R-Type: Difference between revisions

''R-Type'', along with ''[[Gradius]]'', is one of the longest-running, most-heavily ported starfighter-based [[Shoot'Em Up]] series in videogame history. From its initial 1987 incarnation as ''R-Type'' in the arcades and on 8-bit computers, ported to the 16-bit era and forward, and eventually reaching a final episode in ''R-Type Final'' for the [[PlayStation 2]]. However, [[Gaiden Game|Gaiden Games]]s are still in development for the newest systems, so the series doesn't seem to actually be dead yet.

The backstory, such as it is, is fairly minimal -- humanityminimal—humanity banishes a hideous bioweapon (the Bydo) into a [[Phantom Zone]], which then goes back in time and attacks humanity several hundred years earlier. The '''R-Type''' series of fighters are developed as quickly as possible to fight back the threat, using the ''Force Device'', a piece of [[Organic Technology]] which uses a contained larval Bydo to produce an indestructible (but not impenetrable) energy field.

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The second game. Mostly identical in gameplay to the first, but did add two new Force crystals: green and grey, which fired a semi-homing laser (nowhere near as cool as it sounds) and a straight, short-ranged shot with a wide area of effect, respectively. These did not catch on, and the green and grey power-ups were not seen for the remainder of the series (although the weapons themselves made a comeback in ''R-Type Final'', as the standard armaments of a variant of the original ship). The Wave Cannon was powered up as well: at full power it would split into numerous smaller blasts (in ''R-Type Final'', this was renamed the "Diffusion Wave Cannon").

One of the unique feature of ''Gallop'' is the ability to control the scroll rate--Therate—The further to the right the ship is, the faster the screen scroll, completing the levels quickly award much more points. The very thin plot involves a peacekeeping organisation chasing Bydo-infected "mad cars".

Many fans think ''Gallop'' was retconed as part of the series by ''R-Type Final'' but this isn't the case. The arcade flyer refers to the player craft as a part of the R-series, and some tracks from it were included in a music album released in 1993.

''Super R-Type'' may have been plagued with slowdown but it introduced a number of elements that were not present in ''R-Type II''.

''R-Type Leo'' was a great departure from previous games: the Leo has no Force Device, opting instead for two oversized Bit Devices, and no Wave Cannon either; charging instead allows for a state where the Psy Bits become wrecking balls, speeding around the screen attacking targets. If they're not recalled before the charge runs down, the player is punished by having them take longer to recharge. Leo wasn't a popular game, to the extent that it never even received a home port.

''R-Type Leo'' forsakes the series' focus on checkpoints and punishing difficulty; the game continues running after losing a life and even after using a continue, and when you lose a life the ship even drops a powerup. However, the Japanese version ''do'' keep the checkpoint system of the older ''R-TypesType''s.

''R-Type III'' was the first completely original R-Type game not released in arcades; instead, it's a SNES-only game. Irem obviously learned the lessons of their first SNES outing, since it smoothed out the slowdown issues of ''Super''. ''R-Type III'' was the first game to introduce an element of choice to the game, with the player asked to select between a Standard Force, Shadow Force or Cyclone Force at the start, and the R-90 able to manually switch between two Wave Cannons at the press of a button. Both are among the most potent weapons in the series; the Mega Wave Cannon's beam goes straight through walls, while the Hyper Wave Cannon allows for a period of firing super-powered normal shots followed by a brief cooldown time. The loop system of ''Super'' was kept, and became the standard in all subsequent games.

As usual, the plot is minimal;: there's a new Bydo threat from a new master Bydo creature that may be their leader (but isn't), and you're sent to sort it out.

