The thing that earned R-Type much of its praise is actually not my cup of tea. Rote memorization isn't nearly as entertaining to me as twitch gameplay in this genre. I prefer the chaos to the tactical positioning of your ship in just the perfect place. I do still appreciate it for the visuals (Alien was influencing games 8 years after its release), the music, and the fact that the game did make you think in order to get better at playing it.
The graphics and sound are amazing, the gameplay is just pure memorization stage 4 onwards, going for the 1cc turns into hell because the first 3 stages are basically a 5 minute loading screen and then you just need to remember absolutely everything, and if you forget any small detail you die, and once you die recovery is basically impossible. Extremely punishing game. The force pod is cool though.
Jogando novamente, com controle Xbox clássico.
Literally the best arcade game ever made
Por mais que em certos momentos a cobrança por precisão irrite um pouco, é um jogo muito criativo e que se segura muito bem até hoje. R-Type pega a base de Gradius(Power-Ups, fases horizontais, etc.) e cria um shmup meio puzzle, com mais foco em observar e descobrir como se movimentar precisamente pelas fases, do que em reação e pontuação, utilizando bastante da interessantíssima mecânica do pod, que traz diversas estratégias diferentes a cada fase, e te dá uma oportunidade de reação independente da direção dos obstáculos, o que acaba tornando esse um jogo bem único, mesmo sendo tão inspirado em Gradius.
You know how when you're into some subculture and there's some monocultural force within that subculture that you look at and think "how could you support this without some evil in their heart?" That's me and this whole franchise.
I wonder what the R stands for
Nothing short of a groundbreaking sidescrolling shmup, while some of the game is notorious for its memorization, all in all the game has a solid arcade difficulty curve, and is a great 1CC once you get it down.
Morally gray difficulty. How is anyone supposed to 1cc this
Once you go past level three it takes a really nasty turn, with the latter stages being incredibly difficult. The arcade version really plays well and looks good with the bosses in particular a highlight, especially the massive stage three boss who's a level on its own.
A clearly important game in it's genre and I respect it for that, but I don't like it nearly as much as something like Gradius, honestly. A little too slow and cheap for my tastes, personally.
Incredibly difficult game, good luck trying to get past stage 6.
Every good Shmup needs a cool gameplay Mechanic. R-Type possibly has the best one with the "Force" that you can attach to the front or back of your ship or let it float freely. Playing around with this is super fun.
The game is also super difficult as most shmups are. I still prefer Gradius II Arcade as my favourite classic shmup but this is close.
I couldn't beat this game yet but haven't really practised it too much. Stage 4 used to end my 1cc attempts alot
The game is also super difficult as most shmups are. I still prefer Gradius II Arcade as my favourite classic shmup but this is close.
I couldn't beat this game yet but haven't really practised it too much. Stage 4 used to end my 1cc attempts alot
R-Type (1987): Uno de los mejores arcade de naves de la época. Es cierto que tiene los problemas típicos de la época, como una dificultad ridícula e injusta, o bajar a 3 FPS cuándo hay demasiadas cosas en pantalla, pero aún así divierte en su brevedad y se ve muy chulo (6,45)
R-Type might be the series I give the lightest jabs imaginable when I want to critique it through written words. It's not necessarily the childhood trauma speaking from a certain SNES iteration whooping my ass, or having a handheld version to strain my eyes on through a screen that cannot be looked at clearly from any angle regardless of applicable worm lights.
I just like good art direction, a lot. It can carry some of the most mid shit ever if it was left to nothing but the bare gameplay elements. That's not to say R-Type doesn't have good gameplay elements, I love the force option, it's actually one of my favorite mechanics in shmups and can lend itself well to proper strategy. Of course however, strategy is something you need to learn and do on the fly, and in shmups you only have so much time to conduct this when obstacles and bullets are thrown at you willy-nilly-vanilly, and failure means a trip back to a potentially poorly-placed checkpoint. Personally, I feel R-Type has a fantastic first half. The battleship stage in particular I think is an amazing piece to really teach the player on how to utilize the force option.
These good vibes though only last so long, because as always arcade agony rears it's ugly head starting at stage six and onward. I think with some elbow grease I could find some hoops to jump through and commit to mental gymnastics to rationalize these last three stages, but the second loop left me in such a bad state that I just can't find the energy to start the circus act. Full disclosure, I effectively beat this game four times today if you count both loops, and I did break down and use save states. With practice I could 1cc the first loop and gain more adoration for this, but that second loop is an obvious trolljob toward MLG gamers who enjoy looking for safe paths/spots in levels with constant bullet sprays that weren't meant to be there originally. It's a shame, because it's obvious how much this influenced god knows how many of it's kind with it's giant vagina bosses, and iconic first stage boss with thousands of names thanks to terrible localization.
