R-Type Dimensions Review
Two by Force.
Version tested: Xbox 360
'On the edge of a dark empire, you embark on a mission no one has survived. Will you?' The answer to the question posed by R-Type's original 1987 promotional flyer is now, as it was then, 'Probably not'. Irem's seminal horizontal shoot-'em-up is infamous for its difficulty, a game in which players' ambition is more often than not aimed at mere survival over any kind of desire for high scores. For those few who did manage to pilot the R9 Arrowhead through the last of R-Type's eight brilliant stages, the psychological release of completion was prize enough. Even today it's an accomplishment worth bragging about. And this last fact has been fully appreciated by the developer of R-Type Dimensions, SouthEnd Interactive, whose emphasis on leaderboards and the meticulous recording of every imaginable in-game statistic is clear and relentless.
R-Type Dimensions bundles together the first two entries to Irem's genre-defining series and unlike many of the late 80s arcade game ports on XBLA, it has clearly been something of a labour of love for the developer. In fact, you can't reasonably call this game either a port or a conversion. Reportedly without access to Irem's original source code and with responsibility for bringing the game into true HD for the first time, the Western developer, best known for its graphic novel FPS XIII, rebuilt both games from scratch. That painstaking investment of time and energy is reflected in its price point which, at 1200 MSP (GBP 10.20 / EUR 14.40) is likely to put many potential consumers off. But, it'd be a mistake to dismiss such a lovingly crafted package so quickly. After all, R-Type's infamous difficulty has always been equally matched by its famous quality.
Released in 1987, two years after Konami's Gradius made its arcade debut, R-Type's maturity of design defied its genre's relative infancy. Slow moving, by comparison to most of the other twitch shooters of the time, R-Type introduced a number of ideas that marked it out from its rivals and secured its longevity with fans. Principle amongst its innovations is the Force, an invincible floating pod dropped by certain enemies, which can be collected and used as both a shield and a weapon.

All of R-Type's special weapons are available in the sequel, along with its own novelties: semi-homing missiles, shotgun shells and scatter bombs.
Flying the R9 into the Force attaches it to either the front or rear of your ship, increasing your firepower while also offering some much-needed defence. Pressing the X button sends the Force shooting forward into enemies, after which it floats around the screen, firing of its own accord until you command it return to your nose. The result is that you control two on-screen entities simultaneously, each with their own properties and behaviours, resulting in an ingenious system whose depth and elegance remains remarkable today.
R-Type Dimensions' gimmick is being able to switch between the pixel-perfect 2D sprite work of the original games and SouthEnd's new, R-Type Final-style 3D reworking. The transition between appearances, triggered by the Y-button at any point during play, is smooth and wonderful even if you will probably just settle on a preference after half an hour and stick with it. The game's visuals, whichever aesthetic you opt for, dazzle. Claustrophobic levels funnel the player through arresting HR Giger alien nightmare-scapes, the enemy Bydo race a fearful amalgam of technology and organic deviance. Giant, deformed scorpions click and swipe at your ship while red capillaries heave and pulse in the parallax background. From the start of R-Type to the end of its sequel each level is distinctive and carefully designed, something even younger players will appreciate without the modifier of sepia nostalgia.
As well as its standard pulse gun the ship also packs a plasma cannon, triggered by holding down the A button to accumulate beam energy. In R-Type you release the button when the gauge is filled to fire a powerful plasma beam while, in its sequel, the cannon has two charge stages. As your standard weapon ceases to fire while you charge your cannon the design implication to the player is significant: should you risk pausing your onslaught for a heavier punch or carry on chipping away at your enemies' with pulse jabs?
There are two ways to play both games: standard Arcade mode or Infinite mode. In the former you have three lives with the game ending when they are lost. When you die you lose your weapons and Force and are returned to the nearest checkpoint. If you choose to continue on the Game Over screen then your score is wiped, the challenge being to clear either game with a single 'credit'. By contrast, Infinite mode grants you unlimited lives but records the number used to complete the game on the leaderboard for all to see. Infinite mode is SouthEnd's concession to beginners, allowing everyone to see the games in their entirety without diluting the core challenge for experts and those willing to train for excellence.