Made for the Playstation 1, ''R-Type Delta'' is often considered to be the best game of the series. It fixed several things from earlier games that made the gameplay much more enjoyable: first, Speed-ups were dropped completely, instead, the player can manually adjust the speed of the fighter. Second, it ditched the Hyper Wave Cannon from ''R-Type III'' and replaced it with the Dose Attack (known in later games as the Delta Weapon), which is pretty much a rechargeable [[Smart Bomb]]. Finally, it expanded on the variety offered by the three Forces in ''R-Type III'', this time allowing three different ships to use: the R-9 Delta, which is the classic ship players knew and loved, the R-X Albatross, which had weapons that could be spread out or concentrated, depending on the situation, or the [[Badass]] looking R-13 Cerberus, with powerful weapons and a Force that latched onto enemies [[For Massive Damage]]. Just for fun, the familiar POW Armor is also unlockable, and it is by no means a [[Joke Character]]...

While ''R-Type'', ''R-Type II'', and ''R-Type III'' are assumed to happen in chronological order, the events of ''R-Type Delta'' actually takes place shortly after ''R-Type''; an entire level is dedicated to enemies from the first R-Type game (with many of them sporting considerable damage, implying that these were the same enemies the R9 first fought), and the introduction sequence just before the player is allowed to select their ship of choice clearly reads "A.D. 2164, Asia"; the events of R-Type first start in A.D. 2163, according to official materials.

Again, there isn't much to the story. After the First Bydo Mission (as the events of ''R-Type'' were known in-universe) the Bydo launch another attack, managing to infect a [[Humongous Mecha]] called the Moritz-G and unleashing it on Earth. Once more, the R-series pilots are called in to defend Earth, and kill the Bydo at their source.

''R-Type Final'', on the [[PlayStation 2]], was intended to be the big finale to the series (as indicated by its name), and, as such, the developers went all-out in one department: the available ships. Taking the "multiple fighters" idea from ''R-Type Delta'' and running with it, there are ''101 ships'' to unlock and use in battle, including every ship seen thus far, as well as scouts, [[Transforming Mecha]], [[Living Ship|Living Ships]]s, and a flying ''tank'', along with several dozen Forces, Wave Cannons, Bits, and Missiles. Before you get too excited, keep in mind that many of these are not unique; most are simply more powerful versions of others, and many had little quirks or gimmicks that made them difficult to use effectively (such as the infamous [[Joke Character|B-3A series]], also known as the "Misty Lady" series, which had weapons that only fired ''down''. It's as annoying as it sounds). The actual gameplay is considered a step down from ''R-Type Delta'', with stages that weren't quite as imaginative as ''R-Type Delta's''s, although the story did branch a couple of times for variety.

While the individual ship descriptions offered a surprising amount of backstory, the in-game plot itself is even more minimal; no dates are given, making tracing the time passed extremely difficult; the Engligh-language manual states that ''R-Type Final'' takes place 500 years after the first few games, [[Lost in Translation|while the Japanese manual states that it's only been 20 years]] and the entire game is implied to encompass the years in-between all the previous games. Either way, the story starts when a space station gets infected and falls to Earth. The first few missions are spent cleaning up the Bydo that survived the fall before heading out into their dimension (again) and attacking the source of all Bydo (again). This time, however, it is implied that humanity actually found the correct "source" and defeated the Bydo for good. There are [[Multiple Endings]].

A [[Genre Shift]] from the rest of the series, ''R-Type Tactics'' (released as ''R-Type Command'' in North America), features turn-based gameplay that still managed to remain fairly true to the series's roots as a shoot 'em up. It is a retelling of one of the Bydo Wars featured in the older games, though which one exactly is not made very clear; some fans prefer to think of it as an [[Alternate Continuity]]. It is told not from the perspective of one single fighter pilot, but from the perspective of a fleet commander, featuring the larger war effort hinted at in the earlier games. The player commands a slowly-growing fleet of various ''R-Type'' fighters (mostly taken from ''R-Type Final's''s huge motorpool) and larger warships against similar fleets of Bydo fighters and warships, as it moves from the Sol System, to the Tesseract (a sort of bridge between this dimension and the Bydo's), and finally to the Bydo home system. The game perspective is from the side, rather than top-down, retaining the feel and look of the original games, while many locales seen throughout the series return. Even gigantic versions of classic bosses Dobkeratops and Gomander make appearances. A sequel titled ''R-Type Tactics 2II: Operation Bitter Chocolate'' was released in October 2009.

