R-Type Final

R-Type Final consists of the usual progression for a shooter - you get some basic story about toppling evil, and then you're thrown into a level with lots of stuff shooting at you, culminating in a boss battle with a huge being. There are about a half-dozen regular levels, each of which spans roughly 10-15 minutes if you can make it straight through. However, Final has numerous branching paths, depending on which of the 101 different ships you beat a level with. You only begin with three ships, but as you progress, more open for use, taking you down a different path. It's a very cool thing that increases replay to see each of the different stages. If you can get to the final and most difficult bonus stage, prepare for a battle where you have one life and zero continuesЕthe ultimate in challenge.

In addition, there's a usual score attack mode for just racking up points, along with a cool AI battle mode that's more of a management sim than a shooter. Within this, you choose a ship, play around with its options, and put it in a fight. Suddenly, the game becomes a fighting game, where your AI ship battles another AI ship in a duel to the death. It plays out like a fighting game, with a best of 3 rounds, wear down their life bar kind of affair, with powerups floating around to use against opposition. It's entirely hands-off, which is a bummer, but the idea is cool. You can do this AI battling in both single battles and tournaments, adding for some extra fun in-between getting your ass kicked in the regular part of the game.

Most likely you might be unfamiliar with how an R-Type game functions. In many ways, if you've played a bit of Ikaruga, you mostly know how things work. When the game begins, you have your selected ship and a huge ball-like thing attached to the front of your ship. This is The Force, a little tool that helps you in battle with powerups and regular attacks (and has nothing to do with Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader). This thing works in multiple ways, but most importantly, it is used to boose something called a dose meter. When The Force absorbs enemy fire, or wipes out enemies by coming into contact with it, it gathers up the dose meter, and once it's full, you can fire a massive attack that decimates everything on the screen at one time. Being that it takes a lot of time to fully load your dose meter, this attack is not particularly common, so it never becomes overpowering. It would simply be too easy. The Force can even detach from your ship to fire on its own, or let you dock it to the rear and fire at enemies behind you - something that happens a lot when things are coming from all different directions.

There's also something called a Сbit', which is sort of like a support weapon to deal with enemies. You can collect 2 bits at a time, one at the top of your ship and one at the bottom. At first, they only fire basis bullets, but they can find other items like missiles that are of the heat-sinking variety that hit hard to reach places. Bits become very valuable to your ship as the levels get more and more difficult with things coming in every direction - some enemies probably fly out of your ass at times, with so much happening on screen.

The ship itself does have weapons however, it's not handicapped or anything. Your ship comes equipped with regular bullets and a charge beam, which comes in handy for bosses and stronger enemies. There's 2 forms of this charge beam - if you hold it and let it fill the first time, it fires a strong shot, but if you let it fill again by holding down the Square button longer, it will fire an even stronger shot for more damage. Knowing when to use this is one of the keys to mastering R-Type Final. Also, the ship can collect numerous powerups along the way that fire different support weapons, like a wave beam-esque line of shots, or a laser shot that looks like something out of Mega Man. Though The Force and the bits become your strongest allies, your own ship can do some serious damage as well.

The thing to know about R-Type Final, however, is that it's hard. Despite the more deliberate pace of the game compared to other shooters, enemies fly all around and an errant bullet can kill you in one shot. One hit kills are the norm, as always, meaning you have to dodge all kinds of shots if you want to win. Shooters are the ultimate in trial and error gameplay, meaning it will take many playthroughs and numerous views of the game over screen before you get good enough to beat the game. Even on the easiest level (tauntingly called Сbaby') the enemies are pretty tough since a pattern must be found to beat hard bosses and things are flying from all sorts of different directions, and since one hit will end your life, a single mistake is costly. And on the hardest levelЕwell, toothpicks might be a good idea so you don't blink. Even though it only has 6 main stages, it might take weeks to see them all if you're unfamiliar with shooters. You can unlock unlimited continues as you progress (you earn more with more playtime), but since the game doesn't let you continue where you die, just at a checkpoint, it really doesn't matter. And of course, no saving between levels, tough guy. Beat it in one sitting or don't beat it at all, like shooters should always be.

That said, R-Type Final has depth that few shooters boast. Just working with The Force is strategy in itself, quickly detaching it, then pulling it towards you and working it behind you to attack enemies from that direction is intense and has to be done with extreme precision. Knowing what powerup to use is also important, since certain ones will reach areas you can't, letting you wipe out dangerous baddies that can hit you but you can't hit them. The slower pace (which can be adjusted up to 4 levels) means for more strategy by pretty much default, but it doesn't mean you can slowly wipe out enemies, rather quick thinking and reflexes within the deliberate pace means the difference between advancing a level and running out of continues. This is the kind of game that rewards those who learn, even with unlimited continues after a while. If you manage to beat R-Type Final, you can call yourself a master of the game, since it takes just that to topple this game on its highest settings, whether you go for a high score or not.

Though it's a 2D side-scrolling shooter, R-Type Final is a very nice looking game. Boasting incredible design and art, along with great polygonal worlds with beautiful backdrops (such as the 3^rd level with an entire city driving and living below your battling), the PS2 version of R-Type is pure beauty. Granted, it's a bit hard to notice all this with the whole shooting the crap out of things part of the games. The occasional 2 or 3 second breaks are enough to take in the lush and detailed environments and see just how much work was put into the backdrops. Though it might not compete with the more detailed 3D games, R-Type's clean, polished look is very unique and cannot be called poor or ugly whatsoever. It's proof that you can still make great looking 2D games without using ancient sprites and static backdrops. And oh yes - the traditional R-Type slowdown, which has been in every game no matter what the hardware, is back this time around, by design. It's a bit gimmicky to stick slowdown in a shooter nowadays, but it's a classic trait that Irem never abandoned with their series. It's not quite as prevalent on the PlayStation 2, but it is there.

The audio portion of R-Type final is fairly basic and nothing to write home about. The techno-like music is mere backdrop for the game, and it does fit even if it's not particularly memorable or thrilling. Instead, you get the usual shooter sounds like stuff blowing up, things firing at you, etc. It's all done well, but again, it's not anything spectacular. We're talking minor details like explosions and such, these kinds of things tend to be pretty basic (only so much you can do, after all), and R-Type Final is no exception. I reckon you'll be too busy actually fighting stuff and avoiding things to notice the sound effects or even the music playing in the background.