R-Type Delta HD Boosted, let's take off again and destroy the Bydo Empire!
by Simon Larocca·November 19, 2025
I would stand on tiptoe to admire their feats. Sometimes, just so I wouldn’t miss the latest power-up acquired with seemingly impossible maneuvers, I would hop along with my hands over the shoulders of the friends in front of me, all to fill my eyes with the acrobatics, the incredible backdrops, and the toughest boss fights ever. The older kids were aces at the scrolling shooters in the arcade cabinets in the bars, and I had nothing to do but learn, so that one day I could become like them.
It was 1987, and Irem had released this wonderful arcade shooter. R-Type was one of the first titles I ever played in my life, the game that laid the cornerstone for the future and still today remains an essential benchmark. Almost forty years have passed, but one of the most iconic entries is about to return to our screens. I am obviously talking about R-Type Delta, which with this new HD Boosted version will give younger players a seminal title, whose impact on industry professionals’ view of how to design a game level meant to entertain and stimulate without excessively frustrating the player was nothing short of remarkable.
With its worldwide release on November 20, 2025, on all major next-gen consoles and PC, R-Type Delta HD Boosted, as its name suggests, is ready to take off with a refreshed look, boasting high definition and reviving the legendary gameplay that made it beloved by its audience. The game’s plot is, as often happens with this type of game, a mere excuse to jump into the fray and go all out with laser projectiles, homing missiles, and sci-fi upgrades that will let us customize the R-9, the name of the sophisticated flying war machine we will pilot, up to the highest levels. The Bydo alien empire wants to subjugate humanity, and the next-generation space fighter we will control will be the last desperate resource of the interplanetary resistance: the Delta backgrounds are spectacular, as is customary for the series, with their incredible detail and the sensation they convey at every level of not being inside colossal metal structures and cold alien bases, but rather within a sentient living organism that breathes, watches… and gives orders to kill us in the most varied ways possible.
Originally released in 1998, it brings back the distinctive elements that made it a success: the Force drone returns to help us out by expanding our firepower, in multiple directions and with different modes depending on the upgrade capsule we choose to pick up in the infinite space; additionally, the Beam Ray will also make a grand return. By holding down the fire button long enough to “charge” the shot, when we release it we will generate a lethal beam against our enemies: in 1998 the effect was extraordinary, but the new boosted version will decorate televisions with a riot of colors and astonishing graphic details.
The obstacles along our path will be many and very, very punishing: crossfire positions, sharp rocks and ever narrower flight corridors, levels with sudden verticality and labyrinthine rooms dominated by biomechanical snakes, armored mechs and even rotating steel parallelepipeds: all this while keeping in mind that at the slightest contact with an enemy bullet or the enemy itself, we will lose one of the three lives available to complete the main story.
Playing nineties shooters was not just fun, but training for the body and spirit, it served to improve tenacity and stubbornness in seeing a level through to the end, no matter what!
Now that I’ve stopped jumping behind backs to watch other people’s games, I can thank with a smile the older boys I wanted to emulate. And I’ll do it by playing, it’s always the best way, and by sweeping a lot of alien scum away from the vicinity of Earth.
E.T. shouldn't take offense.
Simon Larocca
My name is Simon Larocca, and I am a gamer, collector, and lover of pop culture in all its forms. I go to the cinema whenever I can, I have been reading since I started wearing glasses, so, basically forever, and I have a passion for storytelling in all its forms, so powerful that it became my profession. But as Doc from Ritorno al Futuro would say, there would be no present if one did not look at the past with respect and admiration, and it is the Simon child of more than thirty years ago, give or take a year, who is to thank for that.
Simon Larocca
My name is Simon Larocca, and I am a gamer, collector, and lover of pop culture in all its forms. I go to the cinema whenever I can, I have been reading since I started wearing glasses, so, basically forever, and I have a passion for storytelling in all its forms, so powerful that it became my profession. But as Doc from Ritorno al Futuro would say, there would be no present if one did not look at the past with respect and admiration, and it is the Simon child of more than thirty years ago, give or take a year, who is to thank for that.
TGMGrading
Grade your titles
Inspection, sub-grades, seal and display case: every grade comes with the method behind it, written down in full.