The sequel to ''R-Type Tactics'', ''R-Type Tactics II'', for the first time in ''R-Type'' history, pits humans against humans; however, gameplay is still very much the same, with a few changes from the first to make the game more balanced. The story goes as such; with the Bydo gone for a significant amount of time, the Space Corps is called upon to scrap their Force-based weaponry as those were Bydo-derived weapons (the game's advertising tagged them as the "Devil's weapon", a fitting name). However, the Space Corps ignores the calls, and the pressure builds up until a Mars-based group styling themselves the Granzera Revolution Army dedicated to forcing the Space Corps to abandon their Force weaponry rises and challenges them. The Human campaign allows players to play either as Space Corps or Granzera forces with customizable characters, mugh like the first ''R-Type Tactics''; both armies start with different units and focus on vastly different play styles. Interaction with NPCs are possible through the player's actions, which also include such things like treating your Space Corps/Granzera prisoners well, or being generally apathic to their cause and situation. As with the first ''R-Type Tactics'', you get to play as the Bydo as well, although this time the story gets considerably darker in tone even by the depressing standards of the first ''R-Type Tactics'' Bydo Campaign.

* [[Advancing Wall of Doom]]: The scrolling sometimes turns entire stages into the opposite, but ''R-Type'' games have also featured various crushers, most notably in the foundry level of ''R-Type III'', where giant metal presses would close from the top and bottom of the screen with only a few safe spots. In later games, also used as part of [[Timed Boss]] situations: Subkeratom in ''Delta'' features an invisible one that forces you to crash into the boss if you run out of time.

* [[And Then John Was a Zombie]]: {{spoiler|The Cerberus ending in ''R-Type Delta'', the second ending route in ''R-Type Final'', and the human side endings in both ''R-Type Tactics/Command'' games.}}.

* [[Ars Goetia]]: A couple of the ships in ''R-Type Final'' are named for the last two members Solomon shackled, Andromalius and Dantalion. The Dantalion lives up to its demonic namesake by being the BT-X--the first ''heavy-duty '''intentional''' incorporation of Bydo tissue into the ship '''itself''','' rather than just the Force.

* [[Awesome but Impractical]]: Describes about a fifth of the fighters in ''R-Type Final''. Giant piledrivingpile-driving spikes might sound good until you realise their range is about one ship length.

** The fully-charged shot of the Giga Wave Cannon will, if fired from the far left side of the screen, ''vaporize everything in the field of play''... after spending a whole ''minute'' (which, in this style of game, will feel like an eternity) charging and leaving you completely vulnerable. (Mademade even worse by the fact that the 2nd-loops charge is more than enough to deal with most things.).

** R-101, the Grand Finale, is a ''fully'' customizable ship. You choose what Force, Wave Cannon, missiles, and Bits it uses. To get it, you have to complete the game a few times with the R-100, the Curtain Call... which has all the same perks. And to get ''that'', you have to complete the game a few times with the R-99, the Last Dancer... which ''also'' has all these same perks. The only thing you're really getting with the R-100 and R-101 are different chassis shapes; [http://rtype.wikia.com/wiki/R-99_Last_Dancer R-99 looks like a traditional R-Fighter], [http://rtype.wikia.com/wiki/R-100_Curtain_Call R-100 looks a bit more spiky], and [http://rtype.wikia.com/wiki/R-101_Grand_Finale R-101 is just... strange].

* [[Badass Normal]]: Compared to all the other Forces that the R-series fighters use, the Shadow Force does not use a Bydo embryo. While the titular ''R-Type Leo'' doesn't even us a Force at all.

