August 2018 Shmup Club - Raiden V

[MetalFRO]

Finally getting a chance to start playing after a couple of crazy hectic weeks. So far my high is only about 4.4 million so I got a ways to go. Is there any way to switch between weapons other than the diamonds? While powerful, I feel like I'm defenseless when I have the blue weapon (after looking at Pam's comment, I may not be the only one.

So far it seems like a well made game overall, and I love the music soundtrack.

Glad to hear you've jumped in, and are enjoying it so far. 4.4 million is nothing to sneeze at, considering you have to at least reach a decent amount into Stage 2 to see that kind of score. The Raiden series has never had a mechanic to switch weapons via a button input, and it's only by using the weapon icons. However, I believe that V may be the first in the series where the 3 weapon types upgrade independently of one another, though I could be remembering that incorrectly about IV. I'd have to go back and play it to make sure. As for the blue weapon, try the center blue laser. As I mentioned, if you let up on the fire button for a brief period, you charge up a monster version of it that cuts a wide swath, and is great for taking out weapon drop ships, those pesky ships that fire the 2 streams of bullets at you, and for whittling away at bosses more quickly. It's also great for taking out enemy waves, if you can time it right.

I just continued to see all the stages - haven't focused much on score. Mission 1 ends at Stage 6. You can see it all on the stage select. There must be some minimum grade to earn to pass into the later levels.

Makes sense. I'd be curious to know how far you're getting on a single credit. And yes, it looks like Mission 2 comes after Stage 7. I'm not sure how I did it in my first play through, but I'm sure I played all 8 stages, and I was credit feeding. I haven't been able to find anything concrete, in terms of how to ensure that Mission 2 comes up. Not sure if it's getting a certain rank in Mission 1, or achieving a minimum rank in the subsequent stages.

[EZ Racer]

I think my goal is going to be to try to break 10 million. Getting closer.

[MetalFRO]

Very nice! How far into the game have you reached? And what weapon load-out having you been using?

[EZ Racer]

I can make it to the Stage 2 boss with some degree of consistency, and a few times into Stage 3. I don't know about anyone else, but I like the Homing Plasma weapon the best, and occassionally I'll use the Swing Vulcan as well.

[MetalFRO]

Anyone still working on Raiden V? I wanted to share a 1CC run that Addicted brought to my attention, so if anyone wanted some additional strategy, this is a good approach to the game:



Maxing out all 3 weapon types is necessary to trigger the "TLB" or True Last Boss of the game, similar to completing both loops in the DoDonPachi series being necessary to get to the true last boss of most of those games in the series, Hibachi. This is an impressive run, and definitely worth a watch, despite being a bit long.

[Golem]

I was practicing stage 3 (the boss' blue bullets are impossible), but then life happened. Raiden V is a huge game, I'll be glad to move on to Warning Forever. :b

[MetalFRO]

I found the best way to avoid the blue bullets is to either drop a bomb, or trigger the Cheer Attack at the moment the boss spawns those, so you can eliminate them. They're not impossible, but certainly you absolutely have to find the safe spot at the bottom of the screen, and micro dodge a bit to avoid them. I haven't had much luck with that, either, so when I reach the Stage 3 boss, I've often found myself expending my entire bomb stock to get through it. That's kind of my roadblock right now, though I did make a bit of progress last night, and actually got through the boss okay, mostly dodging its incoming fire.

[Square_Air]

I was planning on powering through Raiden V in the last week of august, but my video card decided to give up on me. I was hoping I would have another before the month ended so I could at least put in a bit of time, but now it seems like that's not going to happen.

Hopefully things go smoothly enough so I can actually participate sometime soon.

[MetalFRO]

Wow, sorry to hear about your video card. That's a bummer, and I hope you can get that sorted out. I guess the bright side is, Warning Forever requires almost no specs to run, so if you had another machine to run it on, a laptop, or even an older video card to use in the meantime, and still wanted to participate, that could be an option. Good luck in getting your video card issue remediated!

[EZ Racer]

Made my goal!

[MetalFRO]

10 million points, very nice! That’s no easy feat, great job! I’ve sadly capped out at 16 million for now.