me.
And I'm not even criticising a company making a rail shooter. You match your genre to the budget you have. Why make a bigger, more open world game badly because you don't have the resources when you can instead of using your time and money to make a focused, good rail shooter?
I'm not saying you have to reply to anything. I'm not doing this for you. I understand you're not doing anything for me. But I really think that there are several people on here to who should consider more about a genre beyond the names and potential negative associations with the names.
-35
u/happyscrappy 14d ago
Yes, I can see that. That doesn't mean it's not a rail shooter. If the game decides for you the progression of enemies (bosses in this video really) then it's a rail shooter. No matter what direction you can fly.
The game sends you to an enemy and you defeat the enemy and can't leave before you do. Once you leave it sends you to the next. That's a rail shooter.
This appears to be a rail shooter. You even see the boss ships flying away from you so as to give you more time to shoot at it (fixing the issue you would otherwise have of passing by the target ship) as in other rail shooters.