Terraria isn't a BULLETHELL game 

Ayo, nice video. I appreciate the effort to clarify the terminology - I feel like most people use the term "bullet hell" as an emotional quantifier as opposed to a descriptive one. "Bullet hell is when there are bullets on screen and I find it hard to not get hit by them", basically. One more thing I would add is that, at least in the scope of Touhou, is that "bullet hell" also acts as a sub-genre of visual design and artistic spectacle. "Unnecessary" bullets are sprayed across the screen not because they hope to hit the player, but more because they're there to serve as "paint" or "brushmarks" for the "painting" of bullets that the pattern represents, hence the game's focus on pattern recognition and visual parsing. It's rare you ever see bosses outside of the genre lean into this concept of "bullets as artistry", but it's pretty much the defining aspect of 2hu and 2hu-style shmup gameplay. Some tMod bosses approach this concept, but it's only on the low-key side. Alot of interesting visual patterns are limited by the capabilities of the Terrarian, from movement mechanics to even hitbox size, whereas bullet-hell games with more straightforward movement and smaller hitboxes get to go absolutely wild with their patterns with not as severe of an impact on balancing or fairness. IMO, Touhou-style danmaku at its peak is a dazzling, mesmerising spectacle, like a playable fireworks show - which is why it irks me to see the term "Touhou" used to just mean "lots of bullets on screen". It's kind of like how people call every hard game the "Dark Souls" of [genre], it's just disappointingly reductive. That being said, I encourage any who are interested to try and give the 2hu games a shot. They're great fun and tbh any experience with the gameplay flow of "high-end" modded Terraria does do a lot to acclimate/prepare you for "true" danmaku gameplay, so it's not as bad as you think.

terraria fans when a boss has more than 5 projectiles

YOUR PRONOUNCIATIONS HAS GOTTEN BETTER BRO HELL YEA, but yeah I agree, Terraria is an Open-World Puzzle game tbh

I dont even know why, but a random Xeroc hand acting as a pointing stick totally made my day XD

6:34 the answer is hook to wall to refresh flight to max and dash thru the middle if anyone was wondering

Most playthroughs you see of terraria nowadays, especially modded, is mostly gunning through bosses, mining ore for next armor set, a bit of exploring, then repeat. Of course that's not just what the youtubers go through when playing, it's just what we're shown. Nobody's really going to dedicate an entire video to building because we all are so used to seeing "spawn the boss, die to boss, spawn boss again, die again, spawn and die a few more times, finally kill boss, video done."

Ive seen people call ULTRAKILL's flesh prison a bullet hell before.

the best description i could give base vanilla EoL is as a "Bullet/projectile heavy" boss, same with ML and probably cultist. as someove with extencive experiance in the modded side of the "bullethell" bosses, like base Yharon, Exos or Scal, and a lot of the super bosses form calamity addons, and most of Infernum from mid to late game. I'd say that there are definatly bullethell bosses, though that doesn't really make for a bullethell experiance. for me the Bullethell experiance would include an intent to have the player move a certain way to dodge each patter, so that the fight flows well, random projectile spam like base Scal bullethell's 1 through 5, i wouldn't really consider them even patterns, since it is literally compleatly reaction based to dodge, where a general large cyrcle around the arena has you encounter the least amount of them at once. on the other hand, something like the Forgotten Shadow of Calamitas (infenum cal clone) has a lot of attacks that have an intended way to move so you can dodge them, and this movement is concistant, that i would call closer to bullet hell, even if it's over all projectile density isn't as high as base Scal. The intent behind player movement is what makes it closer to bullethell than the amount of said bullets. thoug this is all just the opinions of some random person on the internet with only a mare 6,000 hours in calamity, and a lot on other games that are usually associated with being bullethelly, like The Binding of Isaac, where i have fine 2,500 hours in it, and over 400 hours in Archvale, which i'd say is an actual bullethell game. So take my opinion with this info in mind. Good Video btw Beeleav. : )

The Empress of Light fight specifically greatly encourages macro-dodging (avoiding the patterns completely), as opposed to the micro-dodging (weaving through patterns) much more common in actual bullet hells

When looking for mods people forget that fighting bosses is less than 50% of the game. I wish there were more expansive mods that focused on the other aspects of Terraria instead of just bosses.

Watching cheese country man soy jack about terraria not being a bullet hell is pretty cool

My explanation is kinda all over the place and full-schizo in the video, so here's a more conclusive take (IT IS VERY MUCH A GENRE PURIST TAKE): Terraria is not a bullethell game, at least with it's vanilla movement system. The "dynamic" speed does not allow for precise enough movements to make a "traditionally bullethell-y" boss in the game without mods providing you with some sort of mount (like the Exo-Box). The bullethell attacks in Terraria (and it's mods) differ to traditional bullethell attacks in terms of the WAY you process / dodge them. In terraria, you more-so just have to react to the attack and stray away from it (usually), while in "traditional" bullethell games, you have to more-so recognize the pattern the bullets are spreading in / where the bullets are coming from and then position yourself in a way where you KNOW what your next move is going to be. Even shorter take: different movement system = harder to do traditional bullethell. the attacks are fundamentally dodged differently and looked at differently than in bullethell games (in most cases).

