Tropes Media Browse Indexes Forums Videos Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Tools
Cut List New Edits Edit Reasons Launches Images List Crowner Activity Un-typed Pages Recent Page Type Changes Changelog
Tips
Creating New Redirects Cross Wicking Tips for Editing Text Formatting Rules Glossary Edit Reasons Handling Spoilers Word Cruft Administrivia FAQ
Tropes HQ
About Us Contact Us Advertise DMCA Notice Privacy Policy Report Bug
Go Ad-Free Changelog
  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Highlight Links
 

Follow TV Tropes

Following

YMMV / R-Type

Go To

  • Anti-Climax Boss:
    • The Stage 7.2 Final Boss in Final 2 is laughably weak; just fire your Force Device into the core and fire away for about 15 seconds while dodging the slow-moving Wave Bydo. Yes, even on R-Typer 3 difficulty.
    • The Lord at the End of Dimension in Final 3 Evolved isn't much better either. All it does is send some junk after you, only coming out of a wall and changing shapes periodically, rinse and repeat.
  • Awesome Music:
  • Broken Base:
    • Over the lack of checkpoints in Super R-Type. Some dislike having to restart the entire stage from the beginning each time they die even if they were at the endboss, while others feel that being sent back to the beginning is actually a blessing given that respawning in mid-stage with no powerups is practically a drawn-out death a la Gradius.
    • Final is hit very hard with this, especially its massive roster of ships: A wonderful send-off to the series with a lot of replayability thanks to the crazy amount of ships to unlock and amazing atmosphere, or a downgrade in terms of gameplay and level design with its massive roster of ships being seen as unnecessary and unbalanced?
    • Final 2's recreation of levels from previous entries in the series has gathered mixed responses. Some appreciated the attempts to update the level designs (especially the recreation of the third game's fourth stage to be much more manageable) and the amount of detail to its levels (such as the recreation of the first game's Battleship Raid randomly choosing one of three gorgeously detailed backdrops to make up for the original stage taking place in a black void), but others are disappointed by the remixed tracks being somewhat a downgrade to the original (with the stage and boss themes of the recreated first stage from Delta being a huge offender) and baffled by changes to the levels (such as the recreation of the fifth stage from Leo having a completely different look from the original's "inside-the-ruins" (which is also the stage name used for the recreation) aesthetic and the first game's first stage inexplicably becoming a mycophobe's worst nightmare for no apparent reason).
    • The release of Final 3: Evolved as a PlayStation 5 exclusive was met with mixed reactions from fans. While partially due to miscommunications, among the issues raised is whether the same features and additions would carry over into versions of Final 2 in other platforms.
  • Complete Monster: Despite being the only major human antagonist in the R-Type series, Kisun more than makes up for it by being a true and utter bastard. Even before the start the game, he's already screwed over the GZRA (the faction he is working for) by tricking the leadership and having their previous leader and (possible) founder General Haruba fall into the hands of the EAAF. After the latter dies from mistreatment in a POW camp, Kisun is appointed the leader of the Rebel Army. And what does he do not too long after the leadership is forced to relocate to Glitnir after their previous HQ Geirrod Fortress is overrun by enemy forces? He attempts to transform the faction into a new rebel group that fully supports Bydo technology, a spit in the face to its original goal of abolition. To twist the knife further, this Solar Liberation League has become a false opposition as General Kisun is in cahoots with the upper echelons of the EAAF who are allowing him to take over the outer planets in exchange for giving resources back to Earth. Even when the players fleet finally breaks into Glitnir Station, Kisun decides to sink even lower by fleeing into the Tesseract and leaving his own troops to get massacred. To cap it all off, when you finally catch him and his fleet it turns out the SLL remnants have developed a form of Bydo mind control via control rods, allowing them to command live Bydo in combat. A power hungry opportunist that cannot be trusted, General Kisun manages to embody the worst qualities of humanity while also being an example of the sort of people who would likely go on to create the Bydo in the 26th Century.
  • Common Knowledge:
    • Some people are under the impression that the Image Fight series is part of the R-Type universe. This ignores things such as...
      • The Moon being blown into 4 pieces by in Image Fight by Mariko while in R-Type it's shown as being visibly intact.
      • In Image Fight, humanity knows about and fights against a hostile alien race in 2048 and 2051. In R-Type, up until the Bydo show (around the 2160s), man knows of no alien races.
