R-Typing

I went through a period of Stupid where I was utterly unable to no-miss R-Type’s first loop again. I’d either die at the Stage 5 boss or one of the trickier parts in Stage 6 over and over again. The only reason I wanted to do it again on the Dimensions port was so I could play it on Infinite mode and join the ~100 or so people on the Leaderboards who no-missed it. I thought it’s a bit like getting 300 in bowling. Anyway, that’s done now. And on the plus side, I learned a crapton more about Stage 6 while I kept practicing so I’d say it was worth it. Now, afterwards, I’m a bit amazed I even managed to no-miss the game as I did, I could’ve done it so much easier.

While practicing I also noticed there are plenty of small differences between the Dimensions and the R-Types version of the game. The latter is a bit faster and harder (the back-cannons in Stage 3′s ship being more eager to fire, for example) so I guess I’ll need to clear that version of the game as well. But since I’ve done most of my practicing on the R-Types version anyway it shouldn’t be a problem.

And though there’s still a small desire to 2-ALL the game, I’ve also started playing R-Type II. Damn that’s an awesome game. The stage designs and bosses are much more complex and devious. I’ve made it to the Stage 4 boss on a credit, but I still need to practice Stage 3 boss before I’m really comfortable with him. I beat him most of the time but it always feel a bit too much like luck. Took a peek at Stages 5 and 6…fifth stage feels hard, but the boss is probably the easiest of both games. Sixth stage is pretty hectic with a fairly high bulletcount for an R-Type game. I’d say the game is definitely harder than the original. Yet in sgronblo’s opinion the first game is easier. Wonder if my opinion will change once I get more into it.

R-Type II I’ll be playing on the R-Types version. The differences between the Dimensions version and R-Types  version are much more pronounced here – while in the first game they’re noticable if you look for them, here they whack you in the face with a hammer right from the get-go. The enemy dispensers seem to spew less enemies in the Dimensions version, which also has some enemies missing (like one of the medium-sized crafts that jump out from the water after entering the base in Stage 1, few enemies creeping up from behind right before the boss and in Stage 2, bosses seem to take a bit less damage…) compared to the R-Types version. Also, while the first game’s graphics (especially the backgrounds) are a bit bare and the improved graphics in Dimensions were pretty nice, they don’t seem to work in II as well – the game already had more detailed graphics to begin with and they’re still nice to look today. So that’s even less reason to use the Dimensions version when I have R-Types to play it on.

(The title of this post…how come Irem never did a typing game like Typing of the Dead? It’s already in the name! I should make mockups of it for the heck of  it.)