R-Type might be the series I give the lightest jabs imaginable when I want to critique it through written words. It's not necessarily the childhood trauma speaking from a certain SNES iteration whooping my ass, or having a handheld version to strain my eyes on through a screen that cannot be looked at clearly from any angle regardless of applicable worm lights.

I just like good art direction, a lot. It can carry some of the most mid shit ever if it was left to nothing but the bare gameplay elements. That's not to say R-Type doesn't have good gameplay elements, I love the force option, it's actually one of my favorite mechanics in shmups and can lend itself well to proper strategy. Of course however, strategy is something you need to learn and do on the fly, and in shmups you only have so much time to conduct this when obstacles and bullets are thrown at you willy-nilly-vanilly, and failure means a trip back to a potentially poorly-placed checkpoint. Personally, I feel R-Type has a fantastic first half. The battleship stage in particular I think is an amazing piece to really teach the player on how to utilize the force option.

These good vibes though only last so long, because as always arcade agony rears it's ugly head starting at stage six and onward. I think with some elbow grease I could find some hoops to jump through and commit to mental gymnastics to rationalize these last three stages, but the second loop left me in such a bad state that I just can't find the energy to start the circus act. Full disclosure, I effectively beat this game four times today if you count both loops, and I did break down and use save states. With practice I could 1cc the first loop and gain more adoration for this, but that second loop is an obvious trolljob toward MLG gamers who enjoy looking for safe paths/spots in levels with constant bullet sprays that weren't meant to be there originally. It's a shame, because it's obvious how much this influenced god knows how many of it's kind with it's giant vagina bosses, and iconic first stage boss with thousands of names thanks to terrible localization.

"Hey, what should we call this guy?"
"Gladiator. Looks like a gladiator."
"Yeah, I can see that cheddar cheese Xenomorph fighting Samnites in the Colosseum. Absolutely, good idea sir."

Will still never get where that one came from, lol. At least the Bydo will never scare people again. (Spoilers: they scare people a lot more after this.)

First loop fine, second loop bad. Don't do it, I gained five pounds from it.