      • On the subject of years, the R-Type timeline makes no mention of the events of Image Fight or anything analogous despite including that timeframe.
    • If you ask someone people about the lore of R-Type, chances are someone will bring up the prevalence of time travel in the setting and its use by both sides...except this is not true. While jumping through time does occur in the setting, it's only in a select few cases. These being the Bydo arriving from the 26th century (part of the backstory and never made clear if it happened by accident while trying to escape their dimension), F-C (one of the endings of R-Type Final that is a self admitted bonus stage and might not be the canonical ending due to the multiple endings) and possibly F-B (might be time loop if the Bydo System Alpha from 1.0 isn't just foreshadowing). Apart from those examples, the use of time travel is never brought up.
  • Contested Sequel:
    • Leo is either a refreshing change of pace from the standard Force Pod formula, or They Changed It, Now It Sucks!.
    • Fans are divided on whether Final 2 fixes the problems of the first Final, or if it's a completely unnecessary case of Series Fauxnale that didn't really do much to restore the series' honor.
  • Crowning Moment of Awesome: R-Type Final's final stages, and how you beat the final boss. Almost all the best tracks are played back-to-back in Stage F-C.
  • Difficulty Spike: Stage 4 in the Game Boy port is a notable example, since due to stages 4 & 5 having to be stripped out to save space on the cart, it's actually the original stage 6, as well as being even harder than the original version of the stage due to even less room to manuever in to avoid the rampaging Dops.
  • Disappointing Last Level: The "Bydofied protagonist" route of the last level of Final 2 has the final boss fight being your Bydofied ship circling seemingly endlessly fighting remnants of the Space Force fleet. Coupled with Checkpoint Starvation and cheap shots, it made for one frustrating experience. And the game ends abruptly after several turns as your Bydofied ship decided not to destroy the carrier ship. The "you turn into a Bydo" premise being a rehash of Stage F-B from the first Final doesn't help either; in Final 2, there isn't even an important plot reason or outcome since the game's premise is that you're just doing simulations of past skirmishes with the Bydo.
  • Funny Moments: Even one of the darkest Shoot 'Em Up series does crack a joke or two sometimes.
  • Game-Breaker: With a massive roster of ships in Final, this is pretty much expected. Note that the R-902 Ragnarok II doesn't count, because they did that on purpose. Same goes with the three final ships which can pick and choose from these.
    • The B3-C2 Sexy Dynamite II. It has a really strong Sexy Force, no slouch of a Wave Cannon, and the way the Force is constructed causes it to charge the Delta Weapon anything up to seventeen times faster than a Standard Force when separated! When you can hit the same boss with multiple Delta Weapons that most craft can only use once per stage, something is very badly wrong.
    • The R-9Leo2 Leo II, which is stronger than the first R-9Leo because of an enhanced Leo Force DX, Psy Bits + and Wave Cannon, and its Red weapon, Claw Laser +, is capable of killing large enemies and bosses in seconds.
    • There's the POW Armor line-up (playable from Delta onwards). They're those power-up transports that you shoot down throughout the game but are formidable player craft on their own. Their Needle Forces are relatively powerful when attached and their Bydo Wave Cannons do strong damage, but detaching the Needle Force unleashes a flurry of bullets that can kill enemies as quickly as the Leo2 and the Sexy Dynamite II. Unfortunately, the firing rate and angle rotation speed of the Needle Force are severely reduced in Final 2, which many fans are not happy about.
    • The R-13B Charon in Final plays like Cerberus, but its Anchor Force DX sports one of the most broken Yellow weapons in the series: Terminator Gamma+ sweeps the 180 degree area in front of it with two nearly constant lasers, instead of one like the Anchor Force's (which is already no slouch). Waves of popcorn mooks get utterly decimated if there's no cover, while large enemies and even bosses on R-Typer get fried in a few rounds from point-blank sweeps. Its Force has a drawback of going out of control if latched for too long, but it's no issue when you'd keep it on you as much as you can for the Yellow weapon. If that wasn't enough, it also has the Bounce Lightning Wave Cannon, which has homing capabilities that allow it to hit enemies above, below, and behind the craft without any powerups at all, and since it can bounce off walls, it can even hit enemies around corners without exposing the craft to any danger. Huge chunks of the game can be cleared using the B Lightning cannon alone, never mind the Anchor Force DX and its yellow weapon.