Terraria bosses are more like zone control than bullet hell. We go back to the EoL example. Whenever she summons the everlasting rainbow spiral attack, she is pretty much just telling you to avoid that spot until its safe again. Same can be said for the sword walls. Another being subspace serpent, whenever she does that darkness barrier attack in phase two, she is basically telling you to move outta there. TLDR: Terraria bosses just yeet an attack tell you to get out of the way, which isn't the case for bullet hell games. Also, pretty sure undertale is the reason "bullet hell" is so misdefined. They looking at a game that isn't even bullet hell like you said at the end and assumed all of em are like that.

I was talking with some other composers about the current state of modded terraria. One of them brought up something called "The Doom Curse" which basically means that the player base becomes too skilled at the game. Rendering anything that's thrown at them on the same scale as EOC or King Slime. They had a really solid point. I used to think Plantera was extremely difficult. Now she's a breeze. Even on some modded difficulties. It's only a matter of time.

The many many bullet hell mods for terraria: what am I? A roach?

Nameless deity gfb: "get that EoL out of here, i dont want to see that ever again"

If people think terraria is a bullet hell, they have never played a bullet hell before

Interesting video! I’m mostly a bullet hell player who sometimes plays terraria - I agree that the movement really sets it apart from the traditional bullet hell/danmaku genre, although there always tends to be bits of gray areas since, for example, some bullet hell shmups do have some inertia (ew) and delineating where movements stop being “bullet hell-like” becomes really divisive. Something I absolutely think could’ve been included in this video is the use of hitboxes. Terraria tends to use sprite accurate player and bullet hitboxes, whereas it’s practically a staple for danmaku to have generous hitboxes for both (some going so far as to only check for collision on every other frame, or having “0x0” hitboxes, so as to make even the most impossibly tight squeezes doable.) Even outside the movement, this is a pretty integral reason for the relative lack of projectile density - it’s just not realistically possible to dodge anything tighter.

No, but it would be great to have something that sadistic as Dodonpachi in Terraria

And what about XP - 00 hypnos? The superboss created before the exomechs.

based af, yardis' follow up video for his dodging guide says some similar stuff in his comment reading section great video man, editing and comedy are on point

As an actual bullet hell shmup player, I find it laughable how indies try to capture the magic while also having movement momentum, dodgerolls, large hitboxes, bullet sponge enemies, no screen control, very memory-based patterns and sometimes even gravity. It feels like watching a video with 50 filters but as a videogame.

this amazing vinkio convinced me that terraria is a 1d square based bullethell with grass on the side, thank you!

Prescriptivism fans when they learn someone else uses words:

i get your point but what would you call those boss fights that according to you arent bullet hell but at the same there are a lot of bullets. any game that tries to adapt a fight style like touhou will just get called a rip off of the game basing that a bullet hell has to be exactly like touhou's fights it might as well be called the "touhou fight system" overall i think that the word BulletHell should mean something alse depending on the game. and that the bullethell's in one game should not be compared to bullethell's in other games edit: great vid btw

0:40 ima have to disagree, bosses are one of, if not the biggest, points of terraria.

I would have agreed with this back in 2015, but as Terraria added selectable difficulties and bosses like empress of light I feel like what the game is at its core is warped beyond its original scope. It's not entirely a bullet hell; instead of slow and methodical movement, it's a lot more about "think fast bozo".

I was playing Homeward journey terraria mod and it had a boss where depending on the biome you fight it the boss changes attacks but it had you in a box and shot loads of projectiles in a bullet hell like way and you get a mount before it like the exo chair thing

I have NEVER heard someone say "terraria is a bullet hell". You have got to be shitting me 😂😂😂

Terraria definitely has one of the most unique movement systems I have ever seen and I am all for it

I think one thing not mentioned here is the hitboxes too. In Touhou, Star of Providence, and games like Bullet Hell Monday and many MANY shmups... your hitbox is a *pixel.* In Terraria your hitbix is much bigger than that thus making it incredibly more difficult to dodge. Only exception I find to this method is games like Undertale and The Knight Witch. And even then? In Undertale Yellow and The Knight Witch you eventually gain a dash dodge that allows full invincibility frames through the entire dash period so you CAN get yourself out of undodgeable corners. Something that Terraria and a lot of modded Terraria games don't do (in the latter's case likely due to severe balancing issues for the sake of other non "bullet hell" bosses.)

i agree, though i think it's fair to say some modded bosses have bullet-hell segments, just non-traditional ones due to the movement mechanics, but yeah, that doesn't make the game a bullet hell at all, but i do think that terraria players are more likely to enjoy bullet hells because of what terraria (especially modded) gets you used to. As a truly pro gamer myself who has sunk many hundreds of valuable hours of my life into bullet hells, my two cents are that different movement mechanics wouldn't make it not a bullet hell, just not a traditional one (and also many bullet hell games do demand as much, and even sometimes more reaction time than they do precise positioning, timing is also often important).

