Super R-Type, one of those sadistic, hard as hell games from the early 90's. Shmups(shoot em ups) are notorious for being difficult, owing to their arcade roots and being designed to suck quarters/tokens from your pocket. While shmups by and large have retained their difficulty through the years, in the early 90's games were starting to get a bit easier. Many more fleshed out games were being designed from the ground up for home consoles, and even ports of arcade games were having their difficulty adjusted for the home console market. However, there were still many games being released at the time that were just plain brutal in their difficulty.

One of the launch games for the SNES, and what a launch that was, Super R-Type was one of those games that haunted me for years. To be more specific, it has haunted me for over two decades. Like so many younglings around for the debut of the SNES, Super R-Type was one of my very first SNES experiences and memories. It was(and is) such a fun game, just oozing with character, but it was insanely hard. We(my bro and I) never owned the game originally, just rented it from Video Xpress. So while we really enjoyed the game, we never really came close to finishing it during those 3 days of R-Type beatdowns.

There are certain games that you play as a kid and never beat that are always gnawing away at the back of your brain. Some of those games I would later finish as an adult, like Mega Man, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Mike Tyson's Punch-Out, Ninja Gaiden. There are always some that still remain unbeaten, such as Contra, Ghost n Goblins, Super Ghouls n Ghosts, and Gradius III. Super R-Type was on that list of hard games that I never beat...until today!

Lately I have been playing me some shmups(UN Squadron, Star Soldier, Star Soldier: Vanishing Earth, Gradius III), but I had not touched Super R-Type. It had probably been 7 or 8 years since I had last played it, and that was just for a stroll down memory lane, not a serious attempt at playing it. Then yesterday I decided to man up and pop the cart into my SNES. This game has unlimited continues, so it can't be THAT bad, right?

Well, maybe. It definitely was every bit as hard as I remembered it to be. One thing that really makes this game such a challenge is that enemies come at you from every direction and angle imaginable. Front, back, top, bottom, even the corners of the screen. Not only that, but often you will have enemies coming at you from all these angles at once. On top of that you have to deal with random enemy fire, enemies that "snake" around the screen, and moving/shifting environments. If that wasn't enough, once you die you have to restart the level. That's right, no checkpoints. That kind of stinks, but at least when you are facing a boss you will have your ship powered up. Checkpoints in a game like this aren't that great when you have to face a boss with just your measly peashooter and no speed upgrades. Of course there is also the infamous slowdown that was present in many early SNES games. This is both a blessing and a curse on Super R-Type. It comes in handy when dodging a screen full of bullets and enemies, but it sometimes backfires when enemies go off-screen. In that case your ship suddenly goes from molasses speed to lightspeed and you wind up flying right into an enemy or a wall.

Anywho, yesterday I spent quite a few hours battling my way through the first 6 cruel stages of savagery in the game. If you ever want to know what YOU really think about YOURSELF, play a game like this. Apparently, I am of the opinion that I am an idiot, worthless, a literal pile of feces, and worthy of being sodomized. But we say things to ourselves that we don't really mean in the heat of battle, so I've forgiven myself for talking to myself like that. I had a few choice words for Super R-Type as well, but that's the name of the game when taking on such a challenge.

I finally took a break last night after cursing myself out a little too much. This morning I picked back up on the final level and was able to make it to the final boss fairly consistently. The final boss is really cool, what with his four tentacles holding on to trapped ships(that you can free), and the two space fetuses he is protecting inside. You don't have to rescue the ships, but it does give you more room to maneuver if you destroy the tentacles holding them. To finish him off you just blast the fetuses(I'll skip on the obvious democrat joke here) whenever he opens up. The pattern of the boss isn't that hard really, it's just getting to him that is the real pain.

You're treated to a cool little scene where you blast a whole into the wall to escape the explosion , then you and the rescued ships head out into space.The game informs you that the evil Bydo empire is defeated and you, of course, feel like a champ.

                                                        See you space cowboy....

 

As John Madden would say "BOOM"