    • The R-9B Strider in Final was pretty worthless, but in Tactics it becomes one of these due to its Balmung nuclear warheads, which do extraordinary damage to pretty much anything and everything. It can only carry one at a time, but that is fixed by simply having a POW Armor follow it everywhere, reloading it after each shot. Final 2 also gives the Strider and its relatives the Balmung, where it functions as slow firing missiles with noticeable area of effect and damage.
    • In Tactics, the Gains unit in the Bydo campaign is hands down the most broken unit in the game. Its wave cannon shot not only does a large amount of damage AND covers a large range of space, it also takes only ONE turn to charge up. And you can have a large number of these units. The only downsides to this are that your charge resets if something touches your unit (though this can be remedied by simply having another Gains nearby), and that it only fires forward, which is only a problem in 2 or 3 missions.
    • The original III version of the R-90 Ragnarok was so powerful even in its game of origin that they had to split it's abilities across 3 separate ships, and even then 2 of those ships are still broken due to the Mega and Giga Wave Cannons' absurd power (both can kill damn near anything at just 2 loops and the Giga Wave Cannon of the R-902 can blast is even stronger than that). The Mega and Giga Wave Cannons also pass through walls, as does the Through Laser Red weapon of the Cyclone Force, an ability Final's levels are absolutely not designed to deal with.
  • Genius Bonus: Many of the ship names in R-Type Final have significance, consisting of meaningful names and Theme Naming, as well as Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
    • R-9DH Grace Note: In music, a grace note is a kind of ornamental embellishment. The R-9DH is equipped with a Long Irradiation Beam, which produces a distinctive pure, clear tone when fired.
    • R-9DP series: The pile-driver fighters seem to be named for geographical features in Japan. The R-9DP Hakusan has the same name as the town in which Irem is located. Its descendant, the R-9DP2 Asanogawa, appears to be named for the Asanogawa Ohashi bridge in Kanazawa. The last ship in the R-9DP series is the R-9DP3 Kenrokuen, which is likely named for the historic Kenrokuen Garden, also in Kanazawa.
    • RX-10 Albatross: Albatrosses are large seabirds; the wandering albatross has the longest wingspan of any bird. Like its namesake, the RX-10 has relatively long horizontal wings. This ship was originally found as the R-X Albatross from R-Type Delta.
    • OF-1 Daedalus: In Greek mythology, Daedalus was a great artificier. He is said to have invented images; this may be a reference to the fact that the OF-1 comes from the game Image Fight, in which the first five stages are set inside a holographic simulator.
    • OFX-2 Valkyrie: The Macross series' main mecha were fighting machines known as VF-1 Valkyries. These fighters could change from fighter jets to robots, and into a form somewhere in between called GERWALK. The transforming nature of the OF-2 (and all OF series fighters) is somewhat similar to the Macross fighters of the same name.
    • OFX-4 Songoku: Son Goku is the Japanese reading of 孫悟空 (sun wukong), the name of the main character in the Chinese story Journey to the West.
    • OF-5 Kaguya: Princess Kaguya is a character in the Japanese story The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. The OF-5's description in the game itself suggests that it was named for her because the shots of the Green Pod (which only the OF-5 can use) look like bamboo. It stresses, however, that this is merely speculation.
    • TP-2M Frogman: A frogman is another name for a scuba diver. The TP-2M is designed for amphibious duty and is equipped with flippers and what appear to be air or oxygen tanks.
    • TL series: The Transforming Mecha fighters are all named for figures from Greek mythology. The first, and ancestor of the rest, is the TL-T Chiron. In Greek legend, Chiron was the tutor of Jason, Asclepius, Achilles and Heracles. The four descendants of the Chiron are the TL-1A Iason, TL-1B Asklepios, TL-2A Achilleus and TL-2B Herakles.
    • TL-2A2 Neoptolemos: Named after Achilles and Princess Deidamea's warrior-son, Neoptolemus. In the game, the Neoptolemos is the evolution of the Achilleus, and given the fighter's advanced combat capabilities, only the best soldiers are trained to pilot it.
    • TL-2B2 Hyllas: Hyllus was the son of Heracles. The TL-2B2 is the descendant of the TL-2B Herakles.
