THE SEARCH FOR THE GREATEST SWITCH SHMUP: EPISODE 39 – R-Type Dimensions 3

The Dobkeratops. One of the most iconic bosses in shmup history. You see the Dobkeratops on a screenshot and you’re immediately pulled into the world of R-Type. But perhaps using that as a reference to put some quarters into an arcade or renting this game from your local Blockbuster is one of the cruelest jokes they could pull on you. It turns out, R-Type is VERY hard. It is the epitome of trial and error. Only those with the patience and fortitude to make it all the way to end will be able to savor the elation that comes from rolling the credits.

It is only after conquering those challenges that you begin to see how meticulously designed each stage is and just how much hard work went into each segment. Modern gaming is not very compatible with short experiences, so when I learned that R-Type 3 was coming back, I was understandably very excited! Such was my excitement that I even came back to my shmup review series, as you can tell by the 2 year gap since my last entry. But some times, the greater the excitement, the greater the disappointment…

Publisher: ININ Games

Developer: KK3

Platform: Nintendo Switch 2

Release date: May 19, 2026

Price: $34.99

R-Type Dimensions III is a remake of the SNES R-Type III: The Third Lightning. Once again, the Bydo empire is mounting an invasion on Earth and it is up to you and your R-90 Ragnarok to venture into the heart of the Bydo empire and destroy it once and for all.

New to this version is the addition of 2 styles of gameplay: Classic and Infinite. Classic is your standard R-Type experience. Infinite is a new beginner friendly mode that gets rid of checkpoints and just lets you respawn in place after being hit.

The R-90 Ragnarok

R-Type is an horizontally scrolling shmup made in the classic style. What I mean by this is that what you see is that you get. Rather than having your hitbox be a tiny dot, you must take care of your entire ship while defeating the enemy forces.

The defining element of R-Type is the Force system. Force is the little orange attachment that docks either on the front or back of your ship. The more power-ups you collect, the stronger it gets. Your Force is also your swiss army knife during the entire game. It does damage on contact, it shoots when you shoot, and it even destroys enemy bullets.

What separates beginners from experts is how you use your Force when it isn’t attached to your ship. You can throw it and recall it, but while floating in the air, it will still fire and attack enemy ships. Being able to manipulate the Force into the proper position will make or break your experience. There is so much skill involved in having your Force in the right place and it is probably my favorite aspect of R-Type! This game even features 3 different Forces to choose from to match your play style.

3 Dimensions

Just like Dimensions and Dimensions EX, R-Type Dimensions III features and entirely new coat of 3D paint. For the first time, you can play in a complete 3D reimagining of the classic SNES title!

But perhaps the real game changer is that the 2D and the 3D versions of the game exist simultaneously! You can swap on the fly between 2D and 3D graphics with the press of a button. While the transition is mostly seamless, there are slowdowns and sudden effects that might get in the way of the gameplay. To top it off, switching also changes the soundtrack from the 2D original to new arranged tracks!

Your Ideal Coat of Paint

Whether you want to play in 2D or 3D (or both), you’ll find that you can further customize the aspect of the game to your liking. 2D modes give you the option to enable a CRT effect as well as customizing the style of the HUD. 3D goes one step further and features several filters to apply such as a retro 8-bit filter for an even more nostalgic experience.

By far the most mind bending of the effects is the crazy 3D mode that tilts the angle of the camera for even more immersion! Since switching is king, you can also choose whether the tracks are their original versions, the arranged tracks, or even a mix of both depending on the current graphic style.

Ambition Over Performance

Sadly, as cool as the 3D mode is on paper, it is very badly implemented and results in a worse experience.

On the visual side, while the models, stages, and backgrounds look very nice, there is a very noticeable loss of clarity during gameplay. Don’t get me wrong, the implementation of lighting and VFX is a delight to watch, but as you can imagine, this makes it much harder to parse the information on the screen. It is not uncommon to lose track of a stray bullet because the explosions were taking most of the screen. Or to crash into the stage because the 3D geometry was misleading. Stage hazards lose a lot of visual clarity as well, with the earliest example being the exhausts on Stage 1 not having a well defined hitbox in 3D, whereas in 2D it is very clear to see.

The Switch Performance Tax

The biggest dealbreaker is the dip in performance. Once you get past Stage 1, the performance issues become unbearable in 3D. The game starts feeling choppy as you drop frames, but even worse is that you start experiencing input lag. This is the kind of lag that makes it feel like you’re underwater. Even worse is that you will often crash because the lag takes your finesse away and you will constantly overshoot your movement because the game refused to stop moving when you stopped pressing the button.

One thing I should clarify is that I played exclusively in Handheld and Classic difficulty. I say this because I found the performance to be a little more stable when playing docked, but still below what you would expect from a shmup. Playing in Classic meant that I cleared every stage fair and square, but that also meant that I was more aware of the shortcomings of this version. I feel like this review comes across as more nitpicky than others I’ve seen and I believe it’s because I decided to play Classic instead of Infinite.

