Side scrolling space ship action with amazing weapons and effects. An enjoyable old-school classic.
The biggest innovation to the game is the indestructible sphere (with other protruding instruments) that can be attached and unattached to your ship at will. This sphere like thing can be used many different ways, you can use it as a shield from bullets, which helps majorly, considering that it takes one hit to die, when you unattach the sphere it will shoot off and destroy, or badly damage any enemy it touches. At your sphere's first phase, it'll just shoot strait all the time, if your sphere is at it's second phase, then it will shoot in 2 diagonal forward directions (when unattached), if the sphere is at the third phase, it will be like the first and second phase combined (when unattached also). The biggest part about the sphere is when it is attached, you'll be able to constantly unleash your current special weapon at the time. The sphere ultimately adds much to the overall game play in Super R-Type, by giving an element of strategy to the game. You can also get extra little things like, 1 or 2 shields that will be following your ship, both shields above and below. Also you can get two types of missiles that will launch along side your regular weapons, the first type are missiles that will fall to the ground and leave a string of explosions across it, the second type are heat seeking, which for the most part work alright, but they end up running into walls allot when turning around to attack enemies.
Super R-Type's enemies are all highly detailed (especially bosses), along with the environments you'll be flying through, though there are some graphics for the backgrounds, and obstacles that are copied through the levels. The explosions are repeated tons of times, but don't ever get annoying because they don't look like explosions in any game you've seen. The sound for Super R-Type is really involving; all the sounds are so original sounding that they become very effective, even when the same sounds are given off over and over. The music is very good for most levels, with fast techno like beats, and also a couple songs that reach into the more mystical sounding style.
Like I said before, the slow down is almost constant when you achieve the more powerful weapons, which is most of the time. I learned to look past it, but it does take away from an otherwise superb title. The other thing that might throw some people away is the short length the game has. I think if the game was any longer, I'd go insane from having to play each level a million times because of the difficulty.
The slow down will disappoint a few, but there's no mistake about all the other quality elements that this original series has to offer. If you can appreciate the innovation and challenge, then you'll be thoroughly pleased.