Let’s be honest, we always love to shoot down alien invaders to defend earth. In fact a lot of classic video games are like this, some with little or no story, but it doesn’t take away from the fun. Rendering Ranger: R2 is a perfect example of a game with a simple premise and great execution. Rendering Ranger: R2, is a 2-D sidescroller shooter where you are tasked with defending the earth from an alien invasion. This game brings back the feel of classic gaming and the difficulty of games from its time, in a good way.

The game immediately puts you in the fray of the war by placing you in a post-apocalyptic city being overrun by the invasion. You start off with two basic kinds of ammo, but as you play through the game you can find power ups and become a one man army, on a mission to save the earth. You even have a screen nuke attack, where instead of needing ammo for it, you just need to wait for the cooldown to use it again. This will come in handy a lot of times during the levels as you will be constantly overrun with enemies. When platforming through the levels you will have to keep track of everything in the level which goes back to the difficulty of this game.

When playing through the levels you have the ability to shoot in all eight directions, which comes in handy since the enemies will come at you in all directions. You will have to keep on your toes at all times just to stay alive. The levels are really long and you don’t have a long invincibility window when you get hit, so this adds to the difficulty. While you can increase the amount of lives you start with, up to seven, there is a high chance you will lose all those lives faster than you would expect. You also have to avoid many bottomless pits throughout the level, which will seriously hurt you if not kill you. The pits also blend into the background, making it hard to tell where the pits are causing you to keep falling down them over and over again. I have lost multiple times to just falling down the pits, so just keep that in mind when playing the game.

The levels are what you would expect from a game with an alien invasion plot, destroyed cities, space, etc. The level design has a dark and ominous feel to it, perfect for a world in ruin. You get the feeling of dread and fear as you go through the levels trying to survive. But, you also will get a feeling of a one man army when you mow down the aliens in your path. The feeling all depends on how well you’re playing the game, so don’t give up and press forward to victory and glory.

Rendering Ranger: R2 also includes another game called Targa, which is actually the original version of Rendering Ranger, and it was more in line with games like Contra and other games of the genre. While the enemies still look pre-rendered and the designs look like they were probably used to just complete this version of the game, Targa still feels like a different experience and it comes with its own pros and cons. I’m sure there will be gamers who would prefer Targa over the more polished Rendering Ranger despite the improvements, especially people who are into classic games of early SNES. The big issue is the game doesn’t do a good job explaining the differences between the two. 

Another underwhelming issue about the game is the lack of music variety. The same song is played in every level despite something else happening, so after a while you get bored of it. After a while, I just started playing music while playing the game. A good game needs a variety of music to keep things fresh and exciting, such as an epic score when you start a boss fight. This game would be so much more enjoyable if it had different music playing during different situations to get you excited.

In conclusion, Rendering Ranger: R2 is a great classic game that brings you back to the feeling of how gaming used to be in the past. Despite the lack of music variety, tough difficulty, and sometimes unfair level design, this game is a fun experience for any gamer to enjoy.

Score: 7 out of 10

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch