Raiden (arcade game)

Raiden (雷電, Raiden^?) is a 1990 scrolling shooter arcade game that was developed by Seibu Kaihatsu. It was the first game in the popular Raiden series of scrolling shooter arcade games.

Raiden first made its debut in September 1990. The game was distributed in Japan by Tecmo, North America by Fabtek, Taiwan by Liang HWA Electronics, Korea by IBL Corporation, Hong Kong by Wah Yan Electronics, Malaysia as well as other countries.

The title in Japanese translates to "Thunder And Lightning". Rai means thunder, and den means lightning. The closest English approximation of the pronunciation is /RHY-den/, not /RAY-den/. "Raiden" is the name of a Japanese WWII Fighter

Story

In the year 2090, Earth has suddenly become the target of deranged aliens known as the Cranassians. Following the invasion, the World Alliance Military builds a new cutting-edge weapon, the Raiden Supersonic Attack Fighter. Based on a captured alien craft, it is humanity's only hope for survival.

Gameplay

The formula of the game is simple and typical for the era of this game. The player pilots the "Raiden Supersonic Attack Fighter" through waves of enemies, and several levels. There are three types of weapons, and the player can collect several powerups for them to make them stronger. There are bombs and missile powerups as well as collectable medals which add to the score.

Fighter

Raiden fighter always starts with vulcan main weapon.

When player dies, the fighter drops items, based on the former fighter's weapon powers.

Weapons

• Main weapon. There are 8 weapon levels:

• Vulcan: Fires wide formation shots (max 7 directions).
• Laser: Fires forward-concentrating shots.

• Sub weapon. There are 4 weapon levels:

• Homing Missile: Fires enemy chasing missiles.
• Nuclear Missile: Fires forward-concentrating missiles. When it hits an enemy, the blast persists for a short period.

• Bomb: Destroys bullets on screen, and damages enemies in the blast area. There is a moment of delay between pressing bomb button and explosion.

When a player's fighter shoots the other player's fighter, the attacker's projectiles transform into 'stars' that radiates from the attacked fighter.

When player dies, the fighter's fragments become projectiles that damage enemies.

Items

• Red icon: Switches main weapon type to vulcan main shot. If the fighter already uses the weapon, the weapon power level is increased by 1, or gets 5000 points if weapon power is already full.
• Blue icon: Switches main weapon type to laser main shot. If the fighter already uses the weapon, the weapon power level is increased by 1, or gets 5000 points if weapon power is already full.
• H: Switches sub-weapon type to homing missile. If the fighter already uses the weapon, the weapon power level is increased by 1, or gets 5000 points if weapon power is already full.
• M: Switches sub-weapon type to nuclear missile. If the fighter already uses the weapon, the weapon power level is increased by 1, or gets 5000 points if weapon power is already full.
• 1UP: Increases life stock by 1.
• P: Maximizes both main shot and sub shot levels, assuming the fighter has the weapon type. If both shot type powers are already full, players gets 10000 points.
• B: Increases bomb stock by 1. If player already has 7 bombs, player gets 5000 points.
• Medal: Increases score by 300.
• Miclus: Increases score by 3000.
• Fairy: Increases score by 10000.

Stages

There are 8 stages in the game.

When continuing after all players are dead, player resumes from a predefined check point.

At the end of each stage, player gains stage bonus equals to the number of medals gained in a stage with current life, multiplied by number of bombs player possesses, multiplied by a 1000. If medal or bomb stock is 0, the count is equal to 1 for each affected field for scoring purposes.

After defeating the Stage 8 boss, the mission is completed, and player receives 1 million points for each completed loop. Afterwards, it will start back to Stage 1. This time around, enemies shoot faster and at a more rapid rate.

Ports

Raiden was ported to the FM Towns Marty, PC Engine, Mega Drive (Raiden Densetsu), Nintendo Super Famicom (Raiden Densetsu), Super NES (Raiden Trad), Atari Jaguar, PlayStation as The Raiden Project, Atari Lynx, Amiga, MS-DOS, and the mobile phone. The MS-DOS port was coded by Nigel 'Freddy' Conroy, Steve Cullen and Martin Randall, and was spearheaded by Martin Hooley. The original Raiden (not the Raiden Project) is available as a download from the Japanese PlayStation Network store. The downloadable version can be played on the PlayStation 3 console or PlayStation Portable. There also exist port of game for Atari Falcon made by Imagitec Design.

Raiden Trad

Raiden Trad is a spin-off of the original game for Super NES, Sega Genesis and FM Towns.

The Super NES version includes the following changes:

• Player always continue from the place where last player died.
• After dying, a fairy appears in the middle of screen to drop a main weapon, a sub weapon, and a bomb, instead of dead fighter dropping items.
• Main shot only has 7 power levels. In case of vulcan, it only fires 5 ways at highest level.
• Player can carry maximum 9 bombs.
• Limited number of continues.
• Auto-fire option.
• At lowest homing missile level 4 missiles are fired instead of 2.
• When bomb explodes, it hits every enemy on-screen, including enemy outside blast range.
• After all bosses in a stage are destroyed, player's fighter are forced to move to centre of screen, which may cause remaining enemy bullets to hit the fighter.
• Mid-size gunship that flown off the bottom of screen does not fly back up.
• Enemy fires fewer bullets, and has lower life points.
• The locations of medals are changed.
• Redesigned stage 6, which eliminates land terrains.
• The stage 6 boss becomes a recycled stage 2 boss, now named Flying Fox Mk-II.
• Stage 7 boss already has pre-attached side turrets.
• Redesigned stage 8 boss, which is now a stationary boss.
• If the stage clear bonus exceeds 65535 points, the actual gained score is the remainder of the score divided by 65536.
• Stage 0 is now called stage 8.
• After completing stage 8, the game ends with surviving fighter(s) landing on damaged mother ship, with ending messages and credit.
• Player cannot enter names in high score table.

The Genesis version is closer to the arcade game, but includes the following changes:

• Laser and nuclear missile are weaker.
• Sound samples (especially explosions) are less loud.
• After completing stage 8, a special stage 1 is added.

Soundtracks

Raiden/Raiden II soundtrack was published by INH CO.,LTD. It includes soundtracks from Raiden (arcade, PlayStation), Raiden II (arcade, PlayStation), Raiden DX (arcade), Raiden Densetsu (FM Towns); booklet; Go Sato liner note; gallery.

Legacy

Based on the success of the first Raiden game, several sequels and related games were made.

Main series

• Raiden II (1993)
• Raiden DX (1994)
• Raiden III (2005) - developed by MOSS Ltd
• Raiden IV (2007)

Spinoffs

• Viper Phase 1 (1995) - A spin-off of the "Raiden" series.
• Raiden Fighters (1996)
• Raiden Fighters 2: Operation Hell Dive (1997)
  • Raiden Fighters 2: 2000 Operation Hell Dive (2000) - A version with little changes
• Raiden Fighters Jet (1998)

External links

• Hamster page
• Raiden at the Killer List of Videogames
• Raiden at MobyGames
• Raiden Strategy Guide (TurboGrafx-16) at TurboPlay Magazine Archives
• Raiden guide at StrategyWiki
• INH soundtrack page