R-type question

[GRC7800]

OP asking for help here:

So, I am in week three of my challenge. I can get to level 4 without dying, but I am finding it absolutely impossible to make it more than a quarter through the level. I come in with all the power ups guns blazing, but once I die and restart at the beginning with nothing, I can’t even get past that first chamber without dying! I just burn through all my lives and credit and start crying! LOL

It’s not that bad, but it’s incredibly frustrating since I found levels 2 and 3 to be surprisingly easy.

Anyone have tips they could share for level 4?

[Joefish]

Mostly you really need to play this level keeping ahead of, and below, the centre of the screen. That way things hurtling down the middle of the screen will pass behind you, but you have to be ready to fire on anything coming at you head-on. Also practise using a charged shot and try to time it so you hit a dot-layer moving towards you, and any circling ones, in one hit. And that should take out at least the horizontal trail of dots too.

Just at the middle point of the level there's a brief pause as a pit opens up below you. At that moment, swap your 'Force' orb from the front to the back, as there's a lot of stuff about to pile in from behind you. Keep it there, then get a red 'Helix Laser' pick-up to blast through the wall of dots at the end of the level (none of the other weapon types destroy the dots). Use a powered shot, then follow it forwards, while the Force fires backwards. That will clear a big area so you can now back up into that space and move up and down.

Frankly, my trick to getting a high score on the arcade is to get right to the last bit of Level 3, then die, so I get to play the entire level again. Since if I go on to Level 4 I know I'm not going to score anywhere near as high before I've lost my last few lives.

[zx4ever]

Spectrum R-Type is a lot harder than the arcade version, because the size of the sprites, proportionally, is larger, so there is less room to manoeuvre. Oddly enough, I could get to exactly the same point in both the Spectrum and the arcade version - the boss at the end of level 4 - until very recently, when I managed to get to level 5 on the arcade version. Still can't get past level 4 on the Spectrum version!

[GRC7800]

Mostly you really need to play this level keeping ahead of, and below, the centre of the screen. That way things hurtling down the middle of the screen will pass behind you, but you have to be ready to fire on anything coming at you head-on. Also practise using a charged shot and try to time it so you hit a dot-layer moving towards you, and any circling ones, in one hit. And that should take out at least the horizontal trail of dots too.

Just at the middle point of the level there's a brief pause as a pit opens up below you. At that moment, swap your 'Force' orb from the front to the back, as there's a lot of stuff about to pile in from behind you. Keep it there, then get a red 'Helix Laser' pick-up to blast through the wall of dots at the end of the level (none of the other weapon types destroy the dots). Use a powered shot, then follow it forwards, while the Force fires backwards. That will clear a big area so you can now back up into that space and move up and down.

Frankly, my trick to getting a high score on the arcade is to get right to the last bit of Level 3, then die, so I get to play the entire level again. Since if I go on to Level 4 I know I'm not going to score anywhere near as high before I've lost my last few lives.

Thanks so much! This is exactly what I needed. I developed foolproof strategies for the first three levels but could get no traction in Level 4. Most YouTube videos aren’t helpful because they tend to have cheats on and thus don’t show real strategies or skilled play. I read Level 5 is relatively easy, so I’m using that as motivation.

[worcestersource]

I think with level 5, you have to learn the paths of the moving chunky things so you know where to go to get out of the way.

I don’t think I had the patience back in the day to go through the game again and again to do this, so that was as far as I ever got. Plus, there were more failed attempts at getting through level 4 than not.

Still, R Type was my favourite game on the Speccy. Good to hear Bob Pape on the pod cast that was shared.