    • RX-12 Cross the Rubicon: To 'cross the Rubicon' is a phrase meaning 'to commit oneself to a risky course of action'. It originates from Julius Caesar's crossing of the River Rubicon, which would spark a war. The RX-12 is the Bydo Coefficient Test Unit, the ship that was designed to break the limit of energy that could be obtained from Bydo organisms, thus paving the way for Bydo-based fighters.
    • R-13 series: These are also named for Greek mythological figures. In Greek legend, Echidna is the mother of Cerberus, and Cerberus was the guardian of Hades. The R-13T Echidna is the prototype for the R-13A Cerberus, which is the ancestor of the R-13A2 Hades. The R-13A Cerberus originally appeared as the R-13 Cerberus in R-Type Delta. The R-13's ending in that game is perhaps the darkest of its three endings: It shows the R-13, trapped in the Bydo forest. The R Museum official write up states that it disappeared during the Bydo Seed Incident in 2164, the year when Delta takes place. The R-13B Charon is named after a ferryman who brings the dead to the underworld.
    • TP-1 Scope Duck: The Scope Duck's name and faceplate is a homage to the ATM-09 Scopedog battle robot from the mecha anime series Armored Trooper VOTOMS.
    • B-1 Digitalius and descendants: These ships all resemble plants. Digitalis is the scientific name for the plant genus of foxgloves.
    • BX-2 Platonic Love: Platonic love is a philosophical term for mutual love of a non-sexual nature. The BX-2 Platonic Love has a distinct heart theme, and it is suggested that it somehow utilises the power of love.
    • R-9Ø Ragnarok: In Norse mythology, Ragnarok is the name of the battle that is predicted to take place at the end of the world. There is a Ragnarok variant, the R-9Ø2 Ragnarok II, which contains the so-called 'Final Wave Cannon'; a weapon capable of destroying any enemy (including bosses) in a single shot when fully charged. Perhaps also in keeping with the Norse theme, the ship's designation contains the character Ø, a letter of the Norwegian alphabet. This ship, along with the R-9S Strike Bomber and the R-9Ø2 Ragnarok II, is derived from the R-90 from R-Type III: The Third Lightning.
    • R-9F Andromalius: This ship was named for a demon described in Ars Goetia, the first section of the 17th century grimoire The Lesser Key of Solomon. Andromalius, the last of the 72 spirits described, is described there as manifesting as a man carrying a great snake, which would match with the R-9F's long beams on the top and bottom, and possibly also its yellow weapon, Tentacle Laser. In an alternative interpretation, the R-9F was the experimental test-bed fighter used to manually hold Force Devices that have yet to be stabilized on their own. In a way, the "great snake" is the true nature of a Force Core: an inhibited Bydo Embryo.
    • BX-T Dantalion: This ship was also named for a demon described in Ars Goetia. Dantalion is the 71st listed (i.e. a little higher up than Andromalius by some reckonings), and it is his name that is given to the first ship that used Bydo tissue for parts of the ship itself, rather than just the Force. To the humans besieged by the Bydo, this really would seem to be a kind of demon-ship.
    • R-9Sk Principalities and R-9Sk2 Dominions: According to Pseudo-Dionysius, the Principalities and Dominions are two of the nine choirs into which the angels are ordered. This is probably in connection with the ships' charge shot, a beam of flame, which could suggest the flaming sword that is often regarded as an angelic weapon (e.g. the sword held by the angel who protects Eden).
    • R-99 Last Dancer , R-100 Curtain Call , and R-101 Grand Finale: R-Type Final was initially meant to be the swan song of the R-Type series, and these three ships bear the name of the last things seen in a typical theater or ballet production: the last performers of the production, the curtain call where all of the performers appear to the audience one last time, and the grand finale that ties everything together and ends the show. The R-99, R-100, and the R-101 are the last ships earned in the game (unless you meet certain requirements, in which case the R-100 can be acquired early), and each has a role in the storyline with a distinct air of finality, that of the R-Type series of fighters finally ending. The R-99 is the last ship slated to be used in widespread production, the R-100 was to serve as a machine built so future generations can learn from it and its technology, and the R-101 is the final masterpiece that the R-Type development team made before disbanding. Being the final ships in the game, they are capable of using every wave cannon, Force, Bit and Missile in the game in any combination.
  • Goddamned Bats: Cancers, a common enemy in all the games, have the ability to move and fire outside the normal eight directions and appear on the wrong side of the screen whenever the programmers hate you.
