But though years had gone by and the desires of the general public had passed into new things, smaller companies came to realize that maybe there were just enough gamers who remembered and loved the old ways that games could be made for them without it being a financial black hole. That though maybe the sales charts wouldn't be set ablaze by the rapid climb of their game to the number one spot, enough fans would go to the trouble of acquiring it to make it a worthwhile endeavor for all concerned. With that thought seemingly held firmly in mind, Irem authorized the production of what would appear to be one final entry in the seventeen-year-old R-Type series, finishing up the saga of the Human/Bydo War and ending the tale once and for all.

At this point I should say that I slept through all that. I never played R-Type in the arcade, never gave R-Types (PS1) much time beyond a play or two, and stupidly don't even own R-Type Delta (PS1 again). No SNES/GB/GBC/C-64 R-Type for me. What can I say? No matter how hard you try you can't play everything. So, going in almost cold but not quite, how do I care for R-Type Final?

I care quite a bit, as it turns out, despite a few unpolished bits in the game. The gameplay is deep, the graphics are pretty, and the variety is simply amazing. Most of this variety comes in the form of the ships you can play as - one hundred of them unlockable through the course of the game - and the weapons they employ, and there's a good variety of levels and enemies to use these on too. Whether it's wimpy little streams of one-hit ships, mid-range critters like garbage scows that dump debris at you, or gun turrets on a giant battleship, or the required mid- and end-level bosses, there's (almost) always something new to kill and a good variety of ways to do the job.

Weapons come in several varieties: (1) The main frontal attack. It starts out as a glorified pop-gun, although to be fair it seems to pack a bit more punch than the usual zero-level shot most shooters of this sort start you out with. No matter how you power up, you'll always be shooting this off to back up whatever it is you're firing.

(2) The Wave Cannon. Holding down the fire button (and there are two: one for rapid-fire and one for normal tap-tap-tap firing) charges up your Wave Cannon, an incredibly strong blast that, if used properly, can turn the strongest enemy into charred scrap or cooked meat. This weapon is the first point at which the differences in the ships become apparent, with all sorts of different and lovely destructive effects being displayed among the ships. Some shoot out one concentrated bolt of death while others have a sustained beam. Some ships shoot out a bomb with an area effect while one class even has a bomb that gathers enemy data in addition to laying down a world of hurt.

Your first grabbed power-up orb doesn't give you that shiny new laser you'd been hoping for. Instead it delivers (3) the Force. This is both one of the defining features of the R-Type series and your best friend in the whole world. Your ship will never get much more powerful than it starts as, but the Force will. It shoots the lasers received from power-ups, it protects you from hostile fire and weak enemies, and it can even be sent out to do your bidding to a certain extent. With the touch of a button it goes flying off, shooting a stream of bullets in addition to ramming anything in its path, and the same button can call it back. As you'd expect, the different Forces act in different ways when sent out. In addition to how it performs, either trailing behind or ahead (depending on whether it was attached to your face or tail when you sent it free) at a set distance or homing in on enemies; it also shoots in different patterns. Straight ahead, ahead/behind, an X pattern, etc. Though the temptation is to leave it attached to your nose at all times, it's incredibly useful in various situations depending on how it's deployed, either off and providing advanced covering fire or attached to the rear of your fighter. With a bit of practice you can send it out, call it back, swing around it on the return, and attach it to the other side of the ship from where it started.

Your Force also shoots off (4) your all-purpose laser. Power-up orb #1 gives you the Force and after that collecting them gets you shiny new lasers to play with. The orbs come in one of three different colors, and the game is actually pretty good about giving you the right weapon for the job at hand. The red orb is a straight-ahead laser, blue is angled off to the sides for a nice spread, and yellow is usually shot out 90 degrees from the top and bottom of your ship. Different ships have different weapons, almost too many styles to count, but the overall effects of the power-ups are about the same.

Dropped powerups include (5) missiles and (6) the Bit. Missiles and Bits come, once again, in a nice variety, although not so numerous as Force, Wave Cannon, and Laser styles. Missiles are mostly bomb-style, either dropping straight down or thrown forward, but there's also a homing missile to play with. The Bit is a pod that hovers over your ship, and below as well if you survive long enough to get a second one. They too can do a nice variety of things, from adding an extra helping of firepower to providing a small shield. Each ship can equip 2-3 different styles of these weapons, and when you choose your ship you can also use the Customize menu to choose which of them you want to employ. Entertainingly enough, you can also use Customize to change both your ship body and canopy color in case that pink/purple color ensemble was just what you needed to really get into the shooty groove.

The last weapon at your disposal is something simply referred to as (7) the Special Weapon. When the Force hits an enemy, a little gauge in the lower corner goes up a small amount. It starts off at zero, and slowly rises all the way up to 100, at which point your Force will flash and have a nice red glowy aura around it. This lets you know that the Special Weapon is ready to fire, hopefully doing enough damage to everything on screen to save your beleaguered behind. Honestly, I found this one to be a bit hit-or-miss for all the trouble it takes to power up. Some weapons give insta-death to just about everything all at once, while others don't seem to do much more than put on a pretty light show. Still, it's another tool in the toolbox and knowing what it can do can help a great deal in the tricky spots. Just don't rely on an untested bomb to save you when all other hope is lost, and it'll work out fine. Except for the dying bit, that is . . .

So with all of these options and abilities at your command, how do the enemies stand a chance? By you being a one-hit wonder and the game being more than willing to brutally put you in your place. It's a far more methodical style of beatdown than the usual bullet-hell shooter we've been seeing in the last few years, but no less effective because of the slower pace. R-Type Final will happily squeeze you down to less than a quarter of the screen and then demand that you send your Force out, only to have to call it back and reattach it to your rear before you can escape. It sounds tricky, but the controls are sharp enough that it actually becomes, if not easy, at least possible - and after a bit of practice, honestly fun and satisfying to do.

That sense of satisfaction goes through most of the game, too. Whether it's unlocking a new ship, experiencing a new level, experiencing a new variation on an old level, or just putting together the moves necessary to get through a formerly nightmarish maze of insta-death, R-Type Final keeps on delivering. True, there are points that could use some polish. Level 1 is flashy but gets boring, swapping out ships in between levels could stand more detailed menus, and there's no sense of continuity from one level to the next. Level 5 uses a warping effect that many found highly distracting, though personally I thought it kind of neat for a minute and then ignored once I really started working on surviving. But all of this is forgivable, although not forgettable, when putting a newly unlocked ship through its paces while simultaneously working on getting a new high score for the level.

R-Type Final's play options span both the usual fare (regular game, score attack) and an experimental type as well: VS AI Mode. You pick a fighter from your stable, define a handful of AI variables, and set it off against either a preset computer-controlled ship or a second player's AI fighter. I found it entertaining for maybe half an hour, and it's nice to see new things tried and experiments undertaken, but I don't think I'll be working my way through the full tournament any time soon. Ah well, nice try.

In the end, R-Type Final is a wonderful, deep, gameplay-rich horizontal shooter with more to offer than most games could dream of. I got the feeling while playing that the developers at Irem took every idea for a shooter they'd had so far and invented a few more on the fly, crammed them all into one final project, and set it loose on the world in the hopes that somebody would care. The result is one of the best shooters I've played and a fitting finale to a series that I'm now going to take some time to familiarize myself with. Good job, Irem, take a bow. And get to work on R-Type Rebirth, okay?

· · · James Cunningham