R-Type is one of few, non-Nintendo created, arcade games of the 80’s that never appeared on the Sega Genesis console. Sega was a marketing beast with their Genesis and bringing home the arcades, they licensed many from Capcom for instance. Irem’s title was one that evaded the 16-Bit Sega console though. This is interesting because a version of the original R-Type landed on nearly every platform possible, even only seeing one port to a Sega console. That has not stopped independent homebrew developers from taking up the challenge and creating a port for the Sega Genesis called, aptly, Mega R-Type.
Looking at the platforms R-Type was released on shows an interesting trend of avoiding 16-Bit Sega and Nintendo consoles together. Hudson Soft scored a port for the TurboGrafx-16 though, maybe they secured an exclusivity period or something. Outside of 16-Bit computers of the period, you are left with the pseudo 16-Bit TurboGrafx-16 if you want to play this classic at home.
Over on Itch.io, creator TheRoboz has released a free demo for fans to check out (unlike Grind for the Commodore Amiga which uses a Patreon required payment to access playable media). Mega R-Type is available for the popular name your own price release method.
Much like the arcade version, the first level has many stars flying by in the background, then one layer of parallax in later levels. I know some may play this demo and complain it is missing scrolling backgrounds, it is not. Go look at the arcade original on YouTube for proof.
TheRoboz is doing a fantastic job with this port. They are using rips of arcade sprites rather than recreating them 100% for this port which could be good or bad in your eyes. I don’t mind graphics rips if we are made aware that is what is going on. It does remove a chance at giving the port a bit of personal flare but well, that could be bad too (anyone remember Working Designs localizations?).
What is in the demo is three levels from the final game. I love scrolling shooters but I am horrible at them that is why the embedded video only has the first two levels featured. What I saw was impressive and brought back wonderful memories of playing games like this from a time when I was much better at them.
Head over to Itch.io and let me know in the comments your thoughts on the demo.
