The Invisible Pigeon-holing Council - Gamers gone to Hell

So far in the invisible pigeon-holing council, we've looked at some very general genres from the overly general MMO to the unexpected Beat 'em Up. Today, however, we look at something completely different. We're going to be taking a look at the extremely tight niche genre not terribly well known in the United States, referred to as “bullet hell.” Known as 弾幕 or "danmaku" games in Japan (where the genre is substantially more common than it is elsewhere) and alternatively referred to as manic shooters, bullet hell games are an ultimate extension of the shoot 'em up genre. Unlike MMO or Beat 'em Up, one might call bullet hell an "end-point genre" - you learn most everything you need to know about a game simply by hearing that it is a bullet hell game. So what does this mean to us as gamers? Find out after the jump.

Bullet hell games are a logical extension of one of the oldest video game genres, the two-dimensional shooter. Born out of the arcades of the early 80s, 2D shooters (now often given the more general name "shoot 'em ups") in the early days could be endless affairs built with the single purpose of draining quarters from the first generation of video gamers. The genre, like so many others, went the way of the arcade when they went out of vogue in the United States. In Japan, where arcades remain common, the shoot 'em up genre saw slow but steady growth along with the rest of video game technology. Advances in display definition, control refinement and particle tracking, as well as the increasing demand for greater challenges, gave birth to the bullet hell sub-genre.

It's like art. Art that KILLS YOU.

If you can tell how a game will play exclusively by hearing that it is a bullet hell game, what exactly does that mean? Scrolling shooters, in general, involve the set progression of a character or craft through a series of stages, gathering power-ups, and evading enemy attacks until a climactic encounter with a stage boss. Bullet hell games take these ideas to their logical conclusion - the genre gets its name from the tendency for enemy bullets to fill the screen, particularly during boss encounters. To piggyback off of this concept, many bullet hell games feature combo systems and a "grazing" mechanic wherein your power or combo increases when your character stays in close proximity to danger. This means that death is not uncommon in bullet hell games; to compensate, you will often find multiple selectable starting characters instead of advanced power-up systems. Most importantly, however, you can expect a bullet hell game to never let up. Other shooters have serious action-filled moments, but bullet hell games are a non-stop struggle to keep going and master a system stacked against you. A bullet hell game, above all, is a challenge.

Not everything here will kill you. But there's a certain sense of the familiar.

When reflecting on the genre in preparation for this particular write up, it occurred to me that there are a fair number of games that could be classified as "bullet hell" than I had originally considered. Consider the record breaking XBLA game Geometry Wars. While it does not share the tendency toward multiple characters or epic boss battles, the idea of narrowly evading a relentless curtain of attackers in a shooting game still holds. Geometry Wars owes a great deal to one of the original dual-joystick arcade games, Smash TV, and has since spurned a variety of related games, such as Burn, Zombie, Burn! There is a distinct similarity between the sort of challenge these games provide - the constant escalation and volume of threats to a single shooting character is a hallmark of the bullet hell genre. This creates an interesting dynamic - one could definitely construe a relationship between eastern and western bullet hell games, much like the distinction between MMOs and RPGs from different sides of the globe (a relationship we will be exploring in much greater depth soon).

Meet Roger Sasuke, International Ninja. 

If you've never played an eastern bullet hell game before, your options outside of Japan are unfortunately limited. I can personally recommend Castle of Shikigami III (released on the Wii in the US), assuming you have a sense of humor when it comes to absolutely terrible translations. The Castle of Shikigami series has excellent gameplay and 10 distinct characters to play through the game with. More widely known, and possibly one of the most graceful and artful games ever released, is the 2001 classic Ikaruga. Famous for its brilliant 'polarity switch' system and its beautiful use of light and dark colors. Ikaruga is an excellent starting point for anyone interested in scrolling shooters.

For the bold (and being mildly Japanese literate wouldn't hurt), I point you toward the Touhou Project. A series of (so far) twelve indie games created by a one-many programming army. While not every game in the series is of the bullet hell genre (the creator took an occasional break to collaborate on a fighting game or two), those that are represent beautiful and pure expressions of the genre. Each level of each game is not just a remorseless challenge, but a beautiful pattern of deadly colors. The games of the Touhou Project are a brilliant example of what indie developers can bring to gaming.

Sharp, clean, beautiful... and incredibly difficult.

If you like action games or maybe just a challenge, bullet hell games will provide both in spades. It is a sign of the genre's evolution that there is an end-point sub-genre like "bullet hell" under the general shoot 'em up heading. To be able to describe a game with legitimate depth in two words is an impressive feat. It is unfortunate that the genre is not especially well-known in the west, but we can only hope that the rise of downloadable games will bring an increase in these kind of pure, exciting games.

Because still images hardly do the genre justice, check out this video for some of the most ridiculous shooter action ever made.