As regular visitors here might have noticed, there has once again been a period of neglect here at this blog. There are reasons for this, of course, but recently my good friend Luke texted me regarding a game I had long imagined: R-Type on the Mega Drive! If that's not something to get me burbling away here like I used to, what is?! Indeed, for I often spend time wondering what non-existent arcade ports might've been like, and one that has always mystified me is R-Type on the MD. Or lack thereof, obviously. I know it had already been wowwing shooter fans for a while by the time the MD launched but it still would've made for a top-tier release for Sega's 16-bit powerhouse, surely? Oh well, it never happened for one reason or another, but it seems I'm not the only one who wished it had.
Andrea Baldiraghi, who's an 'Italian living in China for the past fifteen years' has been working on Mega R-Type for some time now, and recently released a playable three-stage demo. The stages in question are not the first three, however, so there's no giant warship to take down yet. You get the first and last stages, and another that is shown as stage 5 but is actually the secret stage from the excellent Master System version. Whether it will replace the normal stage 5 I can't say yet as I believe Andrea, known online as TheRoboZ, is still working on the game. The demo includes a choice of ships though (the original R-9A or Leo Prototype), a choice of soundtrack (original or remix), and there a few other options to twiddle, but I suspect most will be more interested in how accurate the graphics are.
The answer to that is very. I guess its main rivals for 'finest R-Type conversion' are the PC Engine and X68000 versions and it certainly matches those based on the stages on offer here. It's close to arcade perfect, in fact. As is often the case with MD games, the colours are a bit brighter here, but it looks great and moves great too. Controls are fine and collision-detection seems spot-on too. It's basically a mega-skill version of a mega-skill game on a system that really should have had a version for decades. Or so it seems from this demo. Will the rest of the game be up to the same standard? There's no reason to think not, and I certainly look forward to finding out when TheRoboZ wraps up his project and puts the full game on sale. I can only hope there will be a physical version in original-style packaging too!
RKS Score: 4/5
Special Note: If you fancy picking up a copy of this iconic shooter, or at least the playable demo of it, there's a link to buy it here on a 'name your own price' type deal, which is jolly nice of Mr. Baldiraghi. Be sure to give him a respectable amount if you like the look of the game! :)
An amazing achievement, all the more so from a team of one!
ReplyDeleteIf a physical cartridge was available for 70 £/$/€
would you buy?