R-Type III (Game Boy Advance) - Review by Andrew

Introduction

R-Type, along with Space Invaders and the classic Phoenix, can best be described as a classic, old school shooter which all had an undeniable impact on early gaming. Around 20 years old now it has graced many platforms and even made a couple of appearances on the Gameboy Color some years ago. It's not the first retro classic to hit the GBA though. Not only have Nintendo released almost their entire back catalogue but most other publishers have also seen fit to re-issue 'collections' of SNES and Mega Drive titles. This has created a real split in the gaming community where, although some people welcome the opportunity to revisit these forgotten gems, others would much rather developers were turning their attentions to newer and more original projects. One solution here could lie in Atari?s upcoming DS compilation, which 'updates' many of their arcade greats for a new 21st Century audience. That's all in the future though (and not for the GBA anyway) so just how does volume III fare in the world of shooters?

Gameplay

Whilst trying not to state the obvious, R-Type III is an old school shooter meaning you must shoot everything whilst avoiding everything else. I'd love to say that there was more to it but that's about it. There are extra weapons to pick up to help make your ship into the ultimate killing machine but these do little if you don't adhere to the first two rules. To be fair there are some impressive end of level bosses and not all the levels are of the 'left-to-right' design (some scroll down) but this does little to brighten up the uninspired and occasionally boring levels. Probably the most exciting challenge is provided by a huge Space Station that starts to move inward creating small gaps and you must control your ship without crashing into the superstructure. I say probably because this took us so long to get through we were almost pulling our hair out. Stranger still it takes place during the first level, which is hardly in keeping with the 'old school' learning curve.

Controls

If there's one thing that will let a shoot 'em up down its questionable collision detection. This renders the whole game a little unfair, especially when you find that you often explode when you don't appear to have hit anything at all. Despite using all your skill and judgment to avoid everything around you, the next thing it?s 'Kaboom!' and game over. Even if the rest of the game were perfect this would seriously hurt the overall score. If it's a challenge you want on the other hand....

Graphics

While the game utilizes Raylight Studios? Blue Rose technology it's hardly pushed to the limits and previous titles such as Wing Commander and Ozzy & Drix are much better demonstrations of this engine in use. The backgrounds initially appear black peppered with stars although you will encounter the odd space station to break up the levels. This improves in the later levels with a little more color and thought added to the design but it is never really anything more than average. What the Blue Rose engine does bring to the table though is super smooth sprites and an equally impressive frame rate regardless of how much is going on in the game. It's clear that the developers were in between a rock and a hard place though as while there was clearly a temptation to upgrade the visuals for a new 21st Century audience you still have to please the original fans of the game. The outcome possibly does both and while it's by no means a dazzling visual spectacle it's pleasant enough.

Sound

The audio is not too good at all however with the developers seemingly happy to simply attach the original arcade music to the GBA version, which wouldn't even be too bad if it was actually any good initially. Instead what you have is a rather bland selection of tinny compositions that don't exactly enhance the gameplay and the sound effects follow suit so you might as well lower your audio settings straight away.

Final comments

Things retro have had something of an easy ride over the past few years with developers and publishers happy to push out effortless conversions of 20-year-old classics while banking on all the original assets. This title makes it clear that this just isn't enough any more. While R-Type undoubtedly looks the part, its visuals hide many flaws in the gameplay. One of the game?s biggest problems is that of pace, with huge sections devoid of any action while others are more like a kind of 'rush hour' in space. This is without even mentioning the collision detection. I'm sure there's little explanation required here as to just how important this is in a shoot ?em up. Overall, R-Type isn't a terrible game it's just not a great one and, as a result, you'd be doing yourself a huge favor if you gave it a test drive before parting with your hard-earned cash.

Pro: Nice Visuals.
Con: Far Too Short.
Final score: 5.7

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