R-Type/YMMV


 * Contested Sequel: R-Type Leo is either a refreshing change of pace from the standard Force Pod formula, or They Changed It, Now It Sucks!.
 * Crowning Music of Awesome: R-Type Final's soundtrack, especially Stage 3, Stage 5, Stage 6.0, Stage F-A and the boss themes.
 * R-Type III's soundtrack is also excellent, especially the faux-rock remixes of the traditional "R9, to the Front!" and a remix of the classic boss music during the BossRush.
 * R-Type Final's soundtrack had the "R-Type Medley Arrange", which was a compilation remix of several songs from the series. You're hard pressed to find another song that serves as the franchise's crowning music.
 * The music from the C64 port, especially the title theme.
 * R-Type Delta's soundtrack was also top-notch as well, such as "Crazy Machine", the Stage 1 theme
 * Super R-Type was no slouch either. For example, "National Anthem of Bydo Empire".
 * "R9, To the Front!", the series theme song.
 * Freud Was Right: Really, really right. Sperm is not an uncommon type of ammunition, one boss looks like a vagina being penetrated by giant worms, there's that... background from R-Type Final, and the final boss of R-Type Delta is a giant ovum.
 * Game Breaker: R-Type Finals B3-C2 Sexy Dynamite II. Let's get this straight: you've given me a really strong Force, no slouch of a Wave Cannon, and not noticed that the way the Force is constructed causes it to charge the Delta Weapon anything up to seventeen times faster' than a Standard Force when separated? When you can hit the same boss with multiple Delta Weapons that most craft can only use once per stage, something is very badly wrong. Note that the Ragnarok II doesn't count, because they did that on purpose.
 * Then there's the R9-Leo II Leo2, which is stronger than the first R-9Leo because of an enhanced force module, bits and wave cannon, and it's Claw Laser+ is capable of killing large enemies and bosses in seconds.
 * THEN there's the Pow Armor line-up. They're those power-up transports that you shoot down throughout the game but are formidable player craft on their own. Their force modules are relatively powerful when attached and their wave cannons do strong damage, but detaching the force module unleashes a flurry of bullets that can kill enemies as quickly as the Leo2 and the Sexy Dynamite II.
 * The Strider in R-Type Final was pretty worthless, but in R-Type Tactics, it becomes one of these due to its Balmung nuclear warheads, which do extraordinary damage to pretty much anything and everything. It can only carry one at a time, but that is fixed by simply having a POW Armor follow it everywhere, reloading it after each shot.
 * On the subject of R-Type Tactics, the Gains unit in the Bydo campaign is hands down the most broken unit in the game. Its wave cannon shot not only does a large amount of damage AND covers a large range of space, it also takes only ONE turn to charge up. And you can have a large number of these units. The only downsides to this are that your charge resets if something touches your unit (though this can be remedied by simply having another Gains nearby), and that it only fires forward, which is only a problem in 2 or 3 missions.
 * The original R-Type III version of the R-90 was so powerful even it's game of origin that they had to split it's abilities across 3 separate ships and even then 2 of those ship are still broken due to the way the Mega and Giga Wave cannons have absurd power (both can kill damn near anything at just 2 loops and the Giga wave cannon of the R-902 can blast even stronger than that). The Mega and Giga wave cannons also pass through walls, as does the red crystal weapon of the Cyclone Force, an ability R-Type Final's levels are absolutely not designed to deal with.
 * Goddamned Bats: Cancers, a common enemy in all the games, have the ability to move and fire outside the normal eight directions and appear on the wrong side of the screen whenever the programmers hate you.
 * Porting Disaster:
 * R-Type III on Game Boy Advance, due to a lethal case of Hitbox Dissonance and the awful arranges of the original soundtrack.
 * Super R-Type, a slowdown-heavy, checkpoint-less port of R-Type II.
 * That One Boss:
 * Capsulon from R-Type Delta. Even if you don't know the boss by name, you know exactly which one he is.
 * See also Fine Motion from R-Type Final. Gravity manipulation + reflecting laser beams + Interface Screw due to being in Another Dimension = hell. At least you can reduce the Interface Screw by dialing down your ship's speed.
 * Bellmite, the fifth boss of the original R-Type. The core's covered by an outer shell that it fires at you piece by piece. The pieces are incredibly durable for their numbers, and Bellmite LOVES to trap you in a corner at times. At least in the first loop, the ring laser is your friend.
 * R-Type II has both Corvette and Rios. The former has very fast projectiles coming from everywhere, from the turret circle guarding the cores that aren't currently flying around blasting you, to the shrapnel from the bombs it fires. The latter has you go around a long obstacle course very quickly while he blasts you with drill missiles that make the narrow tunnels more narrower and lots of lasers out of the core you're supposed to hit. Oh, and if you're in the second loop and have a maxed out Force, you're screwed.
 * That One Level:
 * Three words that will make any R-Type III veteran squirm: "Backwards Laser Maze". In the fourth level, there is a truly nasty maze of passages in which lasers or plasma or something periodically takes seemingly random paths through. It's very difficult to find your way... and then you have to do it again, backwards! The fiery laser stuff is actually molten metal, which is why it moves in that sort of fashion. The whole stage takes place in a metal-melting foundry...
 * R-Type II has Stage 5, which includes enemies that spawn both breakable and unbreakable blocks.
 * They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: This series has a truly awesome plot with a man-made Lovecraftian Cosmic Horror as its antagonist, ripe to fill the player's head with High Octane Nightmare Fuel... that they never fully used. R-Type Command does expound on this greatly, though, through the fleet commander's logs. Made worse that the amount of plot there is... is really good, and most people, even those who play shmups, will probably never learn of it.
 * What Do You Mean It's Not for Kids?: R-Type Delta was rated "E" by the ESRB. Apparently, the entireties of Stages 5, 6, and 7 qualify as safe for children's minds. Somebody fell asleep on the job...