R-Type Tactics, Is It Wrong?

I can't help the feeling, when playing R-Type Tactics that there isn't something dark under the surface. I'm not talking about the overt, repetitive sinisterness in the BGM that I feel forcibly compelled to turn off. The in-game, interface sounds are also very edgy, techno and dark in their execution and it does say something to the game's credit that it manages to complete such a whole picture. It gives me the idea that everything aural in the game was seen to by a (the?) musician but also had someone keenly aware of what was going on as a whole interface wise. Sadly I don't think they were the same person.

What's odd to me is simply accepting that the game is supposed to be a strategy game because it looks and actually ends up feeling so much like a shooter. It's interesting just how this is played out in the game and has a real stroke of genius about it. There are two important elements. The first is that charged shots are the way to be, they only fire forward. That, in a very cool way, keeps things focused as they should be, ahead of the ship. An enemy behind you is a much nastier force to reckon with...it's fortunate that your other weapons have a 360° range because they're job is to essentially clean up the shredded remains of your charged shots.

There are plenty of things that make a lot of the game feel like a blitz, and an enjoyable one, at that. There is effective zone of control in place and I'm hoping we'll have fields of play that exceed the height of the psp's screen in later missions.

Terrain at the top and bottom of the screen plays an important role sometimes, as terrain in a strategy game typically would however R-Type reminds us yet again that we are a shooter and thus we can blast those loose rocks away to cut a path. Lost from the shooter feel is the time element. There is a turn limit and a faster game gets you a higher score (neat) but there isn't (or shouldn't) be any last minute panicking as the game is, of course, turn based in the classic sense (IGoUGo). You can retreat a ship fully back to the start of the play fields though as of yet I've haven't felt the desire to do so. I am hoping bosses inspire that kind of retreat behavior ^_^

There's also the element of powerups, leveling, etc that influence the typical strategy game but in a shooter fashion. It's all just kind of bizarre right now particularly since I've not translated much of them. They are definitely power ups of some sort though.

I hope that the game will show some immense depth in carrying out this shooter to strategy game transformation, so far the variety in weaponry and the power ups are fun and exciting, even the alien technology feels alien. All or most-of he fancy R-Type laser patterns are present. I'm sure these all have official names of which I'm blissfully unaware. The yellow/gold boxy beams and the violet, blue circle waves, they are all there. The battle animations when turned off play on the map and clearly represent the arsenal used rather than generic animations of, say, the SRW series. The backgrounds with their 3d & parallax techniques in FULL force blow anything SRW has thrown in our direction out of the water, so to speak, but they only have to work on a limited budget of movement in R-Type so each to it's own.

I hope all is immensely cool in the end. In that I haven't sat totally comfortable with the game's identity as a strategy game actually does say something to the game's credit, it means R-Type Tactics hasn't totally lost touch with what it truly is. I just hope it turns out to be brilliant instead of lingering in this bizarre zone. It does have potential, four stages in (hah!) I'll give it that.

Oh, and I guess the challenge hasn't really been felt yet but there is the option of deploying as small a force as you'd like, therefore the challenge is up to the player...which is kind of neat, of course.

Edit: it seems you can re-play previous stages at will. Haven't exercised this right yet though so unsure how new results factor in. Presumably units will level up more.