R-Type Tactics

[Diogo Ribeiro]

So, R-Type is an RPG now:

 

R-Type Tactics Set For PSP

New strategy take on shooting classic.

by IGN Staff

 

May 23, 2007 - It's the most unexpected genre crossover since Virtua Fighter became an adventure game starring a bunch of punk kids, and it's coming to the PSP. The latest issue of Famitsu has a first look at R-Type Tactics. That's right, the classic shooting franchise has gone the way of the Final Fantasies, and Onimushas before it and is being reborn as a strategy game.

 

Like Wild Arms, Sony's RPG franchise that's also taking a strategic twist for its first PSP outing, Irem has opted for a hexagonal-based combat system. But the similarities appear to end there.

 

R-Type Tactics looks like a traditional shooting game, right down to the side-scrolling perspective and walls blocking your path. The difference here is that instead of freely moving about and blasting enemy ships, you take turns with the enemy, making careful movements over a grid. Perform an attack, and the game switches to an effect-filled attack sequence.

 

The side-scrolling perspective isn't all you'll recognize from the series. The game includes similar weapons as well as boss characters who will be instantly recognizable by hardcore fans. The "force" sub-weapons play a big part as well, adding extra power to your ship.

 

Modes of play include a single player mission mode and an ad-hoc-based battle mode for multiple players. We're not sure at the moment if there'll be a story mode wrapping an absurd storyline around the game, but fans will at least have an image gallery to look forward to.

 

Speaking with the magazine, producer Kazuma Kujo fielded the obvious question: why a strategy game? The answer, according to Kujo, is that the R-Type series came to an end with R-Type Final, so with the new game, Irem wants you to think "This is new." Hopefully this doesn't mean that R-Type shooting games will never return.

 

This surprising twist on a classic franchise hits the Japanese PSP later this year.

 

turn-based sux lol

[J.E. Sawyer]

R-Type rulz.

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Sure does. Hey, did you get to play Final? If so, what did you think of it? I think I can get it dirt cheap but have been holding off for a while...

[J.E. Sawyer]

Sure does. Hey, did you get to play Final? If so, what did you think of it? I think I can get it dirt cheap but have been holding off for a while...

I think even when Final came out it was like 20 bux. I never really played that much of it, to be honest. It was a classic traditional shooter like the other R-Types, but they really had a rad array of different ships and a lot of neat environments. I mean, if you like R-Type, I don't think you're going to be disappointed with RTF especially at $20.

[Llyranor]

Hehe, I played R-Type back on the NES (or was it Gradius? I forget). It's been a while since I've played a shmup

[metadigital]

What is R-Type?

[Deraldin]

What is R-Type?

 

R-Type is a side scrolling shoot-em-up arcade game produced by Irem in 1987. The player controls a futuristic space fighter named "Arrowhead" to defend humanity against a mysterious but powerful alien lifeform known as "Bydo", which was later discovered to be not entirely alien in origin (see the "Bydo" section for details). R-Type is recognized as one of the classics of the shooter genre from the 80s arcade.

 

Does that help?

[metadigital]

Is that the Defender-type game? (Sort of like Missile Command, except it was side-scrolling and not big circular explosions, actually not very Missile Command-like at all, come to think of it); it was wrap-around so you could just gun it and get back to where you started? I used to play that game!

[Llyranor]

This is what R-Type plays like. http://youtube.com/watch?v=i0n6YiWrh-E In any case, I think I had played Gradius instead. I never got past the first level anyway.

 

Though, really, the SHMUP I'd really want to play is Ikaruga, especially with 2p coop. Now that game's gimmick looks extremely cool.

[@\NightandtheShape/@]

R-Type rulz.

 

A man after me own heart... R-Type is classic, everything from it's look, through to the music.

[Meshugger]

That was...unexpected. The last time that i played an R-Type game was on the Amiga 500, about 15 years ago.

[metadigital]

Hmmm, I think I was playing that game in the arcade 1977 ... would that be correct? The wiki seems to think this game appeared out of nowhere in the 80s on consoles.

 

• "R-Type" is a term used for a species which reproduces in quantity rather than quality, which could, perhaps, describe the Bydo, and be a reference to the R/K selection theory.
  
• On the Usenet newsgroup alt.games.mame, there is a running gag involving R-Type. Whenever someone asks for help identifying a game, and provides an inadequate description, one of the answers is always "R-Type".
  

[mkreku]

I played R-Type on one of this back in 1988:

 

 

It was awesome for its time. Amazing graphics, the power-up system (with the ball that grew as it got better and could be attached to your ship's nose as a shield) was ground-breaking and the end bosses must have been some of the most difficult bosses of all time. I distinctly remember that huuuuge ship that you blew parts off as you advanced along its scrolling side. You had to position your ship right all the time or else the several-screen-long boss ship would just squash you, all the while you were trying to blow stuff up and avoid being shot by the turrets on the boss ship. This might have been from R-Type 2 though.

[metadigital]

^^ That sounds v. familiar.

[Kor Qel Droma]

Hmmm, I think I was playing that game in the arcade 1977 ... would that be correct? The wiki seems to think this game appeared out of nowhere in the 80s on consoles.

 

'77 sounds a bit early but I can remember playing it in the arcades in the early to mid eighties as well.

[metadigital]

The date is because I can nail down the coordinates in space and time to a new arcade and before I went around the world ... I know I played a game like it, but if it wasn't around perhaps I am confusing it with another.

[Kor Qel Droma]

Sadly, I can remember when a ten dollar roll of quarters were enough to keep you occupied for quite some time at the arcade.

[Shryke]

i remember R-Type vividly, it was awesome

 

man i feel olde now...

[astr0creep]

I still have R-Type and the Sega Master System I played it on years ago.

No reasonable offers refused(except for all those offers after the first reasonable one).

[Deraldin]

Sadly, I can remember when a ten dollar roll of quarters were enough to keep you occupied for quite some time at the arcade.

 

They have an arcade in the movie theatre that I go to. Everything runs off of tokens of course. I stopped buying tokens when the machines switched to $1/3 tokens and all the games still took 4 tokens. I could make that dollar last a good hour playing Time Crisis (or one of the sequels. Currently have #4 in there right now) or House of the Dead (again or it's sequels. It's also on #4 right now). Everything other than that is usually over within a couple minutes.

[metadigital]

I stopped playing when Wonder Boy became an outmoded and retired machine.