Time for another adventure through the SNES catalogue. This game takes us back into the realm of Sci-Fi which is always a good place to be. It’s a fun game but one where the penalty for death is way too high. Getting sent all the way back to the beginning of the level because you took a hit is crazy. This means you have to go through the whole level without getting tagged and that is a tall order. I’d say that it would quickly cross the line from being fun and challenging to just being annoying very quickly. The rewind feature helps to counter that but otherwise it would be rather rough.
There’s barely a plot here but you get in your ship and start to take the aliens down for the count. The gameplay is fairly basic. It’s an auto scroller 2D game where you keep on going through the level and watch as scores of enemies approach you. You are able to use your machine gun to mow them down and can store up energy for a charge shot. You gain new ways to fire your laser as you collect power ups like energy blasts that fire backwards. These are super handy to have and you even get a little drone that helps you out. Like I mentioned before though, if one attack hits you then you blow up. There are no exceptions here so prepare yourself.
There are 7 levels in the game and each one ends with a big boss. Most of the bosses are true glass cannons. They overwhelm the screen with attacks but a few hits defeats them. I appreciate that at least because it’s super hard to dodge their attacks. If they had a ton of health or something then that would just make the problem even worse. As it is you at least feel like you have a chance. Perhaps not an incredible chance of winning since this game is rather difficult but it’s certainly not impossible. I imagine you will get better at reading the different enemy formations as well and coming up with plans of your own to combat them.
Meanwhile the graphics here are rather sharp. The artstyle really makes the most out of them and the enemy designs are all good. My only problem here is how much the game lags. It lags constantly for all of the latter levels since there are so many enemies on screen and this version of the game can’t handle that. It’s just so noticeable that it’s crazy. It’s not the kind of thing that would lower the score for me or anything like that but I haven’t played a game with this much lag in ages so it was still funny to note. As for the soundtrack, it’s reasonable enough. I won’t be humming any of the tunes or anything like that but it sounds good while you are playing through.
So in a lot of ways it’s really what you would expect in a sci-fi shooter. It’s not doing anything out of the ordinary or smashing records but it is delivering a quality experience on all sides. I do think they put in a good amount of effort for this one and it’s clear that it’s not just some easy cash grab. So I can appreciate that. Make a modern remake of this game with a real cinematic story and I think you’d really be delivering on some great content.
Overall, Super R-Type is a pretty good game that is bogged down by the design choice of having such a harsh penalty for death. Without that then I think this would have been a whole lot better. Still, it is entertaining. They did well on the technical elements and it can go blow for blow with a lot of other games in the genre. I’d say win or lose, it’s a fun game to pick up so I recommend giving it a try. Just go for the person high score of how far you can make it and that’s even a fun way to tackle this as a multiplayer type of game. Once you are able to see how far everyone can go you will be all set.
Overall 6/10