R-Type III On Game Boy Advance

[mjclark]

I picked up a GBA cart of R-Type III in Torquay Cash Generator for £1.99 and slapped it in my phat DS for fun.
However I was advised by several people on this forum that it was a terrible port and an abomination, and I'm starting to see what they mean. Trying to negotiate those narrow paths on a tiny screen with unresponsive controls is like trying to thread a needle in a high wind but it's so ridiculous that I'm having a real laugh giving it a go.
Has anyone else tried this on GBA and got any genuine pleasure or satisfaction from it?

[MathU]

The slightly dopey controls aren't really a big deal. The greatly reduced playable area isn't a huge dealbreaker either. No, them screwing up the Cyclone Force's physics might have been grudgingly accepted. So they made the full charging gauge timing too fast; big deal. Some of these might have been excusable as a portable game on inferior hardware. But no, the biggest problem with the game is the people who "ported" it totally got the hitbox size all wrong. It is literally the size of the entire ship when it was originally only a small thread in the middle, with those characteristic claustrophobic R-Type levels and enemy attacks all designed around it. That's the total dealbreaker and practically makes the game flat out unplayable. You deserve a medal if you've managed to stomach that for more than a few stages.

That monstrosity is just a complete, depressing insult to one of my absolute favorite 2D shooters. And it's not like it was brought down by the limitations of the Game Boy Advance hardware either, because Kemco was able to make a fantastic portable version of Phalanx for it (the best 2D shooter on the GBA in fact). The lazy people who ported it mapped out the levels and enemies all right, but you can tell they never played the original game even once.

[Ghegs]

The problem wasn't with the porters, it was the fact that they weren't given any of the original assets - no source code, no art, nothing. If my memory serves, there was an interview with one of the guys handling the port saying that they had to play the game on emulator and rip everything from there. So they actually re-created the game mechanics from scratch, and of course that'll never have the feel of the original in it.

I'll see if I can find a link to the interview...

[mjclark]

The people who "ported" it totally got the hitbox size all wrong. It is literally the size of the entire ship when it was originally only a small thread in the middle, with those characteristic claustrophobic R-Type levels and enemy attacks all designed around it. That's the total dealbreaker and practically makes the game flat out unplayable. You deserve a medal if you've managed to stomach that for more than a few stages.

Aaaah....Thankyou MathU, this explains a lot. Actually I havn't got past Stage 1 yet (!) but did wonder why I was so susceptible to all that popcorn and I can see now that with a much smaller hitbox this could've worked.
As it is, it's more like a puzzle game or that thing where you have to move the loop along the wire without touching it...
...I used to have Iridion II but can't remember if I sold it or not. Will be scouring Torbay for Phalanx now

[Ghegs]

Sort of found the interview; one of the guys from Raylight Studios, the Italian studio who ported the game, actually came to the forum to explain how it went down. Sadly that took place during the forum's previous incarnation when it was hosted on Gamespy, and we never got the database from them so the majority of the threads were lost forever. Luckily most of the post in question has been archived here, and I'll post it here as well, just to be on the safe side.

I read your comments on RtypeIII and would like to explain couple of things on the development of the title.

First we closed an agreement with Phantantagram interactive which went bankrupcy during the development of the game and didnt pay us. then we found DS that paid very low and wanted the game in very few weeks.

Please consider we get no reference art or source code or any kind of support from Irem Software, the only reference was the Snes game. You all can understand we rewrote the code from breginning and ripped the graphic from the snes emulator. also we had not enought time to work around many details as point system, collision, R-90 zooming intro and so on. last...the game was finished months ago, we still owe money from pubisher.

it seems that Irem lost [the source code].

yeah, we started very good and with very good intention...we also made a CG movie for the intro (presented at E3 2002, maybe you can download somewhere on the internet) and other cool staff, but Phantagram bancrupcy and DS low money and very few development time had a very bad influence on our work.

many times behind a bad game there is the hand of marketing, few money and time.

PS we have the zooming intro sequence ready, but not enough time to put in the game, as other things, sorry.

[Drum]

Play Gradius Galaxies if you haven't already, rad game.

[MathU]

Wow, that's truly horrible. What is it with developers losing the source code to great games? You'd think one would have something as precious as that backed up several times over. This scenario of pushing classic games onto inexperienced developers to remake a game for a quick buck in a month with no support really has to stop. This has happened time and time again with compilations where developers would literally have to get game assets from emulators because the people actually owning the IP won't give them the time of day. It breaks my heart to hear classic games treated this way.