  • Goddamned Boss: On lower difficulties, Final 2's Stage 2 boss merely becomes an annoying waste of time, due to the weak point being on the right sides of the drones most of the time and thus necessitating the use of a rear-attached Force device to destroy. Beam weapons that can penetrate through objects can help alleviate things, but without one, you're gonna be watching cargo boxes move around for a while, assuming you don't just time out the boss entirely.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: Final 2 was originally announced as an April Fools joke. The same thing also happened with Sol Cresta before both games became reality.
  • I Knew It!: The demo for Final II features a frozen Dobkeratops as the first stage's boss, with its chest doing all the attacking. The last trailer before the game's release features an unfrozen Dobkeratops in action, confirming fan speculation that there will be another form for Dobkeratops that can only be fought on higher difficulties (note that the demo allows the first stage to be played in difficulties up to Bydo instead of R-Typer).
  • It's Hard, So It Sucks!: The games being Nintendo Hard is expected for the series, but Final 2 received this reaction from both newcomers and older fans of the series. Newcomers are alienated by the series' Trial-and-Error Gameplay and various outdated game design issues, while veteran fans are appalled by the placement of checkpoints that are very hard to recover from dying alongside the scarcity of power-ups (which is much noticeable by the near-non-existent amount of Bit power-ups provided throughout the game), especially Stage 2 (while its boss on R-Typer difficulties being arguably the hardest boss throughout the series). The lack of extra lives in a series infamous for being memorization-focused certainly doesn't help matters, making every mistake far more punishing in a 1CC attempt than it ought to be.
  • Most Wonderful Sound:
    • The noise of the R-fighters charging up their Wave Cannons is music to the ears.
    • R-Type Leo's "3, 2, 1, let's go!" line at the start of every level is pretty upbeat and charming. Listen here.
  • Narm: R-Type Final 2 is... not a good-sounding title for some when it was first announced. The ability to change the title after completing the game (continues allowed) may have been a response to those who aren't fond of the R-Type Final 2 title.
  • Nausea Fuel: Stage X7.0 in Final 2. It's a recreation of the very first stage from the first game, but overrun with icky-looking and rapidly-growing fungi.
  • Nightmare Fuel: What do you expect from one of the darkest Shoot 'Em Up series, especially when it comes to its lore?
  • Polished Port: While for obvious reasons it can't really be compared to the arcade original, the Game Boy port of R-Type is a staggering accomplishment of programming by British studio B.I.T.S and programmer Jas Austin simply because it was believed to be straight-up impossible. While there are obvious graphical and auditory sacrifices and two entire levels (4 and 5) had to be stripped out because of space restrictions, the port still plays with incredible fluidity and is remarkably faithful to the original despite some necessary compromises, and it's arguably one of the finest shoot-'em-ups on the console.
  • Porting Disaster:
    • R-Type III on Game Boy Advance. According to one of the devs, they had no help from Irem or access to the original source code. They had to rip the assets with a SNES emulator, and recreate the whole game from scratch, under a very tight deadline and near zero budget. The result was a lethal case of Hitbox Dissonance and awful music arrangements.
    • Super R-Type, a SNES game loosely based on R-Type II. Massive slowdown and no checkpoints.
  • Scrappy Mechanic:
    • R-Type Dimensions on Xbox 360, (yet another) Compilation Re-release of the first two games, lacks the option to remap the controls. A is to shoot, B is to shoot rapid-fire shots, and X is to fire your Force Pod. This is counterintuitive if you're playing on any controller with a tilted ABXY diamond or an ABXY setup that isn't diamond-shaped at all. Given that many other shmups of its time have such a feature, this is inexcusable. Subsequent versions of this compilation do allow remapping controls, but you can only remap the face buttons and you can only choose between shot, rapid shot, Force control, and 2D/3D switch for each button.
    • Final 2' Score Attack mode, a single-stage mode, only allows you to play stages you've completed, not ones you've merely reached but not completed. Furthermore it disallows continues; while it is called Score Attack, it also makes it not a great mode for practice.
  • Shocking Moments: Meta-example: The teaser of Final 2 during April Fools' Day of 2019 has caught even many longtime fans by surprise, and taken to the ravine when Granzella actually made it real that it was in active development at that time.
  • Signature Scene:
    • The boss fight against Dobkeratops in the first game, which became one of the most iconic images in video game history.
