“The power of an air force is terrific, when there is nothing to oppose it”
-Winston Churchill
The ’80s arcade scene saw plenty of vertical scrolling shooters. We’d seen Namco’s Xevious, Konami’s TwinBee, and a host of Capcom cabinets (1942, 1943, Vulgus, Exed Exes, etc). The mid-90s bullet hells we would come to know and love/hate had not quite emerged. There the shmup fans sat at the end of 1990, ready for something more. Enter Raiden (pronounced ‘Rye-den’, please).
A mere 30 years and change later, and the Switch’s catalog of ‘Arcade Archives’ games has been expanded to include this tricenarian arcade classic. Japanese publisher Hamster Corporation, specializing in repackaging retro arcade games on modern consoles, has now given us a pixel-perfect return to the first Raiden.
Originally developed by Seibu Kaihatsu and published by Tecmo, this new vertical-scrolling shmup helped transition the genre into its next evolutionary phase. Graphics and sound saw an upgrade, and new gameplay elements were introduced. Raiden didn’t reinvent the genre or fully usher in the bullet hell era of shmups, but it did bridge the gap in some ways. It also became the grandfather of an entire family of sequels, spin-offs, and multi-platform releases under the ‘Raiden’ header.
IT’S ALL ABOUT THE CRYSTALS
If you do a little internet sleuthing, you’ll learn that the entire Raiden series is based on the invasion of alien creatures known as ‘The Crystals’. In 2090, these aliens had seized control of most of Earth’s military equipment, and so the world’s last hope is realized in the experimental fighter-bomber ‘Fighting Thunder’. There’s more to be learned about the Crystals in later games, but there’s your impetus for rocketing onto the battlefield with a heavily armed high-tech jet.
TWO IS BETTER THAN ONE
What’s better than one heavily armed high-tech jet? Two of course. In addition to the standard red ‘Fighting Thunder’, there is also a blue twin, allowing for two-player co-op. This in its own right is not unique to shmups, but how these two jets interact with each other is (more on this later). The theme of twos also shows up elsewhere. There are two types of main weapon power-ups, two secondary weapon power-ups, and even two bosses in the first stage.
KEEP IT SIMPLE, STUPID
Raiden keeps its power-up system and gameplay elements basic. You get two, near polar-opposite choices. Either power up your primary shot with the Vulcan Cannon (a wide-ranging spread shot) or the focused Lightning Laser. As you’d expect, the Vulcan Cannon gives you areal reach, at the expense of high damage, while the laser lays down heavy damage at the expense of coverage. Your secondary weapons are treated similarly, weaker homing missiles or hard-hitting high explosive unguided rockets. You also carry several small-yield tactical nuke bombs that can also be dropped to clear larger groups of enemies and bullets or put serious damage on bosses.
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST
Knowing the rules of Raiden is not enough to have success. Not by a long shot. Difficulty ramps quickly, and by the late levels, you could arguably say you’re in a proto-bullet hell. To survive you must be as fit as possible. That means maintaining your powered-up state to its highest level as long as you can. Like many precursory shoot ‘em ups to Raiden (looking in your direction Gradius series), death after being significantly powered up can essentially halt all progress. Indeed, on the final level, it feels like nothing short of being fully powered up will get you through. Mercifully, Raiden has a checkpointing system and allows for unlimited continues.
CALM LIKE A BOMB
Striking a balance between fun and challenge is a tricky thing. I’m still trying to determine exactly where Raiden sits for me. There are moments of extreme frustration. Missing that one tank or fighter that snipes you from the edge of the screen, unloading your bomb a half second too late, or grabbing the wrong type of power-up can all have you shouting expletives. Then there are zen-like moments where you’ve got the enemy patterns memorized and you can play clean all the way through a level. There’s just enough of the latter that makes me want to keep getting better.