* [[The Bad Guy Wins]]: The human campaign in ''R-Type Command'', where your fleet gets [[And Then John Was a Zombie|Bydo-ified]] at the end. Then you play as the Bydo for the second half of the game.

* [[Battleship Raid]]: You take down a single battleship in the first game, a fleet of them in the second, then the trope takes a break for ''R-Type III'' and ''R-Type Leo'' before it comes back as a [[Humongous Mecha]] Raid in ''R-Type Delta'', and then comes back with a vengeance in ''R-Type Final''.

* [[Boss -Only Level]]: The third level of the original game is one long battle against a giant alien spacecraft.

* [[Boss Rush]]: ''R-Type III'' and ''R-Type Delta.''.

* [[Bullet Hell]]: ''R-Type II'' can reach a certain level of danmaku in the second loop.

* [[Charged Attack]]: One of the most enduring examples, all R-Seriesseries warships have a charge-up [[Wave Motion Gun|Wave Cannon]].

[[File:ChargedAttack.gif|frame|Despite this picture, the game ''still'' isn't easy.]].

* [[Charge Meter]]: Rated in 'loops' based on how many times the bar fills and restarts. Most games settled for two loops, while ''R-Type Final'' wasn't happy and bumped several up to three and four, and had one with seven. {{spoiler|The final boss in ''R-Type Final'' actually breaks your charge meter, making it take 45 seconds to fully charge (it doesn't work at all otherwise), but devastatingly more powerful.}}.

* [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard]]: In the worst ending in ''R-Type Final'', the enemy ships, {{spoiler|your former allies, piloting ships like yours,}}, all take substantially more damage than you would in their shoes.

** Same thing with ''R-Type Delta'''s fake R-Series ships before Stage 6's boss. They're still easy anyway if you blow up the psuedo-Force one carries with a simple two-loop charge shot, so basically The player is a cheating bastard in this case.

** ''R-Type II'' {{spoiler|has allies that you can free from the final boss, but they also die in one hit like you, and they don't think to fire charged shots until ''after'' beating said boss.}}.

* [[Continuing Is Painful]]: Less so than many of its contemporaries, though;: the Wave Cannon is designed to mitigate this to an extent by avoiding the ''Gradius'' syndrome of going right back to a totally useless starting gun, and it only takes three weapon powerups to be back to a full-strength Force. The main difference is that rather than instantly reappearing, every ''R-Type'' but ''R-Type Leo'' uses a [[Check Point]] system, restarting the player only at fixed positions in the level. ''Super R-Type'' was the crowning moment of this, achieving infamous [[Fake Difficulty]] by having [[Check Point Starvation|no in-level checkpoints at all]].

** The games, at least the first two, are made so that memorization is more important than powerups, except in a few spots like the original's stageStage 7's checkpoint]. So if you know how to survive in a situation without powerups, and you [[Nintendo Hard|eventually will,]], don't fret if you die in that situation.

* [[Continuity Nod]]: ''R-Types'', a compilation of the first two games, includes a nod to ''Armed Police Unit Gallop'''s ship with the gallery's R-11b. The R-11b is nicknamed "Gallop", has the two main weapons of the referenced game's ship, and is considered a police car.

* [[Cosmetic Award]]: Introduced in ''R-Type Delta'' and reappearing in ''R-Type Final''. Have fun getting the ones involving playing for 1000 hours.

* [[Cosmic Horror]]: It's never so much as implied that there's a viable way to determine when or where the Bydo will attack, or what they'll do.

* [[Critical Annoyance]]: ''R-Type III'' has some really odd sound effects, but the Hyper cooldown sound definitely falls into this trope.

* [[Crosshair Aware]]: The [[Lethal Lava Land|foundry level]] of ''R-Type III'' had this at two parts. In an [[Inverted Trope|inversion]], you ''have'' to stay in the crosshair or else you will get crushed by the compacting walls.

