R-Type Final 2: a return to finality

[Peklo]

One of the unlikeliest video game revivals is now out and you can play it.

This is a hard one to approach because Final occupies such a heavy psychological place and status in the history of the series, in ways that cannot truly be replicated through game design alone. When Final 2 was announced as specifically a follow-up to that previous funeral march, I at least hoped it wouldn't rely on simple imitation and reintroduction, despite that approach being valid after so much time having passed, but that's largely what you have to accept about this game: it bears the weaknesses of its predecessor, and as for the strengths? I'm not even sure if those can be recaptured as they were so context-dependent for what Final was about. Final 2 is successful in bringing back this one specific form of R-Type, but it's a conflicted relationship to rekindle as Final's strengths were in mood and a singular sense of emotional catharsis, sometimes at the expense of more conventionally identifiable parts of video game design. A reprise of those fleeting idiosyncracies risks spotlighting the largely maintained desolation of intricate level design and other such expectations for the series whilst emphasizing tonal points that can't necessarily be reached the second time around.

It's still an enjoyable enough return to whatever manner of status quo exists for the series at this point, and there's a lot to dig into in it if a game is measured by its wealth of content. It's just questionable whether all that's packed in here has been provided a worthy and sustainable playground to put all that's present into action to its fullest potential.

 

[WildcatJF]

Seemingly Granzilla or NIS America dropped the Force on this one and the physical editions are running late. So I'll join in the conversation once I actually have my copy in hand.

 

[Zef]

I've always loved R-Type despite being a complete and total failure at it (or most shmups, really). How accessible is Final 2 to less-than-skilled players?

 

[Peklo]

It has five difficulty levels from PRACTICE to R-TYPER and runs an extremely wide gamut of intensity between those (the Final games are languid and sedate by relative R-Type standards... until you try R-Typer and realize your folly) and the lowest of them grant some niceties like always respawning you with a basic Force pod, accruing Dose gauge (that powers your screen-clearing superweapon) much faster and such. R-Type since Delta hasn't done contact damage from environmental geography either--you're free to ram into walls and ceilings and just watch the sparks fly. There isn't a respawn on the spot feature or option, so that kind of credit-feeding isn't possible, as checkpoints are always part of the design and matter, and recovery can be famously difficult, but you very quickly accrue an increased credit limit, until it hits infinite for effective free play in no time at all, so you're only abandoning a run for 1CC score purposes or if you get fed up, not because the game insists. The Finals are also extremely incremental games by design: practice is an integral part of any shooter in the long term, but here you have to commit to that repetition and looping play because you're unlocking new ships by the dozens through accruing material gained through clearing stages. Those ships in turn change all your options and toolsets in major ways, where some will make the game feel like a breeze and some even hardier a challenge, depending on preference and their general "objective" power. I'd say there's a lot of room here to make your own fun if the central game design compels enough to do so.

 

[Dracula]

I'm a couple plays into this game, and I'm totally fine with it being basically a re-tread of Final with some nice quality of life changes. For one thing it's way less onerous on the player to unlock ships via collected resources instead of playtime with certain ships. The idea behind that was valid, but ultimately it led me to leaving the console on overnight just to trigger an unlock. Discovering everything Final had to offer was mega exciting for me in 2004 - doing it again with a new fleet and new stages is just as exciting for me in 2021. An incremental change isn't a bad change.

@Zef Echoing what Peklo said, I was a novice at best when it came to SHMUPs back in 2004, and R-Type Final was exactly the right kind of difficulty for me to ease me into it. Even if you make slow progress, you're still unlocking lots of ships and gaining lots of new stuff to try out. Final 2 feels like it carries forward that same level of difficulty.

 

[Regulus]

There are actually two more unlockable difficulties beyond R-TYPER. R-TYPER itself is absolutely ridiculous starting with stage 2.0, though. I gave up on the second boss.

I played this a lot yesterday. I beat it 4-5 times on normal and BYDO difficulty. I think it's pretty good, for the most part. Not as good as Final, probably, though I think its level design highs are higher. And its lows are low in different ways.

The art direction is really uneven. The ships look amazing. Some of the stages are pretty good. Some of them are... bad. 3.0's surprise battleship raid in particular looks like something a fan might have created in Little Big Planet. An upres of Final's 3.0 with the same PS2 textures would have looked better. And the level design was pretty mediocre, too. The Score Attack mode lets you look at the stage credits and it appears as though Granzella may have contracted some of the stages out to other groups.

