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アールタイプ II
©1988 Hudson Soft
Licensed From Irem Corp.
vol.9
Release : 1988-06-03 (¥4900)
HuCard (2 Mbits) HC63009
Shooter / Horizontal
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Released in America as
R-TYPE
( TGX040011 )
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R-Type II (aka R-Type Part 2) is a side scrolling shooter and is the conversion of Irem's
arcade game originally released in 1987. The Bydo Empire, a mysterious alien
civilization, is about to take over the Earth and the solar system. The
R-9, powerful star-fighter built on alien technology, is humanity's last stand and
is sent to stop the massive threat. The fighter can use an arsenal of weapons
including a standard Vulcan gun or long-range ballistic missiles. But the real super-weapon
in the game is The Force - the glowing orb is indestructible and its basic
function is to float near the R-9 and to protect it. It can however be upgraded
throughout the game or charged up to fire powerful blasts of energy. Another important
feature of the Force is how it can be thrown at the enemy and inflict devastative
damage - this manoeuvre is often necessary in order to take down the large bosses or
simply wreak havoc to the Bydo Empire.
R-Type II only features the last four stages from the arcade game and is
single player only (see R-Type I for more information about the two separate
releases of the game in Japan).
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R-Type in Japan was released as two separate HuCards.
See R-Type I
for more information.
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Hudson Soft did an amazing job porting R-Type to the
PC Engine system - the game looks incredible and
is remarkably close to the original arcade game
(See R-Type I
for more information about R-Type).
But, of course, Hudson Soft had to top it off - this
port is also notable for featuring an exclusive boss
at the end of the sixth stage! The original arcade game's
sixth stage ends with a small wave of medium size ships,
but the PC Engine version scrolls to the right and
introduces a boss made out of two parts as well as a core unit
located on the far-right side of the screen (picture on the right).
It is a little bit of a stretch, but this design does
share some resemblances with a boss featured in
Image Fight, an arcade game released by Irem
in 1988. The boss can be found in Real Stage 2 - but
Image Fight was apparently released in November 1988,
five months after the release of R-Type II for the PC Engine,
so it may just be a coincidence after all...
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Click on picture to enlarge |
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Enter this password to start the game fully equipped with all weapons.
At the title screen, press Select and Run to start the
password menu. Then enter the following code :
EJK-3756-NI
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LK
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Add your Pov here !
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P
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The PC Engine port of R-Type is magnificent. Thanks to the
PC Engine's high resolution, the wide-screen display from
the original game is beautifully rendered here and is really impressive.
Back in 1988, this game showed what the tinny PC Engine could do, and what a blast that game is!
So why only four stars? Well, the game's difficulty is down right brutal and pulls
no punches (which was also the case with the original game).
Additionally, this port only features the last four
stages from the original arcade game and, back in 1988, it would
have actually cost you over ¥9800 ($90+) in order to own the full game!
But I face a crazy dilemma here - a Super CDRom² version was later
released but I personally don't like the redbook soundtrack, it just
doesn't fit the game in my opinion. The American port does include the full game, but
the box art is atrocious. So here you have it, although
this conversion does suffer from distracting sprite flickering
in places, it is still excellent and brilliant. But you ultimately only
get half of a game... and, to be honest, R-Type II just
doesn't work without any power-up password, it is just way too brutal and
difficult.
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