* [[Darker and Edgier]]: Seriously impressive considering that this series had you fighting the embodiment of evil from the start, but it wasn't until ''R-Type Delta'' that the graphics were advanced enough to really drive the point home.

* [[Deadly Walls]]: Up until ''R-Type Delta'', when brushing a perpendicular surface stopped killing you, even ''touching'' a wall was instant death. Very large enemy ships and wall-like Bydo still have the deadly touch, however.

* [[Death Is a Slap on The Wrist]]: Sidestepping the legendary difficulty of the rest of the series by several miles, ''R-Type Leo'' features instant continues instead of checkpoints, throws powerups around like confetti and actually has you drop one when you die.

* [[Degraded Boss]]: ''R-Type III's''s [[Boss Rush]] was all about showing you that the R-90 could [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|kick the everloving shit]] out of almost every recognisablerecognizable boss in the series so far. In this instance the boss wasn't downgraded, the player's ship was just [[Rule of Cool|that damn good]].

** In ''R-Type Delta'', player has to fight Gomander and the Battleship from ''R-Type''. Both bosses are badly damaged (Gomander has its "eye" cracked and the Battleship is split in half) and somewhat weaker. Subverted in case of Dobkeratops however, it [[Took a Level Inin Badass]].

* [[Diabolus Ex Machina]]: the syndrome of {{spoiler|the human sides in both ''R-Type Tactics''/''Command'' games as well as the ending of Cerberus in ''R-Type Delta''.}}.

* [[Difficulty by Region]]: ''R-Type II'' was so hard, Irem had to tone it town for the American arcade release. Just to get a taste of how bad ''R-Type II'' was, the first two levels once featured enemies that strike from behind, including the [[Goddamned Bats|kamikaze]] [[Flying Seafood Special|fish]] from the second stage. The second stage once made the [http://rtype.wikia.com/wiki/Lady Ladies], slow-moving enemies that home in on you and are [[Goddamned Bats|VERY durable in the second loop]], spawned a few seconds apart from each other rather than all at once like the American version, which allowed them to strike from behind. The fifth stage's [[Demonic Spider|enemies that created often-unbreakable blocks in ther wake, shoot in the Japanese version]]. All the stages had bosses with somewhat more health and less useful powerups. Even better, the PSX compilation that contained both this game and the original used the Japanese versions, so there's been no legal way of getting the easier version until Dimensions, unless you find one of the few arcades that still contained this game.

* [[Downer Ending]]: In ''R-Type Delta '', {{spoiler|if you play as the Cerberus, you don't escape the Bydo dimension and end up trapped in a Bydo plant}}. In ''R-Type Final '', {{spoiler|1=there's only one way to beat the game that doesn't result in killing the player character, and it's [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ng0Jwp6tz44 ''stupidly'' hard]}}. And just in case you thought the series was going to give you a glorious finale in which peace is restored, several ship entries in ''R-Type Final'' more or less state outright that humanity is preparing to get back to [[Humans Are Bastardsthe Real Monsters|the old business of killing each other again]] once the Bydo are gone (and ''R-Type Command II: Operation Bitter Chocolate'' confirms this). Entries on the two last fighters, Curtain Call and Grand Finale, also hint that Earth pretty much exhausted its natural resources in the Bydo Wars. The human ending in ''R-Type Tactics'' shows the {{spoiler|Heimdall sunk into the Bydo dimension}}, while the Bydo ending has {{spoiler|your fleet [[Despair Event Horizon|realizing what they've become]] and getting chased off Earth by the Space Corps. The same thing happens to your human fleet in ''R-Type Tactics II''. For those who wish to know what happened in ''R-Type Tactics II'', the two human sides that were fighting each other joined forces to stop another Bydo invasion, which has been headed by the admiral of ''R-Type Tactics 1I''. After defeating the invasion, you human fleet encounters the Amber Eye, the new Bydo Core. After defeating it, the human fleet gets broken down completely into bits and become Bydo. After fighting an unknown civilization, a human fleet, reaching Earth and leaving, the Bydo fleet goes to the sun and encounter what seems to be a Bydo Recycler called the Solar Envoy. The Bydo fleet repels the first atttempt by the Solar Envoy to recylce you into Bydo, them commit suicide by going into the sun.}}.

