In R-TYPE DX: Music Encore, we have a release aimed at a niche gaming subset in much the same way as SNK’s Neo Geo Pocket collections. As such, some affection for both the era and the original hardware is necessary to appreciate what is essentially a reconstituted, miniaturised version of a much larger arcade game. And, like SNK’s handheld reimaginings of its Neo Geo AES titles, R-Type DX has no choice but to do its own thing — and that’s the reason why it works.
In the ’90s, London-based developer Bits Studios was primarily known for porting other people’s games. These included movie licenses like Alien 3 and Terminator 2, and, of particular historical interest, Gunforce for the Super Nintendo, a lesser-known Irem arcade game. After releasing R-Type and R-Type II for Nintendo’s Game Boy, they were then remastered five years later in R-Type DX (1999), a Game Boy Color title that combined both games into one epic space battle.
R-Type DX: Music Encore, from shoot-’em-up port regulars City Connection, presents the game in an all-new package full of bells and whistles. There’s a gallery displaying flyers, original boxes and cartridge scans, and several modes stuffed with options to tinker with.
You can play the original monochrome Game Boy R-Type I and II ports, the original DX version unaltered, and a new hyper speed mode that bypasses the Game Boy’s natural frame rate to move things at comparative breakneck speed. There are also options to adjust screen curvature, apply filters, ghosting and CRT phosphor, and hit rewind at any point to undo your failures. It’s not the most incredibly presented package, but it certainly ticks all the necessary boxes.
The main event is R-Type DX: Music Encore, which adds an all-new soundtrack to the original game. This accurately replicates the arcade themes and is composed by Japanese sound designer WASi303. DX fuses Bits Studios’ original R-Type and R-Type II Game Boy ports into one continuous event, breaking briefly after stage five for a text interlude, before throwing you into R-Type II with bonus powered-up weaponry.
As the original games were particularly short, this works very well as a whole, and is encouraging for shoot-’em-up fans to attempt to clear on a single credit. There’s an on-screen mission leaderboard (that can be toggled off freely) that details your progress in terms of stage clears, boss defeats, and other special achievements.
Initially, DX feels unusual, primarily because the size of your R9-A ship seems inordinately large. It’s only when you remember that Bits Studio were developing for a tiny 2.6-inch monochrome screen — now blown up for a much larger display — that it makes sense. Adjustment comes quickly: relative to your enemies, bullet speeds and general hazards, the ship’s proportions mostly work.
There are, however, a few spots that require thankless, pixel-perfect positioning of your craft. One of these instances appears in R-Type II, where you need to slot into tight depressions in the edges of larger craft and move along with them. Elsewhere, destroying the mothership in the first game is easy enough if you can reach its core, but there’s only a sliver of space to slide through — whilst avoiding bullets — to actually get in there.
Do these quirks make DX harder than the original arcade games? Not at all. Generally speaking, they’re leagues easier owing to the fact that the stages are reimagined and rebuilt to work for the Game Boy’s hardware. They’re generally very short, and it’s easier to power up your ship and keep the weapons at maximum — a requirement for one-credit clear hunters.
The difficulty instead comes not from enemies, obstacles, or even bosses, but selected layout hurdles. The meat of the memorisation is in remembering junctures that must be approached in a specific way each time. You need to learn, for example, where you want to be positioned when those walls start closing in, or which way you need to approach certain layouts lest you get trapped and destroyed.
Certain bosses — assuming you’re powered up enough — are a cakewalk to dispatch, invariably requiring you to shoot the force pod into its midst, or camp with your nose point-blank on its weak spot. Unusually, the stage two boss is one of the hardest in the game, as neither of these options is possible, requiring you to snake around and slowly whittle down the alien menace when you get a brief window to fire on it. Be mindful what weaponry you take to this one, too.
R-Type DX is certainly no walk in the park, but it’s a very enjoyable little space war to sit through, largely thanks to its uniqueness as an R-Type game built for less powerful hardware. Amazingly, all of the original’s weaponry is largely intact, including all the familiar power-ups from both games, and the ability to intelligently experiment with the force pod to either protect or devastate is well-maintained.
The only real issue I could find with the package is that it makes the egregious error of not halting the rewind timer when pausing your game. So, if you suffer an untimely death, hit pause and head to the toaster, by the time you come back with your cheese sandwich you won’t be able to rewind far enough to undo your mistake. It’s a pretty elementary oversight and one seen far too often in retro ports and collections.
Conclusion
R-Type DX: Music Encore is an oddity in that it resurfaces a lesser-known R-Type release and treats it with love and attention. A Game Boy Color shoot ’em up that’s been vastly remodelled from the arcade original may not have widespread appeal, but those who enjoyed Aleste 3 for Game Gear or SNK’s Neo Geo Pocket collections will find a lot to love in it. It’s because of, and not in spite of, the fact that Bits Studios largely created an original R-Type experience that the game works. It has all the nuance of its arcade brethren, but makes it pint-sized, curious, and somewhat cute.
The frame rate and giant ship size are a learning curve, and there are certain sections that will have you cursing if you forego use of the rewind function, but for series fans this audio-polished revisit is the best version money can buy. And, unlike most shoot ’em ups, this one works wonderfully well in the Switch’s handheld format. If you’re a die-hard R-Type fan or just out to experience all the genre has to offer, it’s well worth the price.
