R-Type Delta

[AGermanArtist]

Still "Announced" on PS5. I wanted to pre-order it. Release is tomorrow at 2pm GMT.

[Klatrymadon]

Due at 2PM GMT according to a Steam update, but it's out already!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3072 ... D_Boosted/

[Kobayashi]

Coming in HD for Steam, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and Xbox Series X/S in 2025

Whoa! Great news, man! It's the best R-Type ever! I own the original Playstation version in US an JP version, but I'll check this out too!

[Klatrymadon]

A couple of things of note: hardware slowdown seems to be entirely disabled/removed, which means bullet speeds are closer to those of the higher difficulties on PS1, and that all obstacles are now essentially coming at you in fast-forward if you've internalised the pace of the original game. (Stage 3 is a lot more exciting and challenging as a result, but it'll take some re-learning I think. Good luck with the flying debris in stage 5.)

Also, set textures to 'low' — unlike G-Darius HD, the upres here is filtered in a pretty cheap-looking way.

Edit: Noticed some zako enemies removed from the section where you go underneath the walker. Interested to play the two versions side-by-side now...

[AGermanArtist]

Had a few plays of the original in Duckstation before the 2pm kick off and this is a definite improvement, even at 9x. They seem to have used a custom texture pack (very noticable on Lv.2) which also sorts out the text, and added a new version of the intro FMV. Not bad for £18

[jehu]

On Switch, I’ve been having the game lose track of my controller mid-run. All control randomly drops out. Anyone else? I suspect this might be a me thing, but not sure.

I’m using one standard joycon on the right and one Hori dpad on the left.

Otherwise, game looks and plays well. Also worth noting that the game doesn’t include English language option in the Japanese version (as per publishing agreements, presumably). However, the original menus are English so it doesn’t really matter outside of the Stats menu.

[DenimDemon]

Game looks incredible.
Playing on Switch 2. Runs great, super smoother (60fps) and no input delay that I could tell.
The slowdown present on the original is gone. Stage 3 feels great like this.
Again, the game looks incredible.
No save states ( I'm ok with this in this game) and no online leaderboards. A practice mode is included ( tough you need to unlock the stages trough gameplay).
Very happy with this realease, will play it a ton.
Now please give me Einhander.

[utsunderthesky]

Yeah, this is a pretty good version of Delta. Runs smoothly, looks and sounds good, and is very faithful. The feeling of everything is still there.

But that’s kind of it. There is nothing else . I don’t even see a filter to play with old graphics, like some sites advertised.

It is so nice to finally have a physical version of this game though, since i missed it on ps1. Delta was one of those legendary games as a teen for me which i never got to play until i was an adult and it got that psn port.

City Connection is doing a decent job recently. I can kind of trust them more than i did after that Cotton debacle.

[FunktionJCB]

A quick question about the PC version.
Just to confirm, the game defaults to these settings, right:

Texture: High
Mode: Expanded

Just to confirm something.

thank you

[Steven]

So this is safe to get as I predicted, right? I hope so.

Question: what exactly is this? I'm assuming it's just a PS1 emulator with a widescreen hack and custom texture injection. But no save states? That's odd. If it has a training mode of sufficient quality a lack of save states doesn't matter at all, so I'm not too worried about it. I guess it doesn't matter what exactly this is as long as it's good, but it's usually interesting enough to see how these things work.

[Klatrymadon]

The devs mentioned something in an interview about having access to "60% of the source code", so I think this is a port in the proper sense of having been rebuilt to run natively on PC. This is borne out by some slight changes to enemy placements (e.g. no zako under the st3 walker) and of course the lightning fast running speed (which I'm still slightly alarmed nobody writing or making videos about the game seems to have noticed).

@utsunderthesky, you can play with the original SD graphics by setting 'Textures' to 'Low' in the options menu. I think it looks a lot better than whatever upscaling/retexturing work they've done here, which is all a little too 2xsai for my tastes.

@FunktionJCB, yeah, those were the defaults for me!

[Steven]

Oh damn, this is missing enemies? That's... concerning. I have this on PS3 already, so it's not like I am missing a way to play this game as it is, and with equivalent to a $50 price tag here, I'm rather skeptical.

Speaking of that, I just checked and holy crap this is only $25 in the States? For that price I'd have done it with no hesitation, but...

And yes, the new textures are highly questionable at best, I think.

[DenimDemon]

Played quiet a bit last night.
Then booted up the og on the ps1 + trinitron RGB.
.. And really like what they did with the visuals.
Very happy with the port. No matter what, even of it's not 1 : 1 with vanilla. Just super fun to play.

[Klatrymadon]

Oh damn, this is missing enemies? That's... concerning. I have this on PS3 already, so it's not like I am missing a way to play this game as it is, and with equivalent to a $50 price tag here, I'm rather skeptical.

All I've noticed so far are a row of ground-based enemies missing from underneath the st3 walker, and I think that was done purely because its legs are stomping around a lot more quickly than on PS1. I've only played up to stage 5 so far, and that one's a lot harder now.

[Steven]

I guess that isn't too bad. I suppose it's possible that it was intentional, but it's still an odd change if they took those out to compensate for the speed increase but left everything else intact. I've only played the game a handful of times, but that walker stage is probably the most memorable one in the game for me.

[utsunderthesky]

Just for anyone wondering, the Japanese version does not have English text. Not that it matters so much, but I’m pretty sure it only has Japanese, someChinese languages, and I think there was a Korean.

