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.