R-Type 3 Dimensions – What The Hell Is This..

R-Type 3 Dimensions – What The Hell Is This..

I don’t know about you guys, but it feels like we’re entering another “rush-it-out” era when it comes to retro ports and remakes. Developers proudly show off their latest masterpiece, but once the game is released, it often feels like an afterthought.

Part of me wants to blame the Nintendo Switch for this. The system has had some truly incredible releases that sold exceptionally well, and ever since the retro revival really kicked off around 2019, we’ve been flooded with ports, remakes, sequels, remasters, and reimaginings. Unfortunately, a lot of them simply aren’t very good.

R-Type III Dimensions is one of those games I’ve been keeping an eye on for a very long time. I absolutely loved the original SNES release back in the day, and since it remained exclusive to that platform for decades, I hadn’t really played it since the 1990s.

To be completely honest, while playing Dimensions, I constantly felt that this wasn’t the game I remembered.

Before I continue my total slaughter of this remake, let’s take a quick look back at what made the original so special.

The gameplay was incredibly precise. Battles demanded pixel-perfect positioning. It pushed the SNES hardware to its limits, delivering a technical showcase alongside brutally difficult but fair gameplay. Weapons, power-ups, and enemy encounters all felt carefully designed and systematic.

With such a respected publisher and developer handling the remake, most of us assumed this was going to be something special.

Loading up the game for the first time, I was excited and ready to be mentally and physically crushed by the series’ trademark difficulty and sublime gameplay. Instead, my reaction quickly became:

“What the hell is this?”

Presentation-wise, it certainly looks flashy. At first, I actually liked it. However, the glossy plastic-and-glass visual style quickly became irritating. I found myself constantly switching between the remake and the original SNES graphics—a feature that can thankfully be triggered instantly with a single button press.

Every single time I switched back and forth, I ended up preferring the original look, but both had annoying hit detection issues and felt “wrong” on the whole to play.

After beating the first few stages, I decided to take a break because I simply wasn’t having fun. The gameplay felt imprecise, unfair, and surprisingly boring. More importantly, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this wasn’t the same game I played back in 1993.

And then I never went back.

Well, not until today.

I fired it up again and spent about five minutes with it, just to confirm my original impressions. Sadly, everything still feels as half-arsed as it did before.

This review should have been published weeks ago, but I decided to cut the game some slack. I figured there might be a substantial day-one patch or a series of updates that would address some of the issues.

I’ve waited long enough now.

The review code arrived before launch, and despite the time that’s passed, there have been no major improvements.

Can it be fixed?

Maybe.

But it will require some significant changes before I can recommend it.

Until then, avoid it.

PS: Is this harsh review because i was so hyped and then got kicked in the balls, maybe so, but i fear most fans of the original will share that hype with me too.