"Oh my god! They killed R-Type III! You bastards!!!"

Background: You may or may not be aware that this game is a port of a SNES title.

The long and short of my review is that the GBA port has been butchered beyond belief, and you should stay away from it unless you're really really desperate for a portable R-Type III. The review will assume you know a bit about the game already - if you don't, there's at least 4 other reviews, as well as numerous reviews for the SNES version. I don't really want to get into the basics of the game here in this review since so much of it has been ruined for this conversion.

Graphics: 7/10

The graphics are somewhat intact... but a lot of the animations have been removed, altered, or slowed down. I can't really complain too much, but the little things like the acid drops of level 2 or the jet flames of level 1 just don't look quite as cool, animating as slow as they do now.

One sinful thing that has been removed is the awesome introduction that showed the inside of the Bydo core of the R-90.

Sound: 2/10

Holy CRAP. A lot of the main sound effects are true to the SNES original, but the music has been absolutely BUTCHERED. The SNES original featured wicked, chunky, heavy metal grunge music... the GBA port features... "House" music? It doesn't even attempt to play the whole song, it just does a little jingle based off the first verse of each song. I could count about 2 instruments... the SNES game had at least 6. It's a really shameful downgrade. Mute it and save your battery power.

Story: NO RATING

This is a shmup. You shoot things. The aliens are trying to kick your butt, and you're trying to kick theirs. If you wanted a story, ha ha ha ho ho my god are you in the wrong part of town!

Gameplay: 5/10 (controls rating is included here)

The game has gotten stuck in some kind of temporal anomaly... because it is SLOW. Its ridiculous. You spend half the time just sitting there, waiting for enemies to come fight you. And when they finally get on screen, they spend forever and a day within their invincible frames. In the SNES version, they maybe spent a second in their invincible frames. For GBA, it's about 5 or more! The action does pick up slightly in later levels, but never reaches the speed of the SNES original. And it's not as if I'm talking about blazing speeds either... the SNES version was kind of sluggish on level 1, but not to this ridiculous extreme!

The weapons have been butchered as well. The shots fly slower, and seem to take twice as many hits to destroy the enemies. The Shadow Force is highly undesirable now... and they forgot to include the Fast Return system, which allows it to zip back to the R-90 at lightning speeds when you hit the return button. The pink weapon of the Cyclone force can't pass through solid objects, which was the entire point of it. It also seems that the side arm upgrades do not fire the secondary shots of the Pink weapon of the Round Force, or the Yellow weapon of the Cyclone Force.

The Auto-Fire button is next to useless now. Before, it was essentially full turbo... now it's so slow that even the least dexterous could tap the button faster.

The charge shot has also been nerfed. The collision zones have been shrunken, and the power has been reduced considerbly. A full double-charge shot almost can't kill basic enemies in one pass like it used to, and the smaller hit zone means you can't even hit most of enemies without aiming carefully. It may sound like not a big deal, but one of the main purposes of the charge shot was to sweep away enemies when you were getting swarmed.

The Hyper weapon appears to be decently powerful, but without good turbo, it's too hard to wield to full effect. Before in the SNES version, you could inflict an insane amount of damage with it holding the turbo button.

The force pods have also undergone serious downgrading. The collision zones for them are shrunken, which means that they now only protect a skinny quadrant in front of the nose of the R-90. What's worse is that shots will be cloaked by the outer rim of the force, yet still be permitted to pass through!

The Cyclone Force has suffered perhaps the most... when you launch it, it's suppose to create a giant ring, which is not to be penetrable by bullets, and is supposed to damage enemies attempting to pass through it. It creates the ring, but neither effect is present in the GBA version... it's been reduced to a decoration.

There is also an extremely bad delay between pressing the force button, and the pod following suit according to its status. This is probably the worst flaw of the entire game. Every R-Type game focuses on skillfully using the force pod, part of which entails being able to switch the pod from front to back very quickly. You can get away with it here... but only because the game plays so slowly.

The game is still playable I suppose... but the sluggish pace will make you complacent, and make easily avoidable mistakes. The difficulty is still pretty high, especially during level 4 (dang lava tubes...), it's just that the experience isn't nearly as satisfying. You can't put as much finesse into your gameplay as you could in the SNES version, and this greatly takes away from the fun.

Verdict:

As I was saying, if you're absolutely desperate for a portable R-Type III, then this game might be ok. But if you want the full experience, go for the SNES version. The original is a good paced, action packed challenge that requires a lot of technique. The conversion just misses the mark.

Final Score: 5/10 (Gameplay IS the final score)

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 04/27/07