R-Type [SMS/1988]

System Played: Sega Master System

Year Released: 1988

Year Reviewed: 2012

R-Type for the Sega Master System is a port of IREM’s classic arcade shoot ‘em up, seeing your lone little ship face off against the terrifying, giant, gaping space vagina's of the Bydo Empire.

Like most other games in the genre, you manoeuvre your ship through wave after wave of enemies, dodging the increasing number of projectiles and cramped level design along the way. What differentiated R-Type back in these early days was the tactical options brought on by the bevy of power-up’s available, the most significant and unique being the ‘Force’.

This orb can be attached to the front or rear of your ship or fired off like a projectile into enemies, where it acts as an invulnerable and deadly satellite, able to fire its own bullets right in the stinking face of the enemy. The tactics come from your decision as to where the Force will best serve you at any one time, boosting your fire power and soaking up enemy projectiles on your front, providing a shield to your unguarded rear or just off on it’s own neutralising threats before they even get near you. A major aspect of succeeding in R-Type is the level of familiarity the player has with the level design and the attack pattern of enemies, and the Force plays a key part in this, with a well placed launch often enough to kill a boss in just a few seconds if you know what you’re doing.

By default, you get a tiny laser which can be charged up for a more powerful, heavy shot but other offensive power-up’s to your arsenal become available once you’re rocking the Force, specifically a spread-laser which bounces around the screen, a wave beam which shots projectiles in a wide arc and a one that shoots flames vertically which travel along any surface. Only one can be equipped at a time, and they come bobbing along every now and again to tempt you into mixing things up, but it mostly comes down to preference with each having its advantages in specific sections. Yet more power-up’s which can be used concurrently with your main choice include include speed boosts, heat-seeking missiles and Bits, which are little pods that will fly alongside your ship, above and below further boosting firepower and soaking up enemy projectiles.

Needless to say, when you have a decent arsenal built up, you can feel pretty invincible, so it’s all the more crippling when you lose it all in an instant. It only takes one shot to do you in and even with a few checkpoints per level; R-Type is still a notoriously difficult game, made worse here by some significant hardware performance issues.

The Master System was no stranger to arcade ports, SEGA making their name here, but most had to be dialed back so much due to the comparatively under-powered hardware, that the end result was usually pretty unremarkable.

Most of the levels in R-Type are surprisingly intact, with backgrounds frequently fading out so the CPU can focus on lots of enemies and projectiles or just massive screen-filling bosses but even still, there is lots of sprite tearing onscreen when things get busy. This makes it so you often can’t see what’s coming straight at you, which in a game like R-Type is a pretty big problem. Losing your life due to the complacency brought on by having too many power-up’s is one thing, but losing it all due to invisible bullets is another.

Everyone should expect to see their first Game Over screen within the first couple of minutes but by your second or third attempt, you should be able to get through the first couple of levels without much trouble. The intensity racks up by Level 4, with some extremely annoying barrier-building enemies who zip around the screen at high speeds, in groups, locking you into tight spaces if not just outright smashing into you too quickly for you to have a chance of moving. This continues through Level 5’s questionable choice of having red projectiles on a red background to the penultimate Level 7, which feels more about blind luck than your bullet dodging prowess. By this point, the intensity is such that about half of the enemies and bullets on-screen at any-one-time are only partially visible due to the sprite tearing problems and things slow down to a crawl (which you’d expect to be more of a help!). If you have a good stash of power-up’s, you might make it through by just constantly firing with the hope of blowing up the enemies before they have a chance to fill the screen, but lose a life and you’ll likely squander the rest of your lives before you ever reach the next check-point. Going up against these later levels with only your basic peashooter and no speed upgrades pretty much guarantees death.

By default, you get a finite number of lives and continues, but luckily there is a cheat which can be used to extend you indefinitely, and given the circumstances, I certainly won’t think any less of you for doing it. This helps to even the odds, and with some perseverance, you’ll get to the badly translated congratulations message at the end of the game eventually… just before it starts again in hard mode.

Graphically, the game looks pretty good when it’s displaying properly, with the large, screen-filling bosses being the highlight, but maybe they should have dialled things back a bit for the SMS port to keep the frame rate decent. Sound wise, things are also a bit mixed with some good tunes and some pretty awful ones.

Although not the best version of the game, it is still playable for the most part, with shoot ‘em up fans bound to find a decent level of challenge. Maybe the biggest attraction here is the exclusive, one-shot, secret level with a boss that makes the rest of the game look easy, but for most players, contending with the main game should be more than enough. And the second level totally has Metroids.

5/10