There are, however, a few niggling oversights that ensure this rerelease falls short of other top line XBLA examples such as Rez HD and Ikaruga. For one, the lack of difficulty settings, which were present in the original arcade version, is inexplicable. That the update's difficulty seems to be set above the default arcade dip switch setting makes the decision all the stranger. As a result, this is a game that, more than ever, will only reward deep and concentrated player investment.

The game's statistics monitor how many of the 14 stages have been completed as well as such minutiae as the number of shots fired and single shot kills.
But the most immediate problem, particularly for those players with deep muscle memory of the original games, is the lack of a button reconfiguration option. The placement of Force on the X button seems strange to my hands and without any option to shift it over to the B button, the default (and only) configuration demands players grow accustomed to its idiosyncrasies. The default auto-fire option is less than the fastest fire rate (achieved by tapping the fire button as fast as you can) so in this regard the game rewards players who use an arcade stick rather than the default Xbox 360 pad.
While there are a number of graphical, MAME-style filters for the 3D game appearance, there are no such options (not even scan lines) for the pure 2D aesthetic, another strange decision. Finally, the lack of an option to download other players' replays, which has become almost a genre standard for XBLA shooters, is a shame, especially as some expert tips would have been a help for players looking to improve their game. The new co-op modes, for both local and online play, are welcome. Both Arcade ad Infinite modes can be played like this with the option to add player collision for added difficulty. Classic co-op allows you to revive a fallen companion with a special power-up or at completion of a stage. Lives are shared and a life is lost only when both ships are destroyed at the same point - a neat idea.
The result is a tough but lovely recreation of two of the greatest orthodox shoot-'em-ups ever made. There's no denying that both titles are products of the genre's formative years and, in terms of both graphical splendour and range of game mechanics they falter next to the likes of Gradius V or even R-Type Final. But what the games lack in breadth they make up for in depth, offering a mesmerising ride through an experience way ahead of its time. To more fully answer Irem's 1987 question then, 'Probably not. But we'll give it a damn good try.'
8 / 10
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Comments (45) Latest comment 3 years ago
Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!
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/Alex Cox
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Hu?
Anyway... if you are an old school shooter fan... you MUST own R-Type (and this is a very tasty version).
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I loved R-type on the SNES
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QFT
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So presumably the massive ship level is extra-awesome with an extra dimension?
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Where the fuck is the button configuration. Some of us have an arcade stick just for games like this.
Still brilliant though and I feel the price is justified.
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Gah! Stupid shmup difficulty levels again. Seriously... are they really trying to kill off the genre? Infinite lives is fine so you can at least crawl through to the end, but you still get endlessly shot, and sent back to checkpoints, have to scrape by with no powerups, which just isn't fun. Fewer/weaker enemies and fewer bullets for a n00b difficulty level is much better all round, and gives an incentive to practice and level up.
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I'm sold on this although I must say, when I imagine holding the controller to play it, having the Force on the X button seems natural to me. Still doesn't excuse the lack of button config, though.
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Totally agree. I will not buy this, Ikaruga and Galaga Legions spoiled that. And I still have to finish Panzer Dragoon Orta on normal difficulty
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To expensive for a couple of retro titles bundled together even if they did write them from scratch. At 800MSP it would have been an instant purchase but as it is I will leave it until a price cut or just not bother.
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Only had the chance for a couple of warm-ups last night on Classic (in both normal and 3D 'crazy' modes) and was very impressed with the look and feel. Just as bastard-hard as ever, but as evilbert said, the old patterns soon come flooding back.
Tonight, the first one's going to get its arse handed to it. >
*cracks knuckles*
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As much as I like R-Type there's no way i'm paying 1200 points for two 20-year-old games, even if they have had a lovely graphical update.
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Charts are updated after 24h (it must be through some batch job).