    • Also the first game: Stage 3, featuring one of the earliest examples of a Battleship Raid in shmups.
    • In Delta, there's the ending for the R-13, in which the poor ship is absorbed by the Bydo.
  • Tear Jerker: The fate of the R-13's pilot in Delta, and Stage 3.5 of Final has you fighting it being bound to a Bydo Tree, making the fight giving the pilot a Mercy Kill.
    "Once he was a fearless hero, now a forest watchdog. What evil keeps him leashed here?"
  • That One Achievement: Two in particular from R-Type Dimensions EX, both of which have a global completion rate on Steam of only 0.7%note . "Beam Me Up" challenges you to beat the first stage of either R-Type 1 or 2 in Classic mode using only fully charged shots, without dying, and its counterpart "Dare Devil", which conversely requires you to beat stages 1 & 2 of R-Type 1 in Classic mode using only rapid fire with no power-ups.note 
  • That One Boss:
    • Bellmite, the fifth boss of the original R-Type. The core's covered by an outer shell that it fires at you piece by piece. The pieces are incredibly durable for their numbers, and Bellmite LOVES to trap you in a corner at times. At least in the first loop, the ring laser is your friend.
    • II has Corvette and Rios for its third and fourth stages respectively. The former has very fast projectiles coming from everywhere, from the turret circle guarding the cores that aren't currently flying around blasting you, to the shrapnel from the bombs it fires. The latter has you go around a long obstacle course very quickly while it blasts you with drill missiles that make the narrow tunnels more narrower and lots of lasers out of the core you're supposed to hit. Oh, and if you're in the second loop and have a maxed out Force, you're screwed. For those who don't feel tortured enough, Rios makes a reapperance in Final 2 as part of the Homage Stages DLC, ready to make you blast through continues by the dozen again, AND the stage now has moving walls. Even Practice difficulty doesn't really help.
    • Nozari/Capsulon from halfway in stage 6 of Delta. Even if you don't know the boss by name, you know exactly which one he is.
    • Fine Motion from Final. Gravity manipulation + reflecting laser beams + Interface Screw due to being in Another Dimension = hell. At least you can reduce the Interface Screw by dialing down your ship's speed.
    • Yatebeolox Harvester, the second boss of Final 2, involves two drones whose weak points are at one side (usually the right) and move around the screen while scattering spores that germinate into vines when they touch the surface, and destroying one of the drones makes the surviving one move faster. At most a Wake-Up Call Boss on lower difficulties, but its R-Typer incarnation sends out the two drones right at the start of the fight that move as fast as when one Turns Red on lower difficulties and scatter the spores at a higher frequency, and move even faster when one is left as well as the vines being much harder to destroy, making this boss the most excruciating fight throughout the game.
  • That One Level:
    • Stage 4 from the original, the Frontline Base. Cytrons create a maze of Bydo webbing which you have to navigate or blast your way through, and if you don't memorise where each and every one of them appears they have a nasty habit of dashing onto the screen at high speed from the top or bottom and crashing into you. It's generally considered to be the stage where the series as a whole took the gloves off.
    • Three words that will make any R-Type III veteran squirm: "Backwards Laser Maze". In the fourth level, there is a truly nasty maze of passages in which lasers or plasma or something periodically takes seemingly random paths through. It's very difficult to find your way... and then you have to do it again, backwards!
      • The fiery laser stuff is actually molten metal, which is why it moves in that sort of fashion (Final 2's recreation of this level confirms they are fireballs). The whole stage takes place in a metal-melting foundry...
      • Thankfully, the recreation of this level as the first level of Final 2's DLC level packs is much more manageable, with the fireball-spewing vents made destructible and lower difficulties indicating the paths of the fireballs.
    • R-Type II has Stage 5, which includes enemies that spawn both breakable and unbreakable blocks.
    • Final 2's Stage 6.1 route is considered the hardest route in the game for these reasons:
      • Stage 6.1 is the hardest of the sixth stages, with wall turrets that shoot bullets that bounce off walls and surfaces of triangular enemies AND cannot be blocked by your Force, making predicting where would the bullets go difficult. Did we mention that all of these takes place in a vertically-scrolling stage?