Not all of the ships are in the game yet. They have slots in the R Museum, but contain a blurb indicating that research by "Granzella Labs" is pending. Supposedly around 50 are in the game right now. Current notable omissions are the R-9/0 Ragnarok, the TP-series POW Armors, the Image Fight orbital fighters. Some of the ships are password locked (the same ships as Final, it looks like), and a couple of them have already been discovered by brute force. Here are the first two:

3. R-9A3 Ladylove: loveandpeace
24. R-9B Strider: granzella

 

[Peklo]

I've now played through all the easily identifiable routes in the game, and judging by the Bydo Lab entries, have "seen" most of what the game has to offer in the nominal material that exists, so the aspect that I'm most confident about after all that is probably the music. Yuki Iwai brings out the best of Final 2 in realizing its atmospheric goals, just as she did in the original--and unlike some other things in the game, her work doesn't feel like it's stuck in the same mode from eighteen years ago, as the expected tonal touchstones are twisted or subverted in interesting ways. Just great work that anchors the game's best qualities.

 

[chud_666]

So playing this. I basically find any non standard sort of ship to be total trash. Especially the ship type with the dish on the top. Like short range blasts that are super weak. Wild. Thanks

 

[chud_666]

Albatross pretty bad ass though.

How do I access the alternative routes? I'm trying to go in all the roof holes and such...

 

[Peklo]

The different routes are accessed and determined at the end of stage 5.0, right before the boss: an otherwise benign supply ship drifts in, and upon destruction releases four differently-coloured objects, each taking you to a different set of two final stages when collected. From top to bottom they correspond to stage branches .0/.1/.2, with the fourth one seemingly having no effect on routing that anyone's been able to discern as of yet--it might be something that'll get added to the game later, like many other things will be.

 

[chud_666]

Just my luck I picked the 4th! Lol

 

[Regulus]

I finished R-Typer difficulty last night and it was A Thing. Way more difficult that R-Typer in the original Final. The swarm of Bydo fighters partway through 7.2 was a big FU moment in particular. On the other hand, I made a run at Bydo difficulty this morning and accidentally got a 1CC. It would have been a 1 life clear, as well, but I stopped paying attention during the Ebon Eye fight. Embarrassing. Leo is, unsurprisingly, a very good ship.


Speaking of Leo, the first two homage stages are currently available: Leo's INSIDE OF RUINS and III's Fire Cask Factory. INSIDE OF RUINS from Leo is pretty faithful, and even has the Leo-style cycling laser crystal pickups in lieu of traditional POW armors. I had a hell of a time with it, though, compared to Leo. I guess because of the checkpoint respawns?

The newly-dubbed "Flame Engulfed Arms Factory" from III is a little more remixed. It's significantly easier than the original... mostly because you don't have to worry about crashing into the walls. Some other notable changes:

• The "hydraulic press" sections at the beginning and end of the stage are gone.
• The molten flow hazards in the middle parts of the stage are telegraphed in normal and below.
• You can destroy the nozzles, halting the flow entirely.
• The miniboss has been changed significantly. It plays out more like the stage 7 boss in the original R-Type; instead of the sets of turrets, you now have to dodge columns of molten metal while shooting the core as enemies pour out of a couple of hatches.
  • The standard boss theme plays instead of Toge Toge.
• The final descent toward the boss is different. There are a few "lightball tracks" and some additional enemies.
• The boss itself operates slightly differently. Instead of spinning the entire BG, the lightball tracks spin independently in place. This is significantly easier to deal with because there's a relatively safe path trough the middle of the screen. I don't really care for this change because it makes the fight a lot less novel. I haven't tried this stage on R-Typer yet, so I don't know if it's different there.
  • Toge Toge plays instead of the standard boss theme.

They're pretty good so far. And they look better than a lot of the main stages. I'm looking forward to see what kinds of things are updated for the other games.

So playing this. I basically find any non standard sort of ship to be total trash. Especially the ship type with the dish on the top. Like short range blasts that are super weak. Wild. Thanks

Yeah, making sure every ship is good wasn't really their priority, I think. Some ships are intentionally designed to be mediocre, like the aforementioned R-9E series AWACS craft. I believe the camera bits/force/wave cannon increase the rate that you unlock details in the Bydo Lab, but there is no lore available in this version of the lab so it's kind of worthless (nevermind the fact that you'll probably unlock it all just playing through with normal ships).

They did buff the R-9B line, though. They carry nukes now (from the Tactics games) and their Barrier Wave Cannon is slightly less useless.

Most of the really weird craft are currently unavailable. The lynchpin fighter that allows you to access them (BX-T "Dantalion") is not currently unlockable.

