Old School Grit | R-Type Dimensions Review

Before the convenience of purchasing a home gaming console, gamers used to have to take a trip to their local arcade to play their favorite games. Arcade machines relied on quarters for income, and most machines were rigged so players would almost certainly die at select moments so they’d be addicted toward beating the game. This is how arcades made their money, and this was how kids lost their allowance.

Fast forward to today, and arcades are mostly dead outside of a few anomalies. Now, we can enjoy almost any classic arcade game from our gaming consoles by downloading them from the store. R-Type Dimensions, a revisit of the two classic arcade games R-Type and R-Type II, is reborn with new graphics, new music, but it also allows you to play the game just how you remembered it growing up – minus all the money you had to cough up.

Remember how difficult arcade games were? You will, now!

R-Type plays like most side-scrolling shooters, but it differentiates itself by relying a lot on ship navigation rather than blowing up the enemies in front of you. The controls are incredibly tight and responsive, which is absolutely necessary, because the game will throw obstacle after obstacle at you to try and kill you. Ships, aliens, and missiles will appear from every corner, so I ended up holding down the shoot button and focusing more on my ship’s immediate area so I could avoid whatever came my way, because one hit will kill you instantly.

Trust me when I say that R-Type is just as hard as it was when it originally came out. It’s absolutely unforgiving, and those without quick reflexes will die dozens of times in every level. To balance this, R-Type Dimensions gives players the ability to choose either classic or infinite mode; the former having you restart the level after one death, and the latter giving you infinite lives and almost no penalty for death.

Infinite mode is a great way for unskilled players, like myself, to breeze through both games. I completed both games in about 45 minutes, and while it is a short game, this number would have increased immensely if I had played R-Type in classic mode – which I doubt I would have been able to beat. Since the game is so similar to its original, it still has those moments where I wondered if it was even remotely possible to beat the game in classic mode. I asked myself multiple times how anyone could navigate through some of these levels, because there is barely any room on screen for the player to be. Enemies come out with no warning, and even one missed reaction can result in death and a game over. For some this may seem like a worthy challenge, but at least in my case, it just resulted in frustration.

One of the most compelling parts about R-Type is that at any time you can switch between the classic graphics and the new HD graphics on a dime by pressing a button. I succumbed to many deaths, because I often was so curious what some sections looked like decades ago. I actually fancied myself more toward the classic graphics, because the sprites are truly gorgeous; not to mention that while the HD graphics are nice, they lack a certain excitement about them that the classic look just nails.

A comparison of the classic and updated HD look.

What I ended up feeling after beating both R-Type games multiple times was that I just wanted to play the games in their original form. The updated sound and graphics are servicable, but they lack any sort of personality that makes it stand out from the countless other side-scrolling shooters available.

R-Type Dimensions is a great modern revival of a classic side-scrolling shooter. The absolutely brutal difficulty may scare some gamers away, but the optional modern touches create a nice entry point to those looking to sit back and enjoy the entire game free from the consequences of death.

This review is based on a review copy of the Playstation 3 version of the game R-Type Dimensions by Tozai Games.