[Ebbo]

I remember reaching the fourth stage of this port but after that I couldn't cope with the strange hitbox size anymore. The hit detection overall felt very sloppy. But considering all the trouble developers had to go through I can't really blame them for not trying - the whole project was pretty much doomed from the start.

Maybe one day I'll take a try at the original SNES version...

[Ghegs]

What is it with developers losing the source code to great games? You'd think one would have something as precious as that backed up several times over.

One would think that's common sense, but there are too many source codes lost for it to be so. Irem seems to be especially bad at this, as the developers of R-Type Dimensions didn't get any source code either, they had to reverse-engineer the whole thing. They did a pretty good job, though. Sega is another, as they've lost the source code to Panzer Dragoon Saga and apparently a whole bunch of Master System and Genesis titles. They also had difficulties with their old arcade titles, but at least some of those seem to have been found.

Maybe back in the day developers couldn't foresee the possibility of having any further use for the code after the game was done and shipped, so they just treated the assets as baggage.

[Marc]

As a massive R-Type fan, am I the only one that thinks 3 is badly-paced, butt-ugly dogshit? Hell, at least final had atmosphere on its side.

[Ruldra]

As a massive R-Type fan, am I the only one that thinks 3 is badly-paced, butt-ugly dogshit? Hell, at least final had atmosphere on its side.

I'll agree that the game is VERY slow-paced, especially when compared to R-Types I and II, but it's far from a bad game. It's one of the best shooters on the console.

[ChainsawGuitarSP]

R-Type III is the best SNES shooter.

followed closely by Pocky & Rocky, Darius Force and Aero Fighters

[Marc]

That's a claim and a half. The machine had a flawed, but excellent Super R-Type, a fantastic Gradius 3 conversion, Area 88 and Axelay. Third Lightening? It's up there with Super Aleste.

[mesh control]

BIO FUCKING METAL

[Obiwanshinobi]

Some of these might have been excusable as a portable game on inferior hardware.

I don't believe GBA is any inferior to the original R-Type hardware (resolution aside).

[antime]

Wow, that's truly horrible. What is it with developers losing the source code to great games?

Historically, the games industry hasn't been great on software engineering practices. The projects were relatively short and fast-paced, with small teams and often wholly or partially subcontracted (or even sub-subcontracted) to outside developers. Also, up to about the mid-nineties development was mostly done on various oddball workstation hardware, which would have been gotten rid of a long time ago. Even if the project archives were kept, it might be difficult to even read them anymore.

[BrianC]

That's a claim and a half. The machine had a flawed, but excellent Super R-Type, a fantastic Gradius 3 conversion, Area 88 and Axelay. Third Lightening? It's up there with Super Aleste.

Normally, I would think of that as a compliment. Super Aleste is good stuff.

[nZero]

Historically, the games industry hasn't been great on software engineering practices.

From some of the stories I've heard, that's putting it lightly. No doubt there's been a lot of stuff that's just lost forever.

Also, I kind of wonder how many of the people here (or the companies they work for, for that matter) could come up with usable backups of data from 10, 15, or 20 years ago. I doubt I could retrieve much of anything from before 2004 or so, except for some random stuff I made that's floating around on the internet.

[MathU]

I still have important data archived from 1995.

[Estebang]

Historically, the games industry hasn't been great on software engineering practices. The projects were relatively short and fast-paced, with small teams and often wholly or partially subcontracted (or even sub-subcontracted) to outside developers. Also, up to about the mid-nineties development was mostly done on various oddball workstation hardware, which would have been gotten rid of a long time ago. Even if the project archives were kept, it might be difficult to even read them anymore.

When Treasure was developing the XBLA port of Guardian Heroes, the only copy of the source code was on an obsolete tape format, and they had to call up multiple Sega offices to piece together a machine capable of transferring the code.

So yes, this is very often a huge problem for smaller devs who lack longstanding, modernized code vaults like Nintendo and Konami have.

[Austin]

I purchased the GBA game on launch day and was severely disappointed with it. It's been years since I last played it, but if I remember correctly the gameplay seemed more sluggish. Something was definitely off about the whole thing. It's nice to see some clarification from the developers earlier in the thread as well--I was unaware that was the case.

As a massive R-Type fan, am I the only one that thinks 3 is badly-paced, butt-ugly dogshit? Hell, at least final had atmosphere on its side.

Personally R-Type III is my least favorite in the series. I do still enjoy it, and it's better than most SNES shmups. Of course, that's not really saying much though.