 

[Fyonn]

After R-Type Command, it'd be weird if some of the support ships like the AWACS craft weren't in there.
I've got just an absolute ton on my plate right now, but I'll be picking this up as soon as video games chill out for five minutes.

 

[Regulus]

Here's a twitter thread summarizing an interview with Kazuma Kujo that touches on the development and future plans for Final 2:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1389417798649073667

 

[balder the brave]

How often are you guys able to charge up the force pod for a special attack? I’ve been experimenting with trying to clear enemies with the force more often, and leaving popcorn enemies on screen longer so they can shoot bullets I can absorb. It still fills slowly unless I find the occasional dense plume of bullets to absorb.

I’m having a lot of fun with this game. Minor gripe that the loading time after dying is a little long on the Switch.

 

[balder the brave]

Any ship recommendations? I wish there was a graphic display of the shot patterns like there is in a lot of modern shooting games with multiple ships.

 

[chud_666]

Any ship recommendations? I wish there was a graphic display of the shot patterns like there is in a lot of modern shooting games with multiple ships.

Albatross, or any that have tentacle pods are my fave. The tentacle pod when shot off will follow enemies and shoot 1->2->4 bullets at them depending on your power level.

 

[balder the brave]

How often are you guys able to charge up the force pod for a special attack? I’ve been experimenting with trying to clear enemies with the force more often, and leaving popcorn enemies on screen longer so they can shoot bullets I can absorb. It still fills slowly unless I find the occasional dense plume of bullets to absorb.

I’m having a lot of fun with this game. Minor gripe that the loading time after dying is a little long on the Switch.

I can report back on the results of my research! You can get a few percent charge from stray bullets, but I think it’s probably better just to throw your force pod into the popcorn enemies.

A great opportunity for charge is when there is ice or muck - you know, the barriers that you have to clear out by shooting? Instead of shooting them, throw your first pod into them to gain a lot of charge. Throw it into the muck, pull it back, throw it again, etc.

You can also get a fair amount of charge from the boxes that float around. Instead of shooting them, throw your force pod at them a couple times.

 

[balder the brave]

Cleared the game a couple times on kids mode. I will work my way up to normal difficulty. I was feeling frustrated by the long load times after a death, and one particularly difficult checkpoint in level three. You probably know the one!

 

[chud_666]

I can report back on the results of my research! You can get a few percent charge from stray bullets, but I think it’s probably better just to throw your force pod into the popcorn enemies.

A great opportunity for charge is when there is ice or muck - you know, the barriers that you have to clear out by shooting? Instead of shooting them, throw your first pod into them to gain a lot of charge. Throw it into the muck, pull it back, throw it again, etc.

You can also get a fair amount of charge from the boxes that float around. Instead of shooting them, throw your force pod at them a couple times.

You can also shoot it to a boss or into destructable elements like ice or flesh good. If you allow the flower bulbs in stage 2 to capture the pod it will fill up fast. I can reliably get full charge by stage 1 boss as well. The ice there gives a lot of opportunity to fill.

 

[Regulus]

DOSE charge rate is also influenced heavily by difficulty. The lower the difficulty, the faster it charges. You can get 100 reasonably easily in stage 1.0 on normal, but it’s difficult on anything higher than that. And next to impossible on R-TYPER in particular.

Full charge used to increase the contact damage of your force and make its hitbox larger. It may still get a damage boost (not sure), but it the hitbox remains the same size. As a result, maintaining 100% is not as important as it was in Final.

 

[balder the brave]

Thanks everyone for the interesting tips. I found this guide on the shmups forum. In Spanish but it translates well in a browser.

One interesting this I learned is that keeping a full dose force pod increases the rank.

Consejos y guía rápida para R-Type Final 2 / Final 3

R-Type Final 2 ya está entre nosotros, y a mi ya me ha dado tiempo a ver prácticamente casi todo su contenido. La saga cumbre de IREM dentro...

sectoromega.blogspot.com

 

[Regulus]

I managed to nab another 1CC, this time with the R-9DP Hakusan. The pile bunker was functionally useless, but the Defensive Force DX (particularly the impact dispersion laser) is so overtuned in Final 2 that it was still a pretty easy run.

 

[Torzelbaum]

Thanks everyone for the interesting tips. I found this guide on the shmups forum. In Spanish but it translates well in a browser.

One interesting this I learned is that keeping a full dose force pod increases the rank.

Consejos y guía rápida para R-Type Final 2 / Final 3

R-Type Final 2 ya está entre nosotros, y a mi ya me ha dado tiempo a ver prácticamente casi todo su contenido. La saga cumbre de IREM dentro...

sectoromega.blogspot.com

In Spanish? Uno DOSE?