Defender foi o primeiro SHMUP horizontal, mas o jogo que realmente definiu o rumo deles foi Scramble. É um jogo com muito mais foco em lidar com os obstáculos do que em lidar com ondas de inimigo e pegar pontuação, os cenários possuem colisão - e inclusive, em alguns momentos o jogo busca deixar bem claro a inovação nessa área, possuindo uma fase em que se baseia apenas em se movimentar corretamente por um cenário apertado - e os inimigos se posicionam em padrões que estão ali para cobrar, principalmente, uma movimentação inteligente.

Scramble is Konami's earliest horizontal shooting game. It's pretty rudimentary. You fire forward and also drop bombs on enemies on the ground. You also have a fuel gauge that slowly ticks down, and you'll need to refuel by attacking fuel depots.

It's pretty easy going until you get to the final zone, which requires you to fly through tunnels. For the first time in the game, this section also requires accelerating forward. You move forward at a constant pace, but can fly till about halfway horizontally into the screen. You have to do this during certain sections in the final level as you exit a tunnel from a higher part of the level, then have to fly to the opposite corner. You don't have enough time coming out of the tunnel to lower your ship enough, so you have to fly forward out of the tunnel before the screen scrolls over there, then drop back and down at the same time. It's really unintuitive and feels pretty weird. After you get through the series of tunnels, you have a final bomb target to hit to win the game. This is also really difficult to nail, because you have to do a similar maneuver as above to get into the right position. It's kind of confounding and I don't think I would have figured out how to beat the game without watching examples on YouTube. Not nearly as fun as Xevious.

My experience with Scramble revolves around numbers for better or worse. Firstly this game coming out in 1981 making it one of the few titles I've played actually older than me. It's one of Konami's earlier games when transfering from their former business of making jukeboxes.

Secondly is the time I spent playing it. This game is immensely short, essentially 1 level split into 6 sections. Each section has a distinct theme or enemies detailed in bright pinks, reds and greens of that early era, it's what the chips could put out colour wise. The entire game takes maybe 15 minutes to beat once you understand to keep track of your fuel and how to weave through the buildings in the final area. I however, trophy hunter that I am needed to beat it around 7 times as two trophies associated with it on the Konami Arcade Classics Collection involve getting 100,000 and 150,000 points. Each time you beat the game though you only get 20,000+ then start again with your score.

So most of my time playing this was just point counting whilst thinking about numbers playing on automatic. As for the game itself, I actually kind of like it. It's incredibly simple, extremely short but still kinda fun. Nothing frustrating but nothing that stand out either.

One thing that was hilarious to me is in an interview with Kengo Nakamura the designer of Gradius/Nemesis he talks about how the idea of that was to make a game following on from Scramble. When he tried Scramble in the Konami office he thought: "Man what's with this difficult game!"

Then proceeded to make Gradius, which is infinitely harder. If you can't beat them, join them I guess?

[Finalizado no Arcade e no Vectrex]

Scramble é basicamente um Gradius mais arcaico sem o sistema da barra de upgrade e tendo de atingir pontos de combustível para não cair. Com um foco muito grande no desvio de obstáculos.

Falando assim parece péssimo, e eu colocaria dessa forma a versão de Arcade. No arcade o game é muito mais complicado, com o combustível em lugares chatos, inimigos pior posicionados e trechos diferentes de outras versões.

Agora pelo Vectrex esse game parece até uma hidden gem. O visual é pior obviamente, a não ser que você seja fã desse estilo gráfico de linhas em fundo preto. Colocar as películas na tela ajuda bastante nesse ponto, dando ao menos mais cor. E eu pessoalmente gosto mais desse estilo minimalista.

Mas o que realmente muda tudo para melhor é o gameplay e level design. A nave é bem melhor de controlar e o cenário e local de cada coisinha parece ter sido melhor pensado. O jogo fica mais fácil, porém melhor equilibrado e o desafio ainda está ali.

Minha nota no site fica para o Vectrex, com o arcade levando 2 estrelinhas. Só não aumento a nota pois acho que em comparação a outros shooters tem coisa melhor. Mas ainda é um jogo divertido.

En el reino de los juegos con poca memoria, la memorización es quien gobierna. Scramble es un juego corto para los estándares de hoy en día, pero de tamaño común para los juegos de disparos de la época, y su manera de compensar esa cortedad es ofreciendo un reto insuperable y variedad decente. En este pequeño pero tenso arcade se puede apreciar la misma filosofía de diseño que acabaría dando lugar a clásicos como Castlevania, Gradius y tantos otros títulos. Por desgracia, Scramble no llega a la altura de sus descendientes en lo que a satisfacción ofrecida se refiere, pero posee una variedad envidiable para la época. La alternancia entre niveles compuestos por oleadas de enemigos a otros en los que esquivar es lo principal, y una última sección en la que la clave es superar un laberinto, se siente banal a día de hoy, pero tuvieron que romperle los nervios a más de une jugadore del momento.

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In the realm of short, memory-costly games, memorization is king. Scramble is a short game by today's standards, but common-sized for shoot'em ups of the era, and its way of making up for that shortness is by offering an insurmountable challenge and a decent variety. In this small but tense title you'll be able to appreciate the same same philosophy of design that would eventually give birth to the likes of Castlevania, Gradius and countless other classics. Unfortunately, Scramble doesn't reach the heights of its descendants in terms of satisfactory gameplay, but it has a pretty exceptional diversity. The ability to alternate between levels that are packed with enemies with others where dodging is the main action, alongside the latter ones that amount to small mazes, seems quaint today, but had to be nerve-breaking for players of the era.

~ Juegos que Hay que Jugar Antes de Morir ~
Parte 2 — Los 80: Caída y Resurgir

Juego 25: Scramble (1981)

A parte de tosco, el delay lo hace infumable.