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.
Amazing the time when arcades were soooo much better than home consoles.
Like, there was a time when a home console was pretty good at simulating the arcades, but that was about it.
Bit late to this party but R-Type was one of favourites at the arcades and back when ther were so many outstanding games.
I occasionally get my kids to try them and despite the fact the controls are so much easier they can't play them, the games are too hard!!!
I feel the same way about their games or at least the controls, I feel like I need to learn to be a court stenographer to use the controls using multiple combos to do something. Pah I say!
I had a similar experience with one of the more recent NBA games.
Like, shooting the ball was a whole process. First you initiate a gathering action or decide what kind of plant or pick you're going to make, there's a button for whether you jump or not, what kind of jump (fade away, in place, diving towards) and then timing for shot accuracy. God help you if you're going for a dunk.
Damn it all, what ever happened to one button for pass and the other for shoot!
I'm out here doing advanced Street Fighter combos just to throw a damn ball. It's easy as doing a tatsumaki super canceled into a neutral aerial shakunetsu hadoken. And that's just one thing, every damn mechanic in the game felt like this.
Also, the coders who ported these games often wouldn't have access to the arcade cabinets at all, other than some hastily recorded VHS footage. So getting a port that actually felt like the original was a rare treat. Most of the time the ports felt like they were inspired by the source material more than anything.