R-Type is the greatest game ever made, right? Right? No? Then get off my land, you pervert. It just is.
The 8-bit ports of the game were mixed: the Amstrad got a terrible, slow, drab port. The C64 got a fun shooter that felt loosely based on the source, but which loses points for straight up doing it's own thing (as the C64 often did).
But it's the ZX Spectrum port that really shines. More colourful than it had right to be, fast, faithful, fun. It was a weird kind of miracle: so accurate you could even use your arcade learnings to do well at the game.
So, for the 8-bit micros at least, clear Speccy win!
...
But they were, all of them, deceived, for there was another 8-bit computer R-Type made.
On the internet, in the coding forums, homebrew coders forged in secret an Amstrad port to beat all the others. And into this port they poured colour, accuracy, music...
And the result is pretty great. Amazing to see what the Amstrad can really do when it isn't getting stinky Spectrum ports. I would say this one ties with the Spectrum port for playability.
Now that's the sort of quality content I'm here for! I've never really gotten into shmups back in the day, on account of them being so God damn hard.
Ever since I've got an Anbernic 35XX on my nightstand with every game under the sun on it I've been going through the various shmups, and R-Type just is the best of them all. I love the SNES version, personally. That being said, no genre makes me rage quit more, and basically every loaded R-Type save state will greet me with a Game Over screen, but it is what it is.
So, across all retro console generations (Arcade, 8/16/32), which is the best R-Type in your opinion?
I mean, the arcade is clearly the best version... (if you're talking the original game).
For the ports... the Spectrum is great for sheer chutzpah, but the PC Engine port is probably the most faithful of all the versions that weren't running an emulator. The Sega Mastersystem is also extremely good, on much less powerful hardware.
PC-Engine CD version, R-Type Complete.
IMO it’s better than the original arcade version. That soundtrack is amazing.