Your right. It’s Bullet HEAVEN.

based video and youtuber props man i enjoyed your vid and subbed

This was very interesting. Videos like this remind me that video game genres are a very loose concept and mean many different things to different people. There isn't really a correct definition for most of these genres and really just down to opinion. Best example is roguelikes vs rougelites, I've never seen somebody talk about the differences between the two without starting an argument.

as a certified terraria gamer, yeah you're completely right. the fluid movement is what makes it fun to me, while the traditional "bullet-hell" movement is easier, letting the game itself be more difficult, the movement control aspect makes it more fun to me. touhou doesn't have shield bonk or calamity ram dash

Idk man, that green slime at the start of game do be looking like Resourceful rat from Enter the gungeon

Thank God. One of my biggest peeves is people throwing around genres incorrectly. Good video.

I just use "bullethell" as a way to say "there's going to be a lot of projectiles but not like touhou amount of projectiles"

when i first clicked on this video i thought it was gonna be some rant about how modders should stop focusing on making cool bosses and instead focus on the exploration side of things, but i was pleasantly surprised. Good video 🦧👍

This video was great, you made many good points and genuinely made me think you were a wayyy larger content creator.

Oh god run the hoard of terraria calamity stans are coming to your house to burn it down

terraria isn't a bullet hell, it's a sanbox game, the *closest* we got to a bullet hell is Empress of light and moon lord, mods push the bullet hell part even further but still, it's not enough to make go from sandbox to bullet hell this is my opinion before watching the video, let's see if i can be convinced that it has nothing of a bullet hell game

Even daytime eol for me isn't bullet-hell, you needn't to dodge random projectiles and go into tight places and it's consistent

you want to see bullethell? (Slaps down Touhou project and Len'en Project)

Tbh? I hate it when mods try to make the game into a bullet hell. I don't mind bosses that are hard or use lots of projectiles, but most of them end up going against the way the game plays or get too samey with their bossfights. The game is at its best when it uses more of its platformer and open-world aspects. I think Starlight River does this pretty well, with its own bosses being based more along gimmicks and incorporating dynamic arenas to match the flow and phases of the fights. Bosses based around heavy, pattern-based projectiles *can* work, but what I really love most is when takes a small, simple concept and stretches it as far as possible.

Terraria is a sandbox survival game with bullet hell elements.

Terraria is a 2d sidescroling action shooting game with crafting mechanics.

TOUHOU MENTIONED YESSSSS

Personally, terraria isn’t a bullet hell, it does have some bullet hell elements (mainly in eol). Modded terraria on the other hand….

Now what about the calamity addon bosses such as the nameless deity?

Okay, but what about mutant, you never mentioned him again.

UNDERTALE MENTIONED OMG

Yeah, now beat Masoquist mutant no hit

Your right its just hell

Also gotta say I like your accent and personality ahaha

Beeleav : "soyjakian" me : wtf is a 'soyjakian'

Kinda based

Look at blushie mod that is bullet hell

C# is not a scripting language.

it's better than a bullet hell , the movement is so much better

What about blushiemagic?

ayyy sa oskad inglise keelt hasti *i dont have the a with dots on my keyboard* and i also agree that terraria is not a bullet hell lmao

What mod do you use for the backgrounds? They're really well-made.

Nice video, but I think instead of saying "dynamic velocity", I think it would be more concise to just say "acceleration".

I do agree terraria isn't a bullethell game but it has the aspect of bullet hell elements In case you dont know bullet hell its a multiple projectiles designed to htry to hit you

terraria fan too touhou fan pipeline

People tend to think terraria is only about the bossfights and forget about the core game. When modding they add a bunch of bosses that are either bullethelly shitstorms or copies from other bosses like the bazillion worm bosses in popular mod:tm:. I think this is an unpopular opinion but i dont like calamity and what it has turned the game into. I actually hate how it set the standard for community content on terraria

Yes, yes it is, I don't need to watch the nuance troll video, it just is.

Erm what the flip

I respectfully disagree with every point you've made, never cook again soyleave..

average beeleav W btw! good video all around!

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Bullet hell? No no no no no. It just have some bullets like supreme calamitas? Only a few dodgable which if you dont dodge you suck at the game.

So queen slime

nice video :3

1:50 ima have to stop you right there, hollow knight ain't a souls-like either.

vanilla is not bullet hell modded bullet hell

This may be of topic, but what’s your first language?

Gaming.

Bullet hell game is JSAB. (kinda) It’s because its gameplay is dogging.

I ain’t watching all that💀the game itself isn’t a bullet hell just certain bosses and modded bosses are

nuh uh

*TERRARIAEUH IS NAWHT A BULLEAT HILL GEMAQ!* *CALAMITY MOD ENTERED THE ROOM, FARGO SOUL MOD ENTERED THE ROOM* : *ALLOW US TO INTRODUCE OURSELVES*

No, but e

Now make a video correcting urself "why terraria is not a Dark souls game" Nsksnsebeisbsi (it's a joke)

If people think calamity mod is a bullet hell, then it is one. The meaning of words isn't prescribed, but rather defined by common usage. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymological_fallacy

Just @GitGudWO

nice video :D