Hey friends, Super R-Type is one of those games I always wanted to play and I started today. I hit my first major roadblock at the level 3 boss, it actually seems pretty easy but because there are no checkpoints it takes a long time to get to the boss and by that point my brain is tired of concentrating and its so easy to die. I plan to finish this game and I can already tell that will require me sinking a ton of hours into the game, just wondering if there are any helpful tips to help minimize those hours? It definitely seems like a fun game, feel free to recount any experiences you have had with the game.

Practice, practice, practice and pray, pray, pray that you don't die.  

Update: level 3 boss has a gimick where you can only kill it with charge shots. After finding that out levels 3, 4, 5, and 6 were easy. Stuck on the last level atm.

Super R-Type is pretty much all memorization and planning, being aware of what's coming up next. So basically, lots of trial and error. Typical of this series. When you learn the levels though it becomes pretty satisfying to go through.

Your fully charged beam is insanely powerful and you can kill a few bosses in one hit with it (Stage 2 and 3 in particular; Stage 1 if you're playing on a lower difficulty). Also, the red power-up is the recommended shot type to stick with for the whole game. It's also very powerful especially when paired with your option pods.

I really enjoy this game, one of my favorites on the system, but it's not one people typically get into. It has a lot of slowdown and the lack of mid-stage checkpoints is a deal breaker for some. Never really bothered me. If you enjoy the game enough, crank it up to Hard mode. It'll make you think more about when and where you should charge up, or just unleash a bunch of regular shots. There's another difficulty past that but you have to finish it on Hard to unlock it.

Finished it. I really didn't expect to do this in 2 days so Im gonna try hard mode.

Ah, yeah. Normal is pretty easy once you get the hang of it. Enemies die quite quickly. The big difference in the higher difficulties is more bullets, faster bullets, and nearly everything taking more hits. It really requires you to prioritize certain enemies more, particularly those enemy spawners on stages 1, 2 and 6. Let us know how Hard mode goes!

Nice job beating the game @AndyonaSkateboard, and good luck on Hard Mode!

I picked up this game awhile ago but haven't yet put too much time into it.

I know there's another difficulty mode after Hard called 'Pro'. There's a youtube channel "PEG" that is mostly playthroughs retro shmups, and he has a video of Super R-type played through both Hard & Pro modes. He indicates in the description that he's tackled a lot of shmups on their highest difficulty setting, and Pro in this game is amongst the hardest and most frustrating he's ever beaten.

I'm curious if anyone around here has gotten through Pro mode?

Thanks Strikezone and thanks for the advice Austin! Playing on hard I breezed through levels 1-2, the level 3 boss seemed like it had twice as much health but I beat it after having a run with some matrix level dodges. Im on level 4 and I never appreciated how much fun this level was the first time I beat it when I was just super focused the whole time. I got some runs in on the boss but he clearly has a lot more health this time. The extra bullets on hard mode don't make things too much more difficult but what does make it harder is that a lot of enemies you didn't have to think about before are now really tanky and absorb a ton of damage before dying. A small flock of baddies can now easily block your path so all the level strategies have to be slightly reworked.

The Stage 3 boss can still be killed in one hit with a full double charge. Just wait a few seconds before you start charging, timing the full charge to line up right as the weak spot appears (it always appears on the left at first). Make sure you have the regular missile and not the homing, as the homing can end up hitting the weak spot before you unleash your charge. The weak point will retreat back inside when that happens and that's when the boss becomes hard to deal with.

Stage 4 is really fun, yeah! Good twist on the typical R-Type battleship stage. The boss has a lot of different things to worry about. On the first phase it's good to just focus on the four turrets (they take a lot of hits on hard), then going for the weak spot last. On the second phase with the two blue barriers and the bouncing shots, it's best to time your double charge and unleash it right away. On Hard mode you won't be able to one-shot each barrier with a full charge, but it will still do significant damage. I do a full charge at first, then just use my standard shots for the rest. If I have a good run without dying, I always get there with the red weapon. It's the most powerful and makes life easier on the boss.

I fired this game up this morning thanks to this thread. Decent run up to the end, but ended up dying about 15 times on the last stage, heh. Called it quits when I finally made it to the last boss and died there. Doh.

That's pegboy. He did it all in 2015 and posted his thoughts in the SNES thread

Nice! Looks like pegboy went on a hell of a run back in '15 clearing a lot of SNES shmups on the highest difficulty setting. Impressive stuff.

I'd like to do that myself someday, as I own a good amount of shmups on the SNES. I'm sure it'll be quite a challenge and time commitment.