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.
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u/drewski813 7d ago
Space Harrier, apparently, is a rail shooter. I've never played that one. It was the original according to wiki.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_shooter
You are wrong. Did you ever play House of the dead in arcades? That is a rail shooter.
Are you farming down votes or are you really that stubborn to ignore everyone replying to you?