The gameplay is structured as a typical mission-based tactical role-playing game, but retains many of the specific traits of the R-Type series.

The game's narrative is viewed from the perspective of the player-character, who's an officer in Earth's defense forces, called the Space Corps, in the year MC 0065.

In the initial single-player campaign, the player is freshly commissioned into the Space Corps, which is steadily losing engagements against an alien race called the Bydo.

Through a warp-gate station outside Pluto, the player's fleet travels through a hyperspace warp called the Tesseract to the Bydo's star system.

In the final battle located in the Bydo homeworld, the player encounters remains of Space Corps ships that were defeated in previous campaigns.

Pre-orders for the North American version of the game featured a small black pre-painted gashapon model of the R-9A Arrowhead fighter which required some assembly.

[2] Toy manufacturer A-Label also released standard and black versions of the R-9A Arrowhead as part of its "Madou Gokin" line.

[3] At the high end, Destructoid said that the learning curve is not that steep and the various R-Type homages are a plus, while the loss of a reconnaissance unit could make or break the game.

[5] GameSpot's review contributed to the game offering a chance to play massive fleets but the loading times and the repetitive cutscenes were a drag.

[8] A sequel, R-Type Tactics II: Operation Bitter Chocolate, was released for the PSP and PSPgo on December 10, 2009 in Japan in both retail and download forms.