* [[Earthshattering Kaboom]]: It's implied that even in the time the Bydo traveled back to, destroying planets is so routine that most large spacecraft can do it. In fact, it's also implied that the Moritz-G in ''R-Type Delta'', a vehicle that fits on a standard highway, could ''completely depopulate the planet Earth''. Subatomic, the rebirthed form of Dobkeratops in ''R-Type II''/''Super R-Type'', is also said to have enough firepower to destroy planets.

* [[Emergency Weapon]]: ''R-Type III'''s Hyper Wave Cannon. Ridiculous power with a long cooldown time in which you couldn't use your Wave Cannon ''at all''.

* [[Everything Trying to Kill You]]: Those [[Power-Up]]-carrying enemies are supposed to be on ''your'' side.

** Also a prequel game; the official timeline puts ''R-Type Leo'' ahead of the original ''R-Type''. [[Hand Wave|It's also ahead of the development of the Force Device]].

* [[Gorn]]: Stage 6 of ''R-Type Delta.''. Tons of blood and ''pulsating'' gibs splatter amidst the explosions.

* [[Hand Wave]]: How most of the ships can fire a [[Wave Motion Gun]] without a visible barrel is handwaved as "complex physics.".

** The [[Transforming Mecha]] in ''R-Type Final'' have hitbox with same size as other ships, this is clearly visible for TL-2B2 Hyllos which is much taller than other mech.

* [[Hive Queen]]: In every single game, you take down something that's supposed to be the source of the Bydo. As you might guess from the name, in Final you find the right one.

** ''R-Type Final'' inverts this: firing the Force into the boss's core ''makes it stronger''. When you finally figure out that you're supposed to destroy the Force with a charged shot from your Wave Cannon, that makes the boss even stronger ''while utterly breaking your Wave Cannon''. {{spoiler|You then have to charge your cannon for a very long time to get enough power to destroy the Bydo once and for all.}}. [[Justified Trope|And it actually makes sense]], since the Force devices are made from the Bydo, and you're trying to wipe them all out, you ''have'' to destroy your Force as well.

* [[Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels]]: In ''R-Type Final'', Baby, Kids, Human, Bydo, R-Typer.

* [[I Have Many Names]]: Many bosses have multiple names throughout the series, but Dobkeratops, the iconic armless xenomorph thingy, stands at the top. As well as that name, he's gone by Subtom, Subatomic, Zabtom, Subkeratom, Krill, Doppleganger, and Gladiator.

* [[Infinity+1 Sword]]: The R-902 Ragnarok II and R-13B Charon in ''R-Type Final''. Also, the 3 Ultimate Fighters. Last Dancer, Curtain Call, and Grand Finale only vary in looks, and all pack full customizabiltycustomizability: Anyany Wave Cannon, any Force, any Bits, any Bombs. ''Any'' weapon combination you want. Add in the color customization and you basically have the game saying "Here. Build the most epic R-Type fighter ever.''"

* [[Lethal Lava Land]]: Stage 4, the foundry in ''R-Type III''. [[Advancing Wall of Doom|Hate]] [[Death Course|hate]] [[Nintendo Hard|hate]] [[That One Level|hate]]...

* [[Lighter and Softer]]: ''R-Type Leo'', which boasts more colorful graphics and a jazzy soundtrack, and takes the focus of the plot away from the Bydo. Its [[Difficulty by Region|overseas release]] is also more forgiving than other games, respawning you in place upon death rather than using checkpoints. However, the Japanese release is a little more difficult, due to sending you back to a checkpoint every time you die. It's still pretty easy compared to some other ''R-Type'' games.

