Upon revisiting this after playing more shmups, I'm a bit surprised I didn't find myself raising or lowering the score.
It's got some things that really make me want to put it higher, but also some things that make me want to lower it.

R-Type III has this cinematic flair to it that really makes it shine, especially in the final level. I really like the final boss in this one. Its final phase is notably super intense, although on my first playthrough it felt impossible because I didn't realize you have to throw away your pod to end it. I guess you could argue it's unintuitive, but it definitely fits the scene as this last ditch effort type of thing.

As I said the first time, this game is also insanely fucking hard. The series is notable for being much more heavy on level memorization than its contemporaries, but there are still some areas where I think it's a bit overboard? Level 4 has this part with these huge lasers that you have to navigate around in some sort of maze, then you fight a boss, and then you go back through the maze backwards. It's super overkill, and definitely the game at its least enjoyable. Not helping is that the R-Type series is also generally checkpoint based, so if you eat shit in that laser maze (or a similarly irritating segment shortly before the penultimate boss) you are getting sent back a little and you have to do it over again. I really don't like checkpoint shmups, man. It's a good thing this game has so much going for it in every other regard.

The music is worth mentioning as well, at least I think so. The compositions are great, but the soundfont is silly as hell. I think it has some charm to it that honestly makes it better, but I can see how it would be off putting. That being said, it really helps elevate some moments, notably in the bosses and the aforementioned final sequence.

I would definitely give this one a look, but honestly? Not without savestates, at least on your first time. I almost always play older games with them anyways, but this is one of those where I would genuinely suggest them early on and it's just not me being talentless lmao. If it was a little more reasonable in level design it would probably be one of my favorite shmups ever made, and I don't think that problem alone should lead you to discard it.

(update: I did eventually raise it by a point i like this game)

Reviewed on Oct 18, 2022


1 Comment


2 months ago

update 2 baybee did a replay with all the force options and raised to a 9. Really underappreciated as a whole imo