R-Types is currently kicking my ass at work.

Bought via PSN, playing on PSP, R-Types is one of the original shmups developed by IREM.

A few other IREM titles I’m playing when I’m not playing R-Types:

I was initially hesitant about messing with the R-Type series. I feel more comfortable with vertical shmups. Usually in vertical shmups (think Ikaruga) the screen is slimmed so that the screen is more arcade sized. Side-scrollers like R-Type make me feel much more restricted.

In my pursuit to A.) play a lot of shmups and B.) get good at shmups, I’m playing whatever I can and being partial to titles on portable platforms. Nintendo DS has maybe 1 or 2 shmups (even though CAVE developed and barely published one title, which I can’t find a rom of and Play-Asia has it for an insane $89.99) , so that is not my choice. PSP doesn’t have many native shmups (or any, maybe), but PS1 Legacy titles do have a few. I took a chance with R-Types and I’m glad I did.

I don’t really understand a gamer’s tolerance for punishment. We keep getting killed/losing over and over, but every time we come back and try again. Maybe this tenacity that was developed in our childhood will help us in future endeavors. Did my lousy playing skills in Super Mario influence my ambitiousness?

R-Type keeps levels short, so you don’t have to replay a lot, but each level is extremely intense. Keeping with the arcade version, the player presses select to manually input a quarter. The level’s difficulty is designed to make a player pay quarter after quarter to continue.

The arcade nature of the game is in striking comparison to later shmups, where you can choose difficulty levels, the levels are longer, and the amount of enemies and bullets are much more spread out.

I still can’t get through the first level (I’m mainly playing R-Type II), but somehow I keep trying again and again.