Just as with any shooter, the story merely serves as an excuse to destroy every other creature in sight. R-Type Delta does not exist to provide a powerful, touching tale, but rather to offer fast, challenging, adrenaline-pumping gameplay, and here R-Type Delta succeeds marvelously. Each of the seven stages throws plenty of relentless enemies and tricky level layouts to simultaneously frustrate and delight the player. The frustration arises simply because R-Type Delta, like any of the older R-Types, presents some of the most challenge gameplay of any shooter, or indeed, any game category. Luckily, the great challenge does not result from the game being cheap, as is the case in so many other games. Instead, the as the player's skill gradually improves, the satisfaction in defeating a group of enemies or one of the game's many mid- or end-level bosses increases as well. The result is a difficult, rewarding game, a paragon of a quality shooter.

R-Type Delta, like the previous R-Type games, differentiates itself from other shooters by requiring a bit more strategy than most do. Whereas most other games depend wholly on quick reflexes, or sometimes fast weapon-swapping, R-Type Delta demands that the player plan ahead for a given section within a stage. The game's central power-up, a pod known as the FORCE, acts both as a minor weapons power-up as well as a shield. The player can attach the pod to the back of the ship and concentrate solely on the enemies flying in from the front, or to the front of the ship and with a second weapon power-up, greatly enhance the ship's overall firepower. Additionally, the player can let the pod simply fly by itself and destroy enemies on its while the main ship attacks other menacing creatures. Generally, one configuration works best within a given area.

Although the pod alone greatly increases the ship's power, the three real power-ups, a ribbon laser, a reflecting laser and a fire shot, turn the ship into a powerful, deadly machine. Additionally, the player can upgrade the weapons' levels, as well as collect other items such as missiles and shields for the ship's top and bottom. Like the FORCE configuration, a given stage section is generally easier with one of the weapons than with the two others. Unfortunately, herein lies R-Type Delta's greatest weakness. Although the weapons system and gameplay are great fun, they're almost identical to that of earlier R-Type games. Although the system still feels superior to that of many other shooters, longtime R-Type fans might crave something slightly different after all these years.

Most shooters use the high challenge level to make up for their relatively limited replay value. Although R-Type Delta lacks multiple stage paths or extra play modes, it does compensate to an extent with the choice of three different ships to use. The weapons act quite differently for each of the ships, which helps to add another element of strategy.

While the overall power-up system remains almost unchanged from earlier versions, R-Type Delta's graphics truly do look new and highly improved and are in fact the game's largest "delta." The sprite-based graphics are gone, replaced with colorful, sharp-looking polygonal enemies and backgrounds. The game throws plenty of enemies at the ship simultaneously with limited-to-no slowdown. Still, even with the 3D graphics, the gameplay remains as 2D as ever, which in the case of an R-Type game is not necessarily negative. The improved, hi-tech soundtrack enhances the game's overall presentation as well.