By releasing R-Type Final at the budget price point of 30 bucks on their alternative "no one's going to buy this stuff" Fresh Games label, Eidos has officially declared what gamers have known for a while – the shooter, once king of the video game scene, just isn't popular anymore. In fact, if you ask anyone born since the Reagan administration what their favorite shooter is, they are more than likely to say Halo, or worse, Grand Theft Auto. The fact is, the old school shooter (one ship, lotsa bad guys, blam blam blam) has an automatic but shrinking audience – nearly every shooter released recently has sold approximately the same number of copies. So it follows that whoever's going to buy R-Type Final is going to buy it whether or not it's any good, and those who aren't going to buy it won't, no matter how good it is. Which is sad, because oh, how good it is.

The game has a storyline, I think. To be honest, I didn't read the manual, which is something I like about old-school gaming – less reading required. It is, of course, easy to pick up and play, especially if you're familiar with the series. Fly and shoot. Avoid getting killed. Pick up the floating shiny things that won't die, 'cause that means they're good for you. It's easy…well, except for the "avoid getting killed" part, which takes practice. But that's okay, because the practice is fun. You start out with a selection of three ships, but as you play, you'll unlock up to ninety-six more, providing a great incentive for repeat plays, as you try to fill out your hangar. The selection of ships is definite fan service on Irem's part, as they've seen fit to include ships from nearly every game in their history, each one rendered in beautiful 3D, and color customizable. Neat.

Now, your pretty color-customized ship would look stupid if the rest of the game wasn't just as gorgeous, but that's not an issue. As could be expected, Final is easily the best-looking R-Type ever. The backgrounds are detailed and varied, and you fight stunning enemies ranging from robots to mutant plants to what appear to be flying turkey burgers. You start out with just a basic gun (which can be charged to release a more deadly blast), but soon expand your arsenal by snagging powerups as they float by. There are basically three types of powerups: force, bit, and missile. Bits provide you with a little round wingman, missiles allow you to fire, well, missiles, and force powerups…well, force powerups provide the gameplay twist that sets R-Type apart from your run-of-the-mill shooter. The first one you pick up provides you with a force, which is a little chunk of firepower that you can use in three ways: you can attach it to the front or back of your ship, or you can let it roam free, attacking enemies on its own. When attached to your ship, it provides additional weapons that come in three colors: red, blue, and yellow. These vary slightly from ship to ship, but it boils down to this: red ones give you red weapons to shoot stuff with, blue ones give you blue weapons to shoot stuff with, and yellow ones give you small puppies to charm passersby with. Or maybe it's yellow weapons to shoot stuff with. The force can also absorb enemy fire, and doing so causes a meter in the corner to fill. Once it's completely full, your force becomes way more powerful until you choose to empty the meter in a screen-filling, enemy killing super-duper blast of fury. The use of the force provides a unique element of strategy as you try to discover the best way to utilize it at any given time. Obviously, the powerups are extremely helpful if you hope to survive long, because the level design is sadistically tuned to the point where it forces the player to use all of their ship's abilities to succeed. Fortunately, Irem has been perfecting the controls for years, so they're never anything but fluid and responsive. You can adjust how fast your ship moves on the fly, so precision can give way to running like hell in an instant. Oh, and I'm going to tell you this now because it took me six ships to learn it: you can go underwater.

And while you're at it, you might as well turn it up. The music in the game is never obnoxious or intrusive, but it sets the mood well and changes throughout the game so it never gets old. Sound effects are excellent throughout, with nifty weapon noises and strong, beefy explosions. It sounds, to put it bluntly, like a video game should, so digits you might use to hit your mute button can be used for better things, like killing bad guys.

So, it's pretty and fun and it sounds good and controls well. Is there anything wrong with it? Well, no, not really. It's not the best shooter ever, but it's a damn good one, and the only knock that can be made against it is that it's a dinosaur. It's a kind of game people just don't play anymore. It's about skill and patience and trial and error and a lot of other things that we don't see enough of in gaming these days. Shooters have been around so long that making them has evolved into an art form. R-Type Final is nothing less than a masterpiece, and the series couldn't ask for a better swan song.