THE 8-BIT REVIEW
Visuals: 6/10
The sprite art is pleasing albeit small (with exception of bosses), and the military hardware appears to have good detail for the scale of everything. Your Fighting Thunder jet looks great, as do the bombastic orange-yellow-red explosion effects. Backgrounds are standard fare, nothing too dramatic stands out, though some stages have parallax scrolling effects to add to the sense of altitude.
Audio: 6/10
The soundtrack here is better than you might expect. There’s a number of solid compositions worth a listen on their own. Stages 1 and 4 have a particularly driving little chiptune (“Gallantry”) that will have your head bobbing. The boss encounter music puts you on edge, while stages 3 and 6 offer a terrific haunting, trance-like tune (“Rough and Tumble”). Most sound effects are only mildly effective, but the bomb and other large explosion sound effects are entirely satisfying.
Gameplay: 7/10
In terms of gameplay, what’s been described so far may sound pretty run-of-the-mill for a shmup. But there are a few little twists Raiden throws in that are unique to how this game plays. It should be said that to get the most out of this game it needs to be played with two players. Aside from the obvious (double the firepower), the better reason is that while the two jets are circling around the screen, should your jet get in the path of your partner’s shots, you absorb their fire and spray out an entirely new shot (green spiky crystals?) that do heavy damage. It’s truly cool and effective, but can only be used when playing with a partner.
The use of the bomb (a fairly new feature in 1990) adds a strategic element to success. It is not a screen clearing, wipe-the-slate-clean feature and there is a delay in the time from dropping the bomb and the explosion. So you have to be precise in both where and when you use it. Learning to pick your spots and getting the timing down will take some time.
A final note here, Fighting Thunder may pack the firepower, but it is not nimble. It is responsive and the hitbox seems very fair. But you’ll be cursing your jet for being slower than many enemies and all bullets. This creates the need to anticipate your positioning at all times. Being reactionary is not enough. Luckily, enemy patterns are consistent, and as you play more, you’ll learn where to be and when.
Accessibility: 7/10
Like most shmups, Raiden is easy to play, tough to master. Controls are simple. Objectives straight forward. Anyone can dive right in, figure out the power up system, enjoy shooting down some stuff. Then you’ll tap out to some tank that rolled up to your right from under a tree.
Uniqueness: 5/10
Futuristic plane takes on mechanized alien hordes. Nothing too new here. But points are given for the aforementioned gameplay elements. And did I mention that when you do die, your ship explodes into fiery shrapnel, which severely damages all enemies within its radius. That’s pretty unique, no?
Challenge: 7/10
Raiden is not easy. And at times it’s barely fair. Largely because a single death of your sluggish, powered -p fighter makes it extremely difficult to recover. The crowded screen will continue to fill up as your replacement fighter appears. Now you’re stripped of power-ups, quickly overwhelmed, and dead again soon enough. Your only path forward is learning enemy patterns and keeping yourself powered-up as long as possible. Good luck.
Replayability: 7/10
Because of the need to preserve your jet at its powered-up state as long as possible, there is high repeat play factor here. You’ll want to learn the levels, anticipate where you need to position ‘fighter-that-handles-like-a-bomber’ to pre-emptively eliminate enemies before too many bullets fill in your purview. And Arcade Archives standard packaging means access to their online ranked ‘Hi Score’ (highest score achieved in one credit) and ‘Caravan’ modes (highest score achieved in 5 minutes), giving competitive reasons to keep playing.
Personal: 7/10
I remember dropping quarters into Raiden at a number of places throughout the ’90s. I always stunk. Never made it much past the first level. Now as an adult, I understand the game mechanics better, and it improves the experience. I didn’t manage get past the final stage (yet), as the checkpointing has done me in so far.
Despite the some of the issues I have with this game, it never feels like you can’t do a little better the next run. I look forward to playing this more in two-player co-op mode where Raiden really shines and the difficulty can be tamed.
Aggregated Score: 6.5
J-Torto has been a gamer since 1982, when got his start begging for quarters from his parents at a hotel pool game room. Racing games are in his blood and shmups are etched on his soul. Find him @JTorto40 on Twitter.
