Is this R Type heaven or hell? R Type DX review!

R TYPE DX (Nintendo/Irem, 2000)

Two great R type shooting games in one package sounds like a really great idea but sadly they are not the best translations in the world unfortunately. R Type DX is actually just the older gameboy titles of R Type and R Type II (R Type II was only released in Japan for the Gameboy and wasn't released over here originally) but now these classic shooters are in colour plus you can even save your high scores and contiune your progress thanks to a level select feature but is the game still good enough especially when the limited Gameboy Color is still only a 8-bit machine?

If you are playing R Type DX on the GameBoy Color then you can play the following games: R Type, R Type II, and R Type DX (R Type I & II combine) but if you have only the older Black and White Gameboy(s) then you can still play R Type I & II but you can not save your scores or your process, so they are basicly just the older Gameboy games of R Type. You're better off playing this game on the Gameboy Color or Gameboy Advance.

R TYPE
R Type has 6 levels of aracde action as the R-9 Starship tries to rid the galaxy of the evil Bydo empire. Although the game isn't too easy, you can get help to guard your ship with a Force Pod that fires three different weapons. Being a hardcore R Type fan for years I instantly notice a lot of changes to the game. R Type GB has Levels 4 and 5 (the cell and worm stages) missing from the original arcade game and the rest of the game looks fairly questionable at times thanks to larger characters with a serious lack of detail. Plus there are only two sound tracks during the six level game so the music can get on your nerves fairly quickly. Although it's not arcade perfect it's still a decent shooter that will actually make you think.

R TYPE II
R Type II is a 5 level mission to destroy the last reminds of the Bydo Empire. This game features two new weapons Green (Homing Lasers) and Black (Nova Bombs), a new ground missile, and an new double charge Beam Plasma shot. R Type II has the same problems as R Type I, because Level 4 (the gear factory stage) from the arcade game is missing and the level music repeats itself aswell. However, the graphics do look nicer in R Type II because some of the backgrounds actually use parallax scrolling and the colours and music look and sound sharper too than R Type I.

A huge problem with both games is that there is always some flickering and some slowdown issues because of the limited power of the 8-bit Gameboy. Sometimes you'll die because a single shot will hit you but you won't see it because there is too much on screen at once which is because of that limited hardware of the Gameboy Color compared to the newer Gameboy Advance or any next generation game machine, which is very cheap and with a game as hard as R Type, it's not good for your stress levels that's for sure.

I was also a big fan of R Type's sci fi like music throughout the years and to hear it cutted down on the Gameboy Color is not a good thing. Some of the soundtracks in R Type II sounded just like their arcade counterpart but most of the music in the package as been editted down to only a few tracks to save on memory on the gamepak I guess. Another weak showing for music on the Gameboy Color.

U R Not Ready!
If you wanna play two great arcade shoot em ups on one game then R Types for the Sony Playstation is the game for you. Although R Type DX is good, there is only so much you can do on a 8-bit machine. On the positive side; I like how I can save my top scores to the cart which is something you can't usually do in a Gameboy shooter and how it's a 2 in 1 game too, so if you're looking a good portable shooter then R Type DX isn't a bad choice for the price. "I at least wanna thank Nintendo for trying to make a great set of shooters for the Gameboy Color but they should have waited for the games to go on the Advance instead!"

Thanks for reading! You can see my reviews on games on the StarSoldier1 main page or just on my game site. Later!
-StarSoldier1
http://www.gamegrandpas.com