Still, given the pace of the game, playing sections and over can grow on one's nerves. The backgrounds are well detailed and look very cool, not repetitive like many NES shooters. There is, of course, some slowdown and image breakup, but it's never to the point when the game becomes unplayable. This hardly matters on a whole. The music's not too bad, but like most games, it suffers due to the sound chip.
Some tunes just sound way too chirpy.
The sound effects also could use a bit of improvement, but they're listenable. There's some problems with the game control though. First, the R-9 is WAY too slow. Sure, there are occasional power-ups that will make the ship faster, but they don't appear as often as they should. But overall, tough as it is, R-Type is still a great game.