It’s time to grab your flight suite and strap in because the evil Bydo Empire is back again! That’s right boys and girls, it’s R-Type time!
As a lone, hotshot pilot, it’s your job to stop the bio-mechanical horrors of the Bydo Empire across a variety of mechanised and goopily organic stages full of monstrous creations trying to kill you. And, in classic R-Type fashion, the stages themselves don’t seem to want you around either! Which of course means, for fans, that this is traditional R-Type through and through.
Over the last couple of years, we’ve had multiple R-Type Dimensions games. For those who may not now, these are essentially remakes of the original R-Type games, starting with R-Type Dimensions, R-Type Dimensions EX, and now R-Type Dimensions III that, unsurprisingly, is a remake of R-Type III.
To be fair, the Dimensions series is also as much a remaster of these classic shooters as they are remakes as the original 2D versions of the games have been included with them. And, as with so many recent remasters/remakes that know what they’re doing, usually let you swap between the old and new versions of the games with the press of a button or a toggle in the settings menu.
And that holds true for R-Type Dimensions III as well. Not only does it let you play the original game as it was, it also lets you see the stellar work that developers KRITZELKRATZ 3000 has done on rebuilding the game in 3D. And believe me, it really is of the above and beyond variety where the new 3D take on the games 2D visuals are concerned.
Now, as much as I love pixel art and the R-Type games original 2D visuals, this is probably the first time where I preferred to play the game in it’s brand-spanking new 3D incarnation over the original visuals. That’s not to say that the 2D visuals have aged poorly, far from it, but the level of work that’s been put into the 3D designs is just stunning.
Every enemy, attack, and stage design has received significant makeovers with tons of new details added onto the ships and environments that just makes everything pop. Make no mistake, R-Type Dimensions III’s 3D visuals are stunningly colourful, especially when everything and the kitchen sink is blowing up around you!
Included with the 3D version is a new camera angle as well. This just tilts the angle ever so slightly so that the rear of the screen seems to slide out further while the front shrinks in a bit. It’s a slight perspective shift to keep your attention focused on the front of the screen where everything is coming at you from. Now while I appreciate the attempt at trying something visually new in a time-honoured genre, it does break the illusion that you’re flying forward. Instead, it makes the enemies and the environment seem like they’re popping into existence just at the screens black border. It also affects the sense of your spaceships movement, making it feel less like you’re moving as much as the environment is rotating around you. At least that’s how I felt.
There is one major issue with the relatively instantaneous swapping between 2D and 3D, at least on Nintendo Switch 1 that is. And that issue is that it isn’t a seamless swop between visual styles as we’ve come to see in many remasters. Instead, there’s a significant pause in the action as the game switches between the 2D and 3D engines, and vice versa, followed up by slowdown and stuttering for a couple of seconds as the game hurdles back up to speed. If you’re going to switch visual styles, then it’s best to do it when there’s a quiet moment onscreen.
The games visual menu lets you swop between the different visual styles as well and houses some other little visual flourishes such as screen filters for both the 2D and 3D visuals and the ability to place the hub on different sides of the screen along with adjusting its transparency.
Outside of the spanky new 3D visuals, R-Type Dimensions III is a little bit on the bare side where these retro remakes and remasters are concerned. There’s a Jukebox to play the games original and rearranged soundtrack in but, sadly, no production artwork to view. That’s one of my favourite go to spots on remasters and remakes so I was a little bummed that there was nothing of that variety here. Granted, the 3D remake is so stunning that I can’t hold it against the release.
As for the game itself, there are multiple difficulty settings and the much appreciated, though not for the right reason, Normal and Infinite modes. Normal gives you the original games set number of lives and hopes you can survive the Bydo onslaught while Infinite gives you infinite lives to beat the game with.
Now anyone whose played any of the R-Types, hell any of the side scrolling shooters from the late 80’s and 90’s eras, knows just how hard these games can be. Many were designed for arcades first and the driving force behind those was getting kids to part with their change. However, that doesn’t mean you couldn’t complete them on one coin, and in some special cases, one life either.
The R-Type games have always been designed around quick reflexes and stage memorisation and sort of straddled the line between been challenging versus horribly unfair. R-Type Dimensions III follows those rules almost to a tee. However, from about the halfway point of the game it swops from been challenging into cheap as hell. And not the kind of cheap that makes you want to come back and beat it just because. It’s the type of cheap, poor design that makes infinite lives a godsend. I’m the first to admit that my reflexes aren’t what they used to be for twitch gaming, but damn if this didn’t frustrate the hell out of me.
Even though R-Type Dimensions III has some of the most frustrating level design in its back half, it’s still hard not to enjoy the work KRITZELKRATZ 3000 have put into this title, specifically it’s 3D makeover. I would have liked a more robust package of retro production delights though. That said, this is a game catered towards the hardcore R-Type and 2D side scrolling shooter fans and should make most of them quite happy when added to their collection.
Pros:
- Gorgeously detailed 3D visuals
- Infinite lives is a godsend
- Can swop between the 3D and original 2D visuals
Cons:
- Swopping between visual modes isn’t a seamless experience
- Cheap as hell level design in the games latter half
- Considerably bare-bones compared to other retro/remake titles
Score: 7/10
R-Type Dimensions III was reviewed on Nintendo Switch using a code provided by the publisher. It is also available on PC, PS5, Xbox Series S/X, and Nintendo Switch 2.
Double AA Gaming 