* [[Living Statue]]: ''R-Type Final's''s re-appearance of {{spoiler|the entombed Cerberus from the end of ''R-Type Delta''}}.

* [[Loads and Loads of Characters]]: ''R-Type Final'' has '''101''' different ships that you can unlock and use!

* [[Lost in Translation]]: The original Japanese manual (and website) of ''FINALR-Type Final'' says that the game takes place 20 years after the first ''R-Type'', but the English manual says it takes place ''500'' years later--... right when the Bydo were supposed to be created, in fact. ''FINALR-Type Final'''s internal clock for both versions, however, displays the date as being a hundred and sixty years ahead of the present year (so in 2004, it would display as 2164).

* [[Meaningful Name]]: R-typeType refers to the r/K Selection Theory, and to the "Round-canopy" design of the R-9A Arrowhead. The Bydo can be considered the titular R-typeType strategist.

** One of the ships in ''R-Type Final'' is called Cross The Rubicon: true to its original meaning (performing an action from which there's no return), it's the branching point in the ship tree where all ships below it consist of Bydo matter to some degree.

* [[Military Mashup Machine]]: R-Seriesseries warships are atmospheric fighters with SSTO capability that fight just as happily in atmosphere, in space, underwater, or inside huge horrible alien monstrosities. The Force Device's weapons and the Wave Cannon also tend to handle exactly the same regardless of the medium they're firing in, though Flame-based weapons don't work underwater so good. Though they still work in space.

* [[Multiple Endings]]: ''R-Type Delta'' has four, ''R-Type Final'' has three.

* [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast]]: "Annihilation Platform Moritz-G".

* [[New Game+]]: ''R-Type Final'' only allows access to the second ending after seeing the first, and the third only after seeing the second. One level also changes to one of five possible versions depending on how the boss was attacked in the previous playthrough, and one stage can only be accessed by finishing the previous one with a particular ship.

* [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]]: That R9 you save in stageStage 4 of ''R-Type Delta''? {{spoiler|Returned to base infected by the Bydo. By the time you get back, the whole base has been infected.}}.

* [[Nitro Boost]]: Until ''R-Type Delta'', the games featured speed-up power ups, which could end up with you [[Fake Difficulty|going faster than you could reasonably want to]]. Thereafter, speeding up and slowing down were assigned to buttons and always available.

* [[Nostalgia Level]]: ''R-Type'' does this ''constantly'' almost to the point of committing Game Design Incest, with one particular boss appearing in every single game but ''R-Type Leo'', and several entire levels built specifically to reference previous ones. ''R-Type Delta's''s fifth level consists entirely of scarier versions of ''R-Type I'' enemies and situations, and ''R-Type Final'' has a stage set in the same place as the final stage of ''R-Type Delta''.

** Then we come to the Bydo-type ships in ''R-Type Final''.

* [[Pacifist Run]]: In ''R-Type Delta'' and ''R-Type Final'', most bosses will leave or die on their own if ignored for long enough, though some will kill you instead. Pacifist runs involve killing only the latter. In addition, ''No-Force'' runs are perfectly possible and the most common type of Skill Run.

* [[Real Is Brown]]: Armed Police Unit Gallop features a colourcolor palette consisting mostly of brown, grey and more brown.

* [[Recurring Boss]]: In separate ''games'', no less. A mecha (Scant in the first, Gydocker in ''R-Type II'' and ''Super R-Type'', Gain in ''R-Type Delta'' and ''R-Type Final'') is almost always the first [[Sub Boss]], and you can expect at very least an appearance by Cyst / Gomander and Dobkeratops / whatever the hell they've called him this time.

* [[Rule 34]]: Which isn't bad going for a series with ''no named characters''. How? There is [[Moe Anthropomorphism]] for most of ''R-Type Final'''s ships. Several are just cute and you might not think is so bad when this trope appiled... then you get to the Bydo series ships, [[Gorn|your eyeballs fall out and your brain turns to cottage cheese]].