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For less than the price of this release you can get R-Types which will run on the PS3 via backwards compatibility and includes the first two R-Type games in their original incarnations. Or if you feel like splashing out for something rarer, R-Type Delta is well worth tracking down. If you've got PS2 backwards compatibility R-Type Final and Gradius V will fulfill all your shooting needs.
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"photographic imaging, complete.. complete.. complete.. complete"
For those wondering what the hell I'm quoting the machine from Darkman in an R type thread, It was from a drum & bass tune from the 90s called rtype.
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I managed to reach the same place I always could on the arcade version, and the PC engine version...
(I never could get past level 6 - and having played infinte mode I dont understand HOW you couldve ever defeated the last boss!)
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Difficulty wise, its identical to the 'Engine version, exact same patterns, the same speeds... everything. I can't say it's easy, but it certainly seems no more difficult that it used to be.
Love the new modes, and visual flair they've added. I'd have like the option of some remixed audio but to say they never had access to the original source they've done a damn fine version and they certainly earned my 1200 points.
More retro updates like this one please, and less of the straight Megadrive ports. SEGA I'm looking at you!
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not on my shift..
i find the smooth new graphix extremely ugly in comparison to the old style.
see here for details....
[link url=http://www.theaveragegamer.com/wp-content /Screenshots/Rtype/rtype_3.png
]http://ww w.theaveragegamer.com/wp-conten...[/link]
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Then just use the old style
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Gotta hurt...
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Thanks Parkin. Thanks a BUNCH!
/looks forward to home time
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Simple question, this - do you want raped up the arse? If so, buy the Virtual Console version.
There are, so far as I can see from the demo (1200 points? Good luck with that), two stupid omissions from Dimensions:
1. You can switch between old crappy graphics and new spanky side-on graphics, OR between old crappy graphics and new spanky 3D sort-of-diagonal graphics. For some insanely stupid reason, you can't cycle between all three. 3D diagonals look coolest, but make certain bits hard to play, so why not let players switch back to 2D at those points without having to go into 8-bit crap-o-vision?
2. Relatedly, there don't seem to be separate leaderboards for diagonal-view and side-view modes, which might have explained the above but now clearly doesn't. Diagonal is definitely harder, so if you play it you're at a big leaderboard disadvantage.
Given the ambitious price point this should have been bulletproof, but the above combined with the lack of button configuration is shabby. It's a shame, because the new look is stunning and it'd have been great to play R-Type that way, but if they wanted to screw punters for the maximum amount of money they should have put R-Type Dimensions and R-Type 2 Dimensions out for 800 points each and seen how many people bothered getting the sequel.
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800 pts = Maybe buy
1200 pts = Not a chance in hell
Quite simply, this is no more than the Prince of Persia (800pt) remake. In fact, this is shorter and I know I won't spend much time on it. MS is trying to force the prices up, and if we accept it, everything will start costing more.
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Comment on review: people on my forum (and these people are 90% hardcore shooter fans) have noted that the Classic mode appears to be arcade difficulty, but Infinite mode ramps up quicker. It's not actually fair to say that the arcade version originally had difficulty levels, because customers would never have had access to them, and in fact most of the ports don't offer them either. Review also makes no mention of the slightly jumpy graphical movement, it's not slowdown - the dev team appear to have decided to run it at original arcade speed, which was 55fps. I would have liked an option to run it at 60, but I think this is the first time outside of emulation that people have been able to play R-Type at the correct speed.
It's pretty damn good, even the 3d graphics are nice and I thought I'd hate them.
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Firstly the game is 1200 points and you cant buy 1200 points. Its 1000 then 500. Which totals
Xbox LIVE 500 Microsoft Points bundle - £4.25
Xbox LIVE 1000 Microsoft Points bundle - £8.50
So over £12. Arguing over £2? You bet your ass. I have NO problem with the game. My argument is with Microsofts crazy point scheme. Come on MS, either make all games 1000 or allow us to buy other variations of points. 1200 being a prime example since alot of arcade games go for that price.
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Brilliant!