"Hey, what should we call this guy?"
"Gladiator. Looks like a gladiator."
"Yeah, I can see that cheddar cheese Xenomorph fighting Samnites in the Colosseum. Absolutely, good idea sir."
Will still never get where that one came from, lol. At least the Bydo will never scare people again. (Spoilers: they scare people a lot more after this.)
First loop fine, second loop bad. Don't do it, I gained five pounds from it.
I just like good art direction, a lot. It can carry some of the most mid shit ever if it was left to nothing but the bare gameplay elements. That's not to say R-Type doesn't have good gameplay elements, I love the force option, it's actually one of my favorite mechanics in shmups and can lend itself well to proper strategy. Of course however, strategy is something you need to learn and do on the fly, and in shmups you only have so much time to conduct this when obstacles and bullets are thrown at you willy-nilly-vanilly, and failure means a trip back to a potentially poorly-placed checkpoint. Personally, I feel R-Type has a fantastic first half. The battleship stage in particular I think is an amazing piece to really teach the player on how to utilize the force option.
These good vibes though only last so long, because as always arcade agony rears it's ugly head starting at stage six and onward. I think with some elbow grease I could find some hoops to jump through and commit to mental gymnastics to rationalize these last three stages, but the second loop left me in such a bad state that I just can't find the energy to start the circus act. Full disclosure, I effectively beat this game four times today if you count both loops, and I did break down and use save states. With practice I could 1cc the first loop and gain more adoration for this, but that second loop is an obvious trolljob toward MLG gamers who enjoy looking for safe paths/spots in levels with constant bullet sprays that weren't meant to be there originally. It's a shame, because it's obvious how much this influenced god knows how many of it's kind with it's giant vagina bosses, and iconic first stage boss with thousands of names thanks to terrible localization.
"Hey, what should we call this guy?"
"Gladiator. Looks like a gladiator."
"Yeah, I can see that cheddar cheese Xenomorph fighting Samnites in the Colosseum. Absolutely, good idea sir."
Will still never get where that one came from, lol. At least the Bydo will never scare people again. (Spoilers: they scare people a lot more after this.)
First loop fine, second loop bad. Don't do it, I gained five pounds from it.
Irem's debut shooter, R-Type, is a really special game. It has incredible art direction, really going for the overtly sexual aspects of the Giger look that most games are too cowardly to use; one of the bosses you'll be fighting is a bunch of worm penises emerging from vaginas.
It also has the "Force," an invincible option, that connects to your ship in front of or behind you; it acts as a shield, absorbing enemy fire. You can fire the Force so it floats horizontally and fires; often bosses will have a hard to reach weak area that you can fling your Force into to continue doing damage even while it's locked off from your main ship. It's a really fun addition.
However I had an insanely hard time getting through it. The game is beyond arcade difficult. I played through it with infinite credits and I'm glad I got to see it all, even though dying constantly stopped me from playing with too many of the upgrades, but it can not be overstated how difficult it is.
It also has the "Force," an invincible option, that connects to your ship in front of or behind you; it acts as a shield, absorbing enemy fire. You can fire the Force so it floats horizontally and fires; often bosses will have a hard to reach weak area that you can fling your Force into to continue doing damage even while it's locked off from your main ship. It's a really fun addition.
However I had an insanely hard time getting through it. The game is beyond arcade difficult. I played through it with infinite credits and I'm glad I got to see it all, even though dying constantly stopped me from playing with too many of the upgrades, but it can not be overstated how difficult it is.
Classic memorizer, but the issue is just that the hitboxes are just terrible. Your ship sometimes can go over halfway into a wall, on other walls, you die before you even touch the wall at all. Your forcepod protects you from bullets that don't even look like they would be blocked, but then other times a bullet will just somehow slip by and hit you. Sometimes bullets literally go straight through walls. Enemies will sometimes die when they attack you from behind, but other times they just don't and kill you instead. Your bullets will oftentimes just go straight through enemies (especially larger ones) without damaging them, or the time to kill on an enemy will be very inconsistent just because they have some minuscule hitbox or something. It really just feels awful to have a game demanding such precision to have such wildly inconsistent and nonsensical hitboxes all throughout the game.
A good memorizer should ideally have some degree of execution, a bit of variance/RNG, should feel very tight and deliberate in its gameplay and mechanics, and you should also feel like you're refining your route every time you play. R-Type really just doesn't really have those. It just feels frustrating due to lousy mechanics, extremely poor hitboxes, and excessive slowdown. The bosses are a complete pushover and trivialized entirely by safespots, the gimmick is not all that interesting as it's a bit clumsy and you rarely want to be separated from your pod as the protection benefits are just too great, and the enemy formation spawns and movements just feel cheap.
