R-Type was a revelation in arcades when it came out in 1987, a brutally difficult side-scrolling shooter with fantastic graphics and incredibly creative monster & level designs. If you're any kind of console history buff, the fact that this game was ported to the Sega Master System is worth noting: like the Master System version of Golden Axe, R-Type pushed the limits of what 8 bits could do, and showed off the surprising color & sound of SEGA's first flagship console.
As a side-scrolling shooter, R-Type does pretty much everything right. You can power up your ship repeatedly with a wide variety of weapons, making for lots of exciting on-the-fly strategizing amidst storms of alien firepower. More than almost anything else, though, it's the boss fights that stand out -- eye-popping full-screen monsters that look like something out of an H.R. Giger painting:
The other thing to note about R-Type is it's relentless difficulty. Ranking at number 7 in an IGN list of toughest games to beat, R-Type was from the old school of Difficulty in Videogames: you learned by dying, over and over. Are games today too easy on gamers? That's debatable, but certainly games like R-Type are evidence that gamers used to be made of sterner stuff: In my day, we died 20 times on the first boss battle just to learn his weak point. And we LIKED it.
There are a few things that make this relentless difficulty so endearingly fun. First, it's accompanied by extremely smooth gameplay & the aforementioned eye-candy graphics. Second, eking your way through a shooter this difficult offers a genuine sense of accomplishment for finishing every stage -- not to mention the entire game. The game does give you ample lives & continues to hone your techniques, so it really does feel like it's up to you & your retro gaming skills to get through it all.
Also worth noting: this Sega Master System version actually contains an extra, secret level that isn't available on any other version of the game. It is, frankly, astonishing that the arcade game was ported so well to the Master System, not to mention that a whole extra level was crammed in with it. Games like this are a big part of the reason I have such a strong lingering affection for the Master System, and it's been terrific to see these classics showing up & getting some much-deserved love (even if it's at the cost of hundreds of quarters worth of lives).