** [https://web.archive.org/web/20140815233047/http://www.geocities.co.jp/Playtown-Bingo/9962/ See for yourself.]. (Careful, some pics are NSFW, and not all are clearly marked!)

* [[Scenery Porn]]: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aj5zItGCI4E Taken just a] ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aj5zItGCI4E little]'' [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aj5zItGCI4E too literally in the final stage of] ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aj5zItGCI4E R-Type Final]''.

* [[Shout-Out]]: ''R-Type Final'' has Shout Outs to ''Image Fight'', ''Armed Police Unit Gallop'', ''Mr Heli no Daibouken'', ''Tropical Angel'', ''Undercover Cops'', ''X-Multiply'' and ''Disaster Report.''.

** The Bydo Database also lists Matt Gables as one of the best pilots for the previously mentioned Gains, him being one of the playable characters in ''Undercover Cops''.

* [[Smart Bomb]]: Oddly, ''R-Type'' was late to the party on this, and Smart Bombs didn't appear in the series at all until ''R-Type Delta'' introduced the Dose Attack / Delta Weapon.

* [[Space Zone]]: While some levels have multi-directional scrolling, R-Seriesseries warships can't even ''turn around''.

* [[Tech Tree]]: ''R-Type Final's''s unlock system.

* [[That's No Moon]]: Bydo Lab in ''R-Type Final'' mention how they once encounter a planet-sized Gomander.

* [[There Is No Kill Like Overkill]]: The Giga Wave Cannon used by "Ragnarok II" in ''R-Type Final''. While most ships have a maximum charging of 2 levels, this one goes up to 7!!! Note that a Level 5 shot is enough to destroy most enemies (including bosses) in ''[[One-Hit Kill|one hit]]''.

* [[Took a Level Inin Badass]]: Dobkeratops (or whatever his name happens to be) goes from being an early-game boss in the first few installments to a late-game boss in ''R-Type Delta''. In ''R-Type Final'', he's on life support in Stage 4.0, and you would think that this signifies [[Badass Decay]], but only a badass would ''[[What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?|have his heart weaponized]]'' and use it as a last-ditch weapons system.

* [[Tragic Monster]]: The protagonist basically becomes this in the R-13 ending of ''R-Type Delta'', the Stage F-B of ''R-Type Final'', and the beginning of the Bydo campaign in ''R-Type Command''.

* [[Video Game Lives]]: As is for an arcade-era video game.

* [[Wall Crawl]]: Traditional ability of Yellow Crystal weapons, before this became 'being completely useless' post ''R-Type Delta''.

** This status was, with some Forces, subverted in ''R-Type Final'', with it becoming the best choice for the Anchor Force DX: ''dual screen-sweepers!''

* [[Wall Master]]: An ''entire level'' of ''R-Type III'' is full of them.

* [[Wave Motion Gun]]: andAnd it fits on a ''starfighter''. And it's ''mass-produced''. Humanity does ''[[Crowning Moment of Awesome|not mess around]]'' when it fields fleets.

** And then we have ''R-Type Command's''s Utgarda Loki, a solar-powered [[Kill Sat]] powerful enough to vaporize entire starfleets in a single shot.

* [[Weaponized Exhaust]]: A hazard in the games.

* [[What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?]]: In an incredibly bizarre example of this trope, level 1 of the original ''R-Type'' features the structure shown at the top of this page. It does absolutely nothing, but look nice. Not only was this structure featured ''instead of the boss'' on the Turbografx-16 version cover, various other games including ''Project X'' and ''[[Pulstar]]'' actually ''stole it''.

** And in ''[[Pulstar]]'', the claws actually SNAP SHUT.

[[Category:Turbo Grafx 16Amiga]]

[[Category:AtlusAmstrad CPC]]

[[Category:Game BoyAtlus]]

[[Category:R-TypeSharp X68000]]