R-Type Delta: HD Boosted

We're going retro once more with arguably the most renowned series of shooters, R-Type: Delta HD Boosted. For the uninitiated, R-Type Delta was first released on Playstation 1, in the days where anything that dared to be in 2-dimensions was roundly derided and dragged through the streets to shouts of "shame!". Clearly R-Type had to step up, and so it did with a polygonal upgrade that allowed the series to pull new graphical tricks and chart new frontiers.

It wasn't just an aesthetic upgrade either, the game retained all the elements of the original series, complete with pod-based shooty powers, moody atmosphere and stellar gameplay. For some strange reason the game hasn't seen life outside the original hardware (shy of a one-off PSN release) but once again Clear River Games is digging up the past and shaming the present with its findings - given how good the game is, all it needed was a little polish to bring the future back from the past.

And that, in a nutshell, is what they've done. This is a buttery smooth and largely faithful port of the original game, with enhanced graphics (which can be downgraded if you want the authentic PS1 experience for some reason) solid 60fps and shorn of the slowdown that would occasionally rear its head thanks to the hardware limitations of the time. This removal was a conscious decision by City Connection, as the original Irem developer, Hiroya Kita, had stated that any slowdown was unintentional, so the team are working from original intent rather than reality, though granted that does make the game harder.

The coding team obviously understood the brief and have carried it out like finely trained space marines, even working with Irem to update the textures. Even more impressive is that the coders only had 60-70% of the original code to work with, but you'd never know it from how the game hangs together. This is a labour of either love or a lot of furious whipping! Add in a practice mode and a pretty decent optional arrangement for the soundtrack and you have a solid package that works on Switch 2 like a dream.

For newbies, know this - R-Type is a brutal game. It's not a reactionary shooter, it's a memory test - you'll learn the formations and pathways to take and you'll need to pull them off flawlessly. Death means the difficulty spikes even higher, as you'll lose all your power-ups and that might as well mean shooting peas at the incoming Bydo forces. Checkpoints are few and very, very far between, so when you do come back, it's waaaay back. I had to recalibrate my gaming style when playing, as the first view runs in the opening level were just one disaster after another. Once I understood the mission, which isn't unlike Edge of Tomorrow with its "Live. Die. Repeat" style, I started to get into the groove and had a great time. For beginners, start on "Kid Mode" - despite the derogatory name, you will have more fun when the game is more forgiving. Work your way up and you'll save a lot of frustration.

So that's all the good stuff, but the game has a few flaws that, for fairness, should be pointed out. There's no quality of life updates like save states and rewind, which isn't necessarily detrimental to the package, it's just that they've become so ubiquitous everywhere else that they are noticeable by their absence. 

The enhanced screen mode (read: widescreen) works by using the usual stretch method, or by bleeding the edges of the screen on both sides to fill the space. I didn't notice this at all until I started looking at the technical aspects in more detail, so it shouldn't bother you unless you're a pixel-counter. 4:3 ratio is, of course, on board too. These weren't an issue for me, but it's not "proper" widescreen in the way M2 might work it into their ports.

For the really picky (and I admit I had to speak to a friend who wanted to try my review copy for this info) the game's speed is apparently tied to the FPS, which means some enemy attacks are faster than they should be - this is tied into the removal of that aforementioned slowdown. For someone who never played the original (I was still struggling to beat Super R-Type on the SNES) this isn't really an issue, but if you're used to the flow of the game and are looking for a 1:1 recreation, this is slightly off, but intentional and not a bug. Likewise, while the game looks fab for the most part, there are still some graphical glitches from the original that are magnified here (texture warping and vertex snapping) so while they fixed the slowdown, they didn't fix the equally unintentional graphical glitches, which seems off if they want to code to the intent of the original developers. Lastly, the music can get desynched as a result of the FPS, so that's another minor issue to be aware of.

I'm reliably informed that these issues have been fixed in less legal ways of playing the game, but that hopefully means they can be fixed here too with a patch, assuming City Connection are so inclined.

Put these nitpicks aside - and they are all minor in my opinion - and you still have the beating heart of what some consider the best R-Type game of all time, and that's not small boast considering how loved the series is by shmup fans. It looks and plays great, the practice mode is a major bonus and it's a lot of fun if shmups are your thing. It's really just fantastic to see the game available legally so that fans new and old can discover it again. 

See the game in action: