R-Type III: The Third Lightning came out on the Super Famicom in Japan in 1993. Tamtex developed that version, and Irem published it. North America and Europe got the game a year later on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Zoo Digital, Destination Software, Jaleco and Jaleco USA are also listed as publishers across the game’s releases, and Raylight Studios is credited as a developer on the game overall. The Bydo Empire is back, and the only answer is the R-90.
Three Forces to Pick Before the First Shot
This is the entry that broke the series open. R-Type III was the first game in the series to introduce new Forces.
Alongside the original Force — renamed the Round Force here, later called the Standard Force in R-Type Delta — you can pick the Shadow Force or the Cyclone Force. Each brings its own weapon sets and special enhancements.
You choose at the start of a game. That choice matters more than any single power-up you grab afterward.
The Hyper Wave Cannon Is the Best Idea Here
R-Type II’s Diffusion Wave Cannon is gone, replaced by a more standard wave cannon. Charging that cannon to full beam strength fires a massive beam that passes through all enemies and obstacles. That’s the reliable tool, and it does its job.
The new Hyper Wave Cannon is the interesting one. Switch to Hyper mode, supercharge the wave cannon, and the ship temporarily gains a rapid-fire cannon unique among wave cannons in the series. The shots create damaging explosions. If you’ve collected one or two Bits, they spin around the ship burning with energy.
Then the ship overheats. It spends seconds cooling down, and during that window the wave cannon is inoperative. You are a fighter with no teeth, surrounded by Bydo.
That trade — enormous temporary power for a hard, forced pause — is the strongest addition to this game. It turns every Hyper activation into a bet. Fire it at the wrong moment and you’ll eat a death you saw coming.
The Detachable Laser Unit Still Does Its Job
The classic R-Type loop is intact. Your laser unit detaches and fires in front of or behind the ship. The red-blue-yellow weapon system returns, refined, with a charging system that feels tighter than before.
Six levels, side-scrolling, third-person, one player. The structure hasn’t moved, and it doesn’t need to. What’s changed is the vocabulary you use to survive it.
Where the R-90 Actually Came From
There’s a piece of series trivia worth pinning down, because the naming got messy. The fighter in R-Type III was originally referred to as the R-90. It is identified in R-Type Final as the R-9Ø Ragnarök.
Final split that original R-90 into three. The R-9S Strike Bomber carries the R-90’s basic Standard force unit and its first wave cannon, identified as the Mega Wave Cannon. Final’s version of the R-90 gets the Shadow Force and the Hyper Wave Cannon, but it can’t choose its Force and it can’t switch between Wave Cannons.
So the ship you fly here is more flexible than the one that carries its name later. That’s a small thing, but it says something about how the series treats its own history.
Six Levels, and the Cooling-Down Seconds
The difficulty is the point, and R-Type III doesn’t apologize for it. Huge levels and huge bosses mean long stretches where a single mistake costs you the run. The Hyper overheat mechanic adds a second layer of punishment on top of the usual memorization.
That’s a real cost. Players who came to the SNES for a shooter they could brute-force will find the cooldown infuriating. The game asks you to plan rather than react, and it asks often.
The three Forces give that punishment a purpose. You’re not just surviving a fixed gauntlet. You’re solving it with a loadout you chose, and the Shadow Force and Cyclone Force bring different weapon sets and enhancements to the run. That’s replay value built into the design rather than bolted on.
What the Third Lightning Gets Right
The Hyper Wave Cannon is the strongest addition here. It gives the series a risk mechanic that isn’t just about avoiding damage — it’s about choosing when to be helpless. The overheat window is short, but it’s long enough to matter, and that’s the correct length.
The three Forces are the second win. They turn a single campaign into three distinct ones without adding levels.
Six levels is six levels. The Bydo mothership is the same destination it’s always been. If you’ve played an R-Type before, the shape of this one is familiar, and the new toys are doing most of the work of making it feel new.
That’s not a knock on the execution. The formula is intact, and the new mechanics are doing the heavy lifting.
The Score
R-Type III: The Third Lightning is a confident, well-built shooter with one genuinely great idea and two solid ones. The Hyper Wave Cannon’s overheat gamble is the kind of mechanic that should have shown up in more games. The three-Force selection gives it legs.
It lands at 7.0 of 10. That’s a good game with a high floor and a ceiling it doesn’t quite reach — the best R-Type of its era at doing what R-Type already did, and not much more than that.
KEY FACTS
- Score: 7.0/10
- Release: 1993 (Super Famicom, Japan); 1994 (SNES, North America and Europe)
- Developer: Tamtex (SNES/Super Famicom version); Raylight Studios also listed
- Publisher: Irem; Zoo Digital, Destination Software, Jaleco, Jaleco USA also listed
- Platforms: Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Famicom, Wii, Game Boy Advance
- Genre: Side-scrolling shooter
- Modes: Single player
- Levels: Six
- Player ship: R-90, later identified as the R-9Ø Ragnarök in R-Type Final
- Forces: Round (later Standard), Shadow, Cyclone
- Key mechanic: Hyper Wave Cannon with overheat cooldown
The Hyper Wave Cannon is the part worth watching. It is the one mechanic in R-Type III that a later game in the series could build on, and the overheat window is the reason. A cannon that fires fast and then locks you out for seconds is a design the series never returned to. R-Type III’s place in the line rests on that bet, and on the three Forces you pick before the first shot.
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