An Unapologetically Hard Experience

When it comes to shmups, R-Type might be one of the most brutally punishing shmups out there. Everything in the stages is designed to kill you. From the enemy patterns, to the stage hazards and even the layout, the Bydo are on a mission to take you down. But unlike other shmups, your skill can only take you so far before you get killed by something you haven’t seen before, and this is where you understand the secret to success: Memorization and trial and error.

In a way, R-Type feels like a puzzle game. Every segment is a puzzle where you need to figure out the optimal way of navigating it. Thankfully, R-Type did the ultimate act of mercy and gave us infinite continues. There is no real penalty to losing all of your lives, you just press continue and try again. This is something I believe Infinite does wrong, since it just lets you brute force through obstacles without learning anything. Some of those are unwinnable situations too, since the game expects powers you up at checkpoints, but dying on infinite just brings you back naked.

Whether you will enjoy R-Type as a series or not will depend on your tolerance to frustration. In R-Type there are no shields or second chances. One hit is all it takes to take you down and rather then respawning at the same spot, R-Type will send you back to the nearest checkpoint. As you can imagine, repeatedly failing means that you will need to be replaying the same section over and over.

A Loop of Failures

But the real danger is the risk of spiraling that comes from dying over and over. It is not uncommon to start tilting after being stuck for minutes, if not hours, replaying the same section. Once you start tilting, you know it’s over. The failures will start coming sooner and sooner, and this is when you’ll realize if this series is for you.

I wrote my review for R-Type Dimensions EX 7 years ago. I considered revisiting the review or replaying the game in preparation for Dimensions III, but I stopped myself when I’m realized I’m not the same person. The older I get, the lower my tolerance to frustration becomes. After being stuck in Stage 3 for days, I was ready to just call it quits and accepting that this merciless style was not for me anymore, but that was when I decided to pull the ultimate hater move: I booted up R-Type III on the SNES.

And this is when I made the ultimate discovery: R-Type Dimensions III is a terrible remake.

The Uncanny R-Type 3

As I made my way back to the boss of Stage 3 in record pace while playing Third Lightning on the SNES, I discovered that this wasn’t fundamentally the same game. It’s a little hard to explain how I felt, but basically I was playing the same game, but at the same time a different game. The enemies are there, the stage hazards are there, the sequences are there, and yet, they have these tiny differences that just feel wrong in Dimensions III.

When this became apparent was on my replay of Stage 3. There is a checkpoint at the bottom of the corridor before the stage starts scrolling upwards, however, this checkpoint has you flying straight into a wall unless you move out of the way upon restarting. To my surprise, this checkpoint wasn’t there in the SNES version. In that version, the checkpoint was after clearing that wall into a straight corridor. This was when I realized several positions were wrong in Dimensions.

And it’s not just enemy positions and checkpoint placements. There are also a lot of inconsistencies in the weapons system. There are enemies who feel extremely tanky for no reason, while some bosses just melt with a charge shot. A good example are the insects from Stage 6 that feel almost unkillable even with a Hyper Charge in Dimensions, but go down in a single charge shot in the original.

Shallow Beauty

While I don’t know what happened during the development of this game, I can make my best attempt at diagnosing the issue. I think the issues might come from the fact that the game was redesigned around the 3D engine, hence why collisions and enemies feel different. Also, the change in aspect ratio made it so tweaking the numbers produced inconsistent results, which might be why the checkpoints are at different positions or bullets, like from the wall turrets in the reverse escape in Stage 4, are 3x as fast as in the original.

This might explain why even in 2D, sometimes you die out of nowhere, presumably by a stray object in the geometry of the 3D style. It might also explain why the scrolling also breaks some segments, like the entirety of Stage 6 where the walls that phase in an out force you to hug the edges of the screen, unlike the SNES version where they would phase at about 1/3rd of the screen. The last sequence in Stage 6 where you need to ride the portal while avoiding the item bots is completely different, with the bots appearing at points where you can’t avoid them while scrolling much faster.

We Have R-Type 3 at Home

My biggest issue with R-Type Dimensions 3 is that it looks like R-Type 3 and sounds like R-Type 3, but it doesn’t play and feel like R-Type 3. Rather, it feels like your buddy who copied your homework but made some tiny changes so they wouldn’t find out it’s the same. That’s how I felt playing this game.

For some reason I tortured myself into playing the entire thing in Classic, but after painstakingly making my way through a stage, I would find out the same stage in the SNES version was easier. Perhaps easier is not the right word, rather, it felt fair. I could see how a stage was designed and what it expected from you to succeed. This wasn’t the case in Dimensions, where it felt like it had the same elements, but mixed in a chaotic and unpredictable way that completely messed up what was previously a carefully designed experience.

Continue: Yes >No

If there’s something I’d like you to take from this review is that R-Type: Third Lightning is a fantastic game! Whether you will enjoy or not the difficulty style of R-Type is up to you, but if you decide to give it a try, then you will discover a meticulously designed game that doesn’t pull any punches, but also encourages to try again and succeed.

Dimensions 3 is none of that. It looks and sounds nice, but the gameplay is bad and It was not meticulously designed. It feels haphazardly pulled together, and it doesn’t even perform well in 3D which is its selling point. There was no glory when I finished the game, only relief that I wouldn’t need to play this buggy mess of a game ever again.

Play R-Type: The Third Lightning on the SNES instead.