A good memorizer should ideally have some degree of execution, a bit of variance/RNG, should feel very tight and deliberate in its gameplay and mechanics, and you should also feel like you're refining your route every time you play. R-Type really just doesn't really have those. It just feels frustrating due to lousy mechanics, extremely poor hitboxes, and excessive slowdown. The bosses are a complete pushover and trivialized entirely by safespots, the gimmick is not all that interesting as it's a bit clumsy and you rarely want to be separated from your pod as the protection benefits are just too great, and the enemy formation spawns and movements just feel cheap.
Primeiro jogo que eu terminei no meu novo PS3!!
I'm surprised it took so long for me to get to R-Type. It's one of those shmups I see sometimes but haven't played one still. I think I'll also play some of its port sometime so expect me to edit reviews of those sometime on here.
The game itself is quite fun for an 80s shmup. I really like the orb thingy you have. It makes the game has this fun strategic aspect to it on whether its better to have in front or behind you. The game also has some neat upgrades you grab though I liked to use the one that you get from the red pick ups the most due to it's power. It's got a nice difficulty curve to it. Though sadly it doesn't stick for the whole game.
Once you get to stage 6 the game becomes really hard out of nowhere. It's probably the low point of the game and even has some beginner's traps. It also unfortunately does that thing I hate in shmups where if you die you go back to a checkpoint. Because of this bad difficulty spike compared to the last 5 stages. I can't really say it's a great game.
Despite that issue and some minor ones like sometimes I can't even tell what killed me, I enjoyed the game a lot. It's one of the better shmups out there and I even enjoyed it more then the original Gradius. It's nothing mind blowing nowadays but hopefully the sequels will improve on this as I continue on someday.
Edit (GB Version Review)
This port actually isn't too bad for the GB but it has it's issues. For one there is now a lot of sprite flicker and the game's sound like's to cut out most of the time when shooting. The game is also missing two stages and it's sadly not the one I hate which is now stage 4 in this version. You also have to complete this game twice at least I think. You might have to beat it on hard mode for different text at the end but it was set to hard automatically after I beat it twice but it was easy once I reset and checked. I couldn't really notice much of a difference outside of bosses being a tiny bit harder. 7/10 port.
The game itself is quite fun for an 80s shmup. I really like the orb thingy you have. It makes the game has this fun strategic aspect to it on whether its better to have in front or behind you. The game also has some neat upgrades you grab though I liked to use the one that you get from the red pick ups the most due to it's power. It's got a nice difficulty curve to it. Though sadly it doesn't stick for the whole game.
Once you get to stage 6 the game becomes really hard out of nowhere. It's probably the low point of the game and even has some beginner's traps. It also unfortunately does that thing I hate in shmups where if you die you go back to a checkpoint. Because of this bad difficulty spike compared to the last 5 stages. I can't really say it's a great game.
Despite that issue and some minor ones like sometimes I can't even tell what killed me, I enjoyed the game a lot. It's one of the better shmups out there and I even enjoyed it more then the original Gradius. It's nothing mind blowing nowadays but hopefully the sequels will improve on this as I continue on someday.
Edit (GB Version Review)
This port actually isn't too bad for the GB but it has it's issues. For one there is now a lot of sprite flicker and the game's sound like's to cut out most of the time when shooting. The game is also missing two stages and it's sadly not the one I hate which is now stage 4 in this version. You also have to complete this game twice at least I think. You might have to beat it on hard mode for different text at the end but it was set to hard automatically after I beat it twice but it was easy once I reset and checked. I couldn't really notice much of a difference outside of bosses being a tiny bit harder. 7/10 port.
WhY dOn’t ThEy maKe tHe WhoLe R-tYpE oUt oF tHe InDesTrUcTiBlE FoRce PoD StUfF
This game's execution of setpieces and mechanics have an insane amount of foresight for 1987. Its historical significance can't be stated enough.
But it's also just, disgustingly cheap, in ways that just aren't fun to engage with. Stage 4 is the first major barrier to progression, and it gets even worse starting at stage 6. And honestly, the checkpoint system blows and I don't think it suits this game. I can't be expected to learn these extremely specific enemy patterns if gameplay completely freezes and resets after a single hit.
Infinite Mode on Dimensions EX was the only reason I finished this lol
But it's also just, disgustingly cheap, in ways that just aren't fun to engage with. Stage 4 is the first major barrier to progression, and it gets even worse starting at stage 6. And honestly, the checkpoint system blows and I don't think it suits this game. I can't be expected to learn these extremely specific enemy patterns if gameplay completely freezes and resets after a single hit.
Infinite Mode on Dimensions EX was the only reason I finished this lol
The original R-Type on CPC was a ZX Spectrum port but wasn't too bad. The CPC remake is amazing and blows away the competition.