[AC] [VAR] R-Type

[Jedah]

http://insomnia.ac/reviews/ac/r-type/review.php

Nice review on R-Type. The version of the game I played the most was the Game Boy one. I was too little to enter an arcade back in 1985-89. I remember finishing it without osing a credit in the little Nintendo handheld. I'm thinking about how great I was back then. Right now I could not get past the second level. Does anyone notice this? That you are getting old and farty losing all your gaming skills? OMG I used to finish R-type on one credit... :oops: :oops: :oops:

[icycalm]

A lot of people say this. With me, it's the other way around. Of course I suck at games that I haven't played in years but, generally, I find that my skills are maturing the more time goes by. So, for example, it took me weeks to beat Super Shinobi when I first got it -- in 1991 I think it was -- but now I finally got to play the sequel and beat it within days.

[Molloy]

I find much the same thing. I was pretty good at these games when they came out, but I'm much better now. The skills just accumulate.

Generally speaking I find modern games much harder than old arcade games. The thing about new games is they save after every level. So they have to make each level much harder because you have the equivalent of infinite credits.

With arcade games you could work up to a very hard level. You get a warm up. With something like PS2 Shinobi I got stuck on the last boss. And he was incredible hard. And because you don't play the game from the start every time you boot it up you're trying to fight him 'cold'. You're being forced to bang your head against the difficulty spike over and over. Wheareas with old arcade/console games you just died 3 times, cursed like a sailor, and went back to the easy levels to hone your technique. It was a much more elegant structure in my opinion. You need to have some form of release, without copping out and lowering the difficulty like in Devil May Cry 3.

This is the main reason I think most modern games are poorly balanced. Games should be about an hour long, somewhere between a music CD and a movie in lenght (and retail for a similar price of course). Then you could set a proper difficulty curve, and have a much greater degree replayablity (for the sake of replaying, not for unlockables and other inconsequential shit).

edit: Shinobi 3 is a lot easier than Super Shinobi. :)

[Molloy]

Getting back on topic.. :)

Nice review. I think everybody knows R-Type is great though. The best thing about the Insomnia reviews is they're generally old arcade games which never got magazine reviews, and generally never get covered on websites nowadays either.

[icycalm]

I am with you on your comments about difficulty level in old arcade games. There's definitely something to be said about not allowing the player to save his progress. Thank god for Cave, G.rev, MileStone, Skonec, et al. At least the few STG developers that are left are sticking to the old way of doing things.

On another note, I guess I need to make one thing clear. There are two reasons I have been reviewing obscure arcade games recently. One is because that's what I happen to be playing at the moment. Two is because it's easy to get ranked in Google -- which is something a new site needs. Type "X-Multiply review" or "Uo Poko review" or any of the other games I've reviewed, and Insomnia is almost always on the first page, if not on the top spot of Google.

But the fact is that I enjoy modern, popular games just as much as old ones. There will come a day when I'll be playing Xbox 360 games all day, and that's what I'll be reviewing.

And yes, everyone knows R-Type rocks. But what about R-Type II, Super R-Type, R-Type Leo, R-Type Delta and R-Type Final? Which ones are the good ones, which are the bad ones, and why? VERY few people know this. But to review all these games I have to start with the first one of course...

[Chuplayer]

R-Type Delta

I played that one on MAME five years ago. The sound wasn't even emulated yet. It pissed me off so much. I died constantly. It made me say "Ikaruga who?" Well, I hadn't played Ikaruga before I played R-Type Delta (might not have been out, actually), but if I had, I would've said that.

Or maybe that one was R-Type Leo. Ah, whatever. It still pissed me off.

I thought about getting the GBC R-Type 1 and 2 compilation cart back in the day. Never did, though.

[Molloy]

Bought R-Type Final last year and it was bloody awful. Typical modern interpretation of an arcade game. The levels are 5+ times as long as R-Type 1 levels. The pacing is appalingly slow. You know the game would be dead meat if it was launched in an actual arcade.

Delta is a bit on the slow side as well, but not overly so. It looks pretty astonishing for a PSOne game as well. I bought it after Final and I played it alot more.

[Jedah]

Although I'm enjoying old arcade games in the same way as newer ones, I think modern epics cannot live without a saving function. Modern arcade-like games (Devil May Cry etc.) are designed for people that don't have the time or the need to perfect their skills replaying levels again and again. The gamers that persue gaming skills will replay them no matter the saving system is. Also the video game industry has grown so dramatically since R-Type, that the only way to make profit is to "force" gamers to buy software very often. If a game last you 6 months to perfect probably you will not buy many or any games in the meanwhile. In my opinion that's not what the industry wants. Especially companies with top selling franchises.

[Pegote]

Perhaps old news but...

It is fascinating that in its relative infancy Irem could shape a game as finely tuned as R-Type. It reeled you in with its inspired art and cutting edge graphics, and then it slowly eased you into its outwardly simple, yet intricate system. But what kept you dropping coins was its masterful level design.

[...]

R-Type moved at a slower pace than most other shooters, with a deliberate, almost leisurely scrolling speed. The idea was not to simply destroy everything on screen -- though many players instinctively tried. The idea was, quite simply, to survive. Given the claustophic nature of the stages, with enemies rushing you from every angle and dense fire often criscrossing the screen, that was a daunting task.

It's completely that stunning that, in its relative infancy, Irem could shape a game as ingenious as R-Type. One of the premiere side scrolling shooters, R-Type moved a bit slower than your typical twitch games, with a meticulous pace and almost leisurely scrolling. The idea wasn't to simply blast everything on the screen, although you could certainly try. The idea was, quite simply, to stay alive. Naturally, given the claustrophobic nature of the levels, swarming with enemies from every angle, this was never an easy task.

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/rtype/rtype.htm

Great minds blah blah.

[icycalm]

And those are pretty nice sentences too, aren't they? I can't blame them for borrowing them, lol. I would have done the same if I were them.

I haven't visited that site in ages -- ever since they started that blog I think. I was supposed to be writing an article about them too, in fact.

Man, seeing this thread bumped after such a long time makes me want to play R-Type again. And the sequel, and Dragon Breed, both of which I have been planning to review for years. Awesome games all of them, really.

And then there's R-Type Tactics II, which has fallen off my radar lately. I wonder what's going on with that.