retronauts

Episode 693: Capcom's Vertical Shooter Legacy

Added 2025-05-26 11:00:09 +0000 UTC

Jeremy: Greetings, patrons. As you may be aware, we at the Retronauts Podcasting Concern take video game history very seriously. And, once again, we're taking steps to share with you the history of one of gaming's most important and enduring entities: Japanese studio Capcom. In the past, we've attempted to cover milestone companies in strictly chronological order, a blanket approach that jumped from title to title but often failed to give a real sense of how the creators' skills and design developed. Well, buckle up, because this time around, we're taking a different approach by dedicating each episode of this multi-part series to individual disciplines within that company's catalog.

From vertical shooters Capcom came, and to vertical shooters shall they return. Well, maybe not, but it did seem to make sense to use this genre as our starting point for our Capcom series. Most of their early works were vertical shooters, and some of their most popular games through the end of the 20th century were vertical shooters. They didn't invent the format, but they sure did a lot to bring interesting ideas to it.

Kevin Bunch and Brian Clark join me (Jeremy!) to take this journey. Please note that we recorded this first thing in the morning following a day of public speaking, so if my voice sounds a bit lower/more ragged than usual, it's because I was shouting about Chrono Trigger a few hours early.

Art by Nick Wanserski.