R-Type (classic game) : back when shooters were king

in #gaming5 years ago

I think it is fairly evident to state that the reason why we don't see very many great shooters these days is because of the fact that technology has evolved well beyond what we had 30 years ago when R-Type came out. There is only so much graphical incentive that you can give someone to play a standard shooter these days and that is why not many of them end up in the forefront. However, 30 years ago or so shooters were a dime a dozen and the R-Type came along.

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exceptionally crisp graphics for the time period

As was typical in shooters (and still is, for most part) the game consisted of side-scrolling levels with a large boss at the end of each. R-type didn't deviate from this and was for the most part celebrated for the introduction of those little pods that you would pick up and attach to or float around various parts of your main ship. This pod was immune to most type of damage and therefore would be extremely helpful in situations where a ton of bullets were flying at you.

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At times it would be necessary (or at the minimum, extremely advantageous) to attach it to the back of your ship in order to be capable of firing backwards where enemies would emerge. There was no real method of knowing when this was going to happen, so it become a real plus if you were intimately familiar with the various level's layout.

R-Type (for the time period anyway) was extremely difficult and this kind of separated the serious gamers from the casuals. There was really no way to simply walk on and perform well since many of the various tunnels you could enter would actually be dead ends and meant certain death since backtracking wasn't a possibility (the screen progressed to the right whether or not you wanted it to do so.)

The first time I ever played this game was on a relatively short-lived system in the USA called the TurboGrafx-16. I was one of the few people I knew that even had one of these. R-Type sequels were later released on mulitple systems but failed to gather as much fanfare as the original 1987 masterpiece. The most recent addition was released on pretty much all systems in a reboot of sorts called R-Type Dimensions, which I never played. Hmmm, maybe i will... or is this one of those things that would better be left in my distant memories?

2-D shooters might be dead for the most part but there was a time when they were one of the most sought after types of game available in anyone's library.

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I remember games like R-Type fondly. I'm too young to remember the originals, and my family didn't have consoles until I was several years into my elementary school career, but I think that hte formula is quite classic and potentially timeless.

One of the issues that I see with it making a resurgence is that it's the sort of game that requires a lot of effort to get right. In theory, you could design an R-Type style game on a fairly low budget, but the actual design has to be done by skilled people. If you have a novice do it you wind up with a bunch of issues.

Another thing is just the styles. People are into bullet-hell games, which are enough like R-Type that they draw off a lot of the equivalent market share, but they're also niche. Someone like me with the reflexes of a narcoleptic gerbil doesn't do well with them, and the mainstream appeal winds up lacking.

I really have a hard time getting on board with the "bullet-hell" games. I have tried a couple of the more popular ones and I just can't understand the appeal. But to be fair i tend to stay away from the most difficult games anyway.

The earlier R-type games had many flaws such as "flickering" because the very weak systems couldn't process all the projectiles at once. Therefore, you would randomly die at the hands of something that wasn't even on your screen. haha! As if R-type wasn't difficult enough!

I enjoyed reading this article. I think one of the really cool things about R-Type was that in spite of being a 2D game, its graphics added three-dimensionality to the game. This was achieved by using skeuomorphism, which gave the game's graphics an organic roundness that wasn't present in many games of that era.

There are still some pretty decent top down scrolling shooters for phones and tablets. I never played R-Type, but I remember the Turbo Grafix 16. One of my favorite games growing up was Defender on the Atari. I tried playing it again a while ago and I was horrible at it! Nice write up!

I had a TurboGrafx-16 but the version of this game that I played was Super R-Type on the Super Nintendo. I beat it...on the easiest level.

I remember Sector Six

Posted using Partiko Android

Gaming has a was history, and retro games were incredibly amazing.

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