R-Type Delta HD Boosted – PS5 Review

When it comes to shoot ’em series, there are few as legendary as R-Type.  Sure, Space Invaders was the OG (but as a series, most of the games are pretty dull – although we’d kill for a PSN remake of Infinity Gene) and the Galaga, 194x and Gradius franchises took the genre to new heights but, if you were around in the ’80s, R-Type was simply stunning in its day.

A horizontally-scrolling shoot ’em up, the original R-Type set a template for the series and gave players an innovative weapon system (that arguably has never been beaten), creative enemy and level design and some incredibly memorable bosses.  At the time it was incredibly impressive and it not only levelled up the expectations for all coin-op shoot ’em ups to follow but also provided some incredible home computer ports.  Forget walking on water or the resurrection, what Bob Pape did with the ZX Spectrum conversion was truly miraculous.

That said, the series is definitely a mixed bag though.  While every game in the series has its hardcore fans, there are definitely low points in there.  Sure, R-Type was great but the immediate successor R-Type 2 wasn’t as memorable or fun and the later games in the series, namely R-Type Final and Final 2/3, aren’t particularly all that good, feeling a bit bloated and unremarkable.  But the series highlights include the SNES-exclusive R-Type III (which also got a decent GBA port much later), the oddly-different R-Type Leo (an arcade title that never got a home conversion) and R-Type Delta which was a PS1 exclusive title and the first to take the game into a 2.5/3D setting.

When it first came out, R-Type Delta was exactly what you wanted from the series.  All the visual splendour but in polygonal graphics.  And while this was at the start of 3D being credible and therefore a little rough around the edges, it looked great.  But it also took the core mechanics of the series, including having a choice of ships like R-Type III, and included plenty of nods to the original game too.

However, it never got much love afterwards.  No re-releases, not even on compilations.  And when you consider that Delta came out in 1998, that was a surprise.  Especially when you saw the likes of G-Darius getting released on PS4 in 2021.  So, we were pleased to see R-Type Delta HD Boosted get announced a while ago and have waited patiently to get our hands on it.  And now it’s here but PS1 games don’t always age the best, and we definitely went into this with a little bit of hesitation.

The good and bad news are kind of the same which is to say that this is very much the straightest of straight ports of the original PS1 classic.  Indeed, apart from the save warning mentioning not turning off your PS5, everything else is as you remember it.

The game itself follows the template set by its predecessors.  You play as a lone ship, once again facing off against the Bydo Empire and along the way you’ll pick up weapon power ups, just like you’re used to.  The iconic ‘Force’ option behaves as you’d expect too, operating as a augment to your firepower and also a defensive option.  And when you combine all that grisly, industrial biomechanical enemy and level design, this is everything you’d want from an R-Type game.

There are seven levels, each punctuated with a suitably massive boss and these are as creative as you’ll see in any R-Type game.  They’re also a lot more prominent in the gameplay with environmental hazards being almost much a risk as those Bydo bastards are.  And we’re still blown away what the game does in its fifth and sixth stages, offering up an alternative look at some of what you saw in the first game.  Sure, it’s not as impressive as it was back in ’98 but R-Type Delta still has some very strong moments.

The downside though is that what you’re getting here is just the original game.  Sure, the graphics have been sharpened up but it just feels like running the old ePSXe emulator with upscaling turned on.  It feels very system-wide.  Everything maxed out with no care as to what that actually does to the finished look and it’s a problem because that old PS1 judder is highlighted by the process here.  There’s a lack of smoothness to the motion, as if objects are moving by multiple pixels at a time.

The game also offers very little in the way of visual options and, bafflingly, locks them behind completing the game.  So if you want to play the game in a 4:3 aspect or with the original low-res polys, you’ll have to wait but the usual emulation staples, such as scanlines or wallpapers are absent here.  And there’s no supplementary content either.  No manuals, box/concept art or museum content.  And so this just feels like an upscaled ROM.  Indeed the only real reason to play this over the original is that the DualSense controller is better than a PS1 pad.

Also, as you’d expect from the series, the difficulty can be savage and often requires that your ability to memorise sequences is as levelled up as your manual dexterity and hand-eye coordination.  Sure, it’s a lot of fun but getting smashed by a speeding enemy from behind or underneath can be very frustrating.  Especially when it leads to you losing all your good weapons and being left to finish the level with the equivalent of a 50p water pistol.

As such this can all feel like a missed opportunity.  The graphics could have been reworked a little (even some sort of AI upscale could have smoothed things out a bit) and the gameplay could have been tweaked to allow it to appeal to more casual players (there aren’t even any save options in there).  And the price is a little high for straight port of a 27-year old game with no extras.  It’s still R-Type Delta and that’s a very cool thing indeed but we can help wishing that the game had been given the celebration it truly deserved.