As a common looser I'd also say, cool game. But in neglecting the Force, Irem's finest tossed themselves into the realms of an incredibly broad competition of other STG's. Granted, the expansion of the options is most welcome, but ultimately not nearly as original as the mighty Force. It reminds me of Last Resort's "Unit Shot", just applied to the ship's sidekicks. The problem is that, despite of being two of them in number, as opposed to LR's single Unit, they behave exactly the same when thrown onto enemies, i.e. not moving in different directions individually.
It's a very good game, but one that should have been done outside of the R-Type series, much like X-Multiply & Armed Police Unit Gallop. The true R-Type Leo is Pulstar.