June 2022 Shmup Club - Raiden (Summer of Raiden)

[Corkman]

 
  I'm not sure if I'll have time to play any more Raiden this month but here are my scores for the PS1 and Genesis versions (Genesis on the CRT in the pictures below). I used the red ship for both and played on Normal difficulty on both.

  I like both of these versions. PS1 seems to be really close to the arcade version. I tried the Arcade Achives version to compare and the only thing I noticed are the music and sound effects are a little different. The PS1 version does not have checkpoints like the Genesis version which is nice since you can get some serious Gradius syndrome on the Genny version. But, the PS1 version is definitely more difficult than the Genesis version with more enemies and faster bullets.

 I got to past midway of stage 3 in both versions. I think I really could go a lot farther in the Genesis version but one little mistake or an enemy sniping you really kills the run. I could see myself having that magical run. With PS1 version, I felt like I slowly lost resources as I progressed.

 I felt like this game in general can be annoying since there seems to be a little randomness to it. I don't know how to describe it other than that. Sometimes you lose a life on stage 1 when you know it like the back of your hand.

 I still really enjoy this game. I enjoyed when it was at my local pizza place back in the day. I would put in a quarter the handful of times I was there and before it got replaced by a Neo Geo cabinet with World Heroes and Samurai Showdown. Good to know I can still have fun with it and I'm sure I will in the future. The gameplay, the music, the explosions, the cows....keep me coming back.

[MetalFRO]

That could very well be, either the cart wasn't well seated, or you need to clean the pins or something.

[MetalFRO]

As we wind down the month, does anyone have any final thoughts about Raiden to share?

[Geriatric.Danmaku]

Raiden is 2 Old Skewl.   Bombs take a effect about  a half second after they are fired.   Sniper tanks take aim straight at you.   Baddies shoot you in the backside from behind.   All classic Shmup tropes.   But I've reached my limit for a while.   It's a been a few years since I've picked up Raiden Fighters.   Will it be as murderous?   Probably more!

[dtungsten]

Sorry, I don't have or make the time to do more in-depth takes on these, but MetalFRO really wanted my take as I have no memory of this game from back in the day. My first impression is that the landscape with the houses reminds me a little of Tiger-Heli, a game I do remember from back in the day. I noticed the floating back and forth power-ups that cycle through the options, which reminds me of Battle Squadron, as a game that did that too (I think Battle Squadron came late, though).  I am aware of it being in other games but can't remember which ones off the top of my head. The gameplay is solid and the graphics are nice and pretty to look at even today. I don't feel like any aspects are too derivative, nor do I know specifically what aspects were originally in this game and used in other places.  It's quite simple and straightforward compared to many later games with complex mechanics and scoring, but that's not a bad thing. Like most shooters, this game is difficult. The bombed out overpasses became a joke on stream because they vaguely resembled Chicago infrastructure, fortunately not in the bombed aspect. The PS1 version of the game plays great on the Mister and is probably the best version with the possible exception of the Arcade Archives version or a real arcade, neither of which I played this month. Shout out to MetalFRO for meeting me at Galloping Ghost during the Summer of Raiden even though we played Darius I and II together there.

Final Score: 10/10 cows.
SNES version: 0/10 no cows.

[FauxMacho]

I definitely warmed up to this game over the month.

The first level was getting quite dull when I wasn't improving much in Stage 2.

I found the bomb delay was just short enough to be tolerable. If I knew a certain bullet pattern was coming I could still use it for self-defense. Any longer and it would have been useless for anything except faster damage strategies against the stronger enemies and bosses.

I started as the red jet on the Japanese version and eventually moved over to blue jet on the international version. I like the international version more, which has instant spawns instead of restarting at checkpoints. It keeps the momentum up and runs feel more enjoyable to me. But! The fairy assist is more generous in the Japanese version.

My best score was 603,370 (International 2UP - as they say), which I think ended in stage 4. Happy to get above 500k which was the last PSN trophy I needed to get.

Excited to play more Raiden games and get a feel for the series as a whole.

As a sidenote, Limited Run recently announced a combo release of Raiden IV and V on the Switch, which is great because the Raiden V Switch release got pricey in the resale market. Though it's also on sale digitally for less than $10 right now.

[zoydo]

Here's my final score for the MD-Version (jp/easy):



Despite of checkpoint system, floating power ups, sniper tanks straight from Toaplan-Hell and a ship that always feels a tiny bit too slow for me, i can see why the original Raiden and the series as a whole is so popular.

It's not necessarily one of my favourite shmups but i love the soundtrack which is in my opinion still one of the best classic shmup soundtracks.