[FunktionJCB]

@FunktionJCB, yeah, those were the defaults for me!

Thank you for the confirmation!

[SavagePencil]

Haven't gotten much time with it, but it's great so far. Has anybody played with the three different screen options? It has the original 4:3 and then two other options; I think one was called "Full". Wasn't sure if this stretched to fit (bleh) or actually expanded the viewing area.

Also curious if the texture setting would select the original PS1 textures if set to low.

[Klatrymadon]

That's right! The texture pack isn't doing this game any favours IMO, but the low setting turns it off completely.

The "expanded" view maintains the aspect ratio of the playable area while letting you see beyond it slightly (sort of like the letterboxing in Strania), which is great for getting a preview of approaching enemies. The "full" one is just Satan's usual 16:9 stretch, I think.

[AGermanArtist]

I like it and I think it's chunky enough to withstand the 16:9
I also 16:9 Gradius V in PCSX2 OMG

[SavagePencil]

Maybe it's because I'm running my Switch at 720p but it looks nice enough.

[AGermanArtist]

https://www.nintendolife.com/reviews/ni ... hd-boosted

[Kiken]

The devs mentioned something in an interview about having access to "60% of the source code", so I think this is a port in the proper sense of having been rebuilt to run natively on PC. This is borne out by some slight changes to enemy placements (e.g. no zako under the st3 walker) and of course the lightning fast running speed (which I'm still slightly alarmed nobody writing or making videos about the game seems to have noticed).

I noticed at least 4 missing enemy formations in stage 3 (on Human difficulty):

The aforementioned green mechs appearing from the lower left early on.

Another platoon of green mechs appearing from the lower-right, walking across one of the raised helipads. After the squadron of green planes from the upper-right corner.

A handful of the grey flying mechs appear from the left side as you need to make a pass under the front leg. I took the earlier fast path in this vid, so they barely make it on screen.

I didn't see it in my older replay, but right before you pass under the back leg, one additional green mech can wander in from the lower right.

I think the hideous 240p-ness of this old replay goes to show that I need to capture some revised play.

Given that this whole stage runs at 50% speed on the original game, I'd wager a guess that the missing formations are due to the flags for their appearance being tied to game logic and since the stage is now moving at breakneck speed, these trigger flags are getting skipped.

Minor detail:

As Moritz G (stage 1 boss) does a drive by, he tears up the road in the PS1 version. In the HD version the road remains intact.

During the first phase, Dobkaterops heart will begin to softly pulsate with bright blue light when it becomes an active target in the original. This was removed in HD so you sorta have to guess as to when it becomes active.

I haven't tried Kids mode yet and I only played through the first 2 stages on Bydo.

All the other stages seem to be intact outside of some weird audio here and there (ex: the "snap" sound when the egg fires the bright white pulses near the end of stage 7 doesn't seem right.. it sounds oddly muted and indistinct compared to the original).

All of the above could easily be fixed with an update, and given that all other aspects of the game seem to have been converted successfully, I hope that they're willing to fix these couple of small issues.

[Klatrymadon]

Thanks for these notes, Kiken! It was the enemies that appear as you pass under the front leg that I had noticed, so I'd missed a lot of other ones. There's also a difference with the ending cutscene — the buildings no longer deform and flatten as you fly off, and the particle effects are missing.

Yeah, I figure they could correct all of these issues while maintaining the new running speed if that's what they want (though I'm not sure how they would re-sync the music to the action, which is currently off in places). I wonder if bullet speeds will be given any consideration, though — everything that shoots is now a formidable sniper on Human, and even Kids mode is no longer a guaranteed clear.

[DenimDemon]

Would really likes a restart and intro skip option...actually I can live with no skip but restart would be welcome, specially in training mode. I mean, you choose the level power you want to practice with but then lose a life and all the upgrades are gone...at least to have an option. Since practing checkpoints can also be fun.
Otherwise I'm really enjoying getting back to Delta and super happy with the port.

[SavagePencil]

What’s the strategy for using a full Dose bomb? Does it affect rank?

[dmk1198]

Just for anyone wondering, the Japanese version does not have English text. Not that it matters so much, but I’m pretty sure it only has Japanese, someChinese languages, and I think there was a Korean.

Is it cheaper in Japan? Exchange rates good

[dai jou bu]

What’s the strategy for using a full Dose bomb? Does it affect rank?

Ideally, you only would want to use it as a last resort to prevent you from powering down from a death and avoid a checkpoint you’re not familiar with if you’re trying to do a 1CC run as this game doesn’t really have a really sophisticated rank system (actually, I don’t think it has one at all), and the only time you absolutely must use it is on the final boss in order to beat it (hence why the Dose meter resets to zero during the final phase since that part is basically Irem’s take on Treasure’s “you must survive this onslaught for 60 seconds in order to beat the game”) since saving a full dose charge makes your force’s hitbox slightly bigger and does more contact damage.

Also find it funny that the R-9 delta with its round force being the most powerful of all the ships in this game if you know where to place your Force in the right spots and get the timing right of when to fire your full power wave blast at point blank range on the enemy’s weak point since most bosses will get one-shot from it. Seems like they learned their lesson from 3 where the round force had the weakest damage output for almost no reason.

[Starfighter]

I just found out about this in a christmas catalogue (a christmas catalogue in 2025 is making my heart smile). I think I'll get it as a christmas present to myself!

[Jonpachi]

Finally fired up the Asia-region cart I picked up and was treated to a 45 minute download. I’m not sure what the file size of the dl was but it must have been huge.