      • And then there's Stage 7.1. First, your ship gets turned into a Bydo System Alpha after destroying Stage 6.1's boss, which is powerful but somewhat awkward to use. Then, it's really, really long and suffers from severe Checkpoint Starvation- there are sections where checkpoints are more than five minutes apart, which is longer than most levels in the game. And these are points where you can be destroyed by attacks that are coming at you from the foreground or the background, which makes it hard to tell that they're actually real attacks and where they're actually crossing the plane of gameplay (and thus where you need to be to avoid them). And finally, in a game that's attracted complaints for how stingy it is with power-ups, Stage 7.1 one stands out as being bad- there are no Missile or Bit power-ups available at all, and force power-ups are very infrequent.
      • Stage 7.2 is often regarded by many players as the worst level of the entire game, and for a good reason. While the first half of the stage isn't bad and the mini-bosses aren't that difficult if you know what you're doing, the second half is an absolute nightmare. Following the mini-boss, you're faced with a fleet of Bydo System Alpha ships, followed by another fleet of smaller ships and a gigantic iron ball at the top. Oh, and guess what: if you died at any point during the mini-boss OR the Bydo fleet, the checkpoint is before the Bydo fleet, with only a single power-up to help you, making it next to impossible to bypass the fleet unless your ship is fully powered-up or if your Dose gauge is full. And even if you somehow manage to get through that, the next segment has you trying to dodge lightning currents, thrusters from destroyed battleships and small blue orbs that target your position. And one of the segments requires you to bypass countless respawning blue orbs while avoiding the thrusters. Did you just got killed? You respawn back at the beginning of the thrusters section. Have fun.
      • The developers at Granzella expanded the Bydo Route, and in the latest update they gave us 4.1. You like Bellmite— er, Zeonate? No? Well too bad, bucko, because most of this stage is a veritable Bullet Hell of Zeonate bits, often covering most of the screen. And worse yet, they have a variant that can fire bullets at the player. Not only that, but they're accompanied by indestructible wisps of lightning that make it even harder to maneuver. The boss is no slouch either, as it has a small weakpoint that it can retract at will and fire quick, expanding sonic bursts while it's exposed. Even the best players have trouble clearing this stage on Normal mode, let alone R-Typer or god forbid R-Typer 3.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
    • Leo is one of the most divisive entries in the series due to changing one of the most fundamental gameplay elements of the series, as well as removing checkpoints in non-Japanese versions of the game.
    • Eagle-eyed players noticed that the hitbox of the Forces in Final 2 are smaller than in previous games, leading to plenty of moments where bullets coming from certain trajectories that are expected to be blocked by the Force but end up passing through and hitting the player as a result. The Dose Attack taking much longer to charge up on higher R-Typer difficulties (to the point that one may not see a fully-charged Dose in a one-credit run) isn't welcomed either.
    • On the topic of Final 2, many fans are not happy that the Needle Forces of the POW Armor lines have their firing rate and rotation speed severely reduced in Final 2.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: This series has a truly awesome plot with a man-made Lovecraftian Cosmic Horror as its antagonist, ripe to fill the player's head with Nightmare Fuel... that they never fully used. The two R-Type Command spin-offs do expound on this greatly, though, through the fleet commander's logs. Made worse that the amount of plot there is... really good, and most people, even those who play Shoot 'em Ups, a genre usually best known for minimal storytelling in its games, will probably never learn of it.
    • The Backstory found in the rules section of R-Type Tactics makes brief mention of a faction of humans who "moved to abandon their home and find shelter on another habitable world." But this is never brought up in the actual campaign. It takes until the sequel for this concept to be hinted at again with the player character suggesting humanity should leave the Solar System and escape to another star which the Bydo hopefully won't attack. It's an intriguing concept that was never really fleshed out and likely now forgotten.
  • Tough Act to Follow: Delta is widely regarded as the pinnacle of the series due to excellent level design (special mention being the finale) and innovations such as fully-adjustable speed control (as opposed to collecting seldom-appearing speed-up items) and the Dose attack, to the point where Final and Final 2 are often unfavorably compared to it due to not really refining the series' formula or adding anything particularly innovative.
  • What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: The entire series presents some pretty nightmarish imagery, and Delta and Final both contain some sexual content and Downer Endings which involve your character being corrupted by the Bydo. Despite this, the only games to be rated above E are R-Type Command and Final 2, which got an E10, despite both aforementioned games having no worse content than the others.

  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Wide Load

Important Links

Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Go Ad Free!
Crucial Browsing
Resources
Top