Raiden Fighters Aces Game Sample - Xbox 360
Let's go nuts!! You know, I've never seen Arcade machines at a rave before, but if they did have some out there, I'd imagine they'd have the usual dance games. You know, stuff like Dance Dance Revolution (DDR), BeatMania, Dancerush Stardom, Pop'n Music, maybe some Taiko, Pump It Up!, some DJ Max, definitely some Raiden Fighters... I'd be all for it! Bring on all those raver games and let's get crazy!
I think Raiden Fighters was made by accident back in the mid-late 90s. The legends over at Seibu Kaihatsu who blessed the world with the original "Raiden" series of shmups must've gotten together in a conference room one day and talked about how talented the Arcade shmup competition was getting at that time and they had some big shoes to fill to stay near the top of the Arcade shooter food chain, but the resulting stress was too much for them and they pooled all their manic energy into the Raiden Fighters series. If Raiden was a pizza from Naples, Italy, then Fighters would be a delectable thin crust from upstate New York -- they're both good in their own ways, but one pays respect to the other while trying to be bigger and better in every way.
I'll let y'all decide which is doing what, but one thing is certain: Valcon Games and Success have done a great service by releasing all three RF titles in this one banger of a compilation in the U.S. and Gulti has done a terrific job adapting it from the Arcade release with a nearly flawless 1:1 conversion. However, I've been doing some research and it seems my PAL friends across the way never got this game even though sites are listing it as released... it seems like there was a huge debacle in terms of the rights, publishing and submission process which caused the game to fall into limbo and eventually be cancelled after YEARS??? I've spent some time looking into this because I was quite intrigued by the circumstances (something similar happened to me back when I pre-ordered the "Phantom Breaker Special Edition" which was cancelled by 7sixty) and if it's indeed true, that is massively unfortunate, cursed, and you have my condolences.
Raiden Fighter Aces is a collection of "Raiden Fighters", "Raiden Fighters 2: Operation Hell Dive" and "Raiden Fighters Jet". In theory, they are very short games. In actuality, they are highly variable with many difficulty settings and score chasers will spend many hours trying to perfect their runs, find the fairies, and uncover the myriad secrets and true final bosses. Raiden has a reputation of being one of the more challenging shmups out there and RF are challenging as heck even on the lower difficulties and will show no mercy on the higher difficulties as bullets will fly at insane speeds giving you a fraction of a fraction of a second to react. Get used to not blinking if you wanna git guud at these games. What separates RF from the original Raiden titles is just how much they tried to cram into the action. Whereas the original Raiden had only a few ships, Fighters has a bunch with their own stats and their missile and laser upgrades react differently for each one which results in some really wild action. You also get slave ships (companions) who act as options as well as shields from minor fire and charge attacks by holding down the shot button (which can be upgraded to Hybrid Charge Attacks in RF2/RFJ with two players, not all ships have charge attacks). Lastly, you have bomb lobbing, fairies, X-Medals, and various other secrets waiting to be found.
The game features the same gorgeous 2D sprite animations you'd come to expect from SK shooters and all the games feature intense, fast-paced techno dance music that you'll either love or hate (I know it gets MY blood pumping). The package also has many configurable options so you can tailor the game exactly how you want from the screen size and orientation (with Tate being an option for monitors that provide it or if you have an odd screen outside the typical 4:3 or 16:9 ratio) to difficulty, stage order, filtering (bilinear, bicubic, lancos), storage device and even promotional title logos (you can set them to the game's original name, GUN HOUNDS, as RF was technically not a sequel to Raiden and changed at the last minute due to name recognition drawing more money). All it needed was some more banners and a cool ship art gallery. If you're a true shmup fan, this collection is definitely for you, and even casual shmup fans will get some fun out of it. It retailed for only $20 but has gone up due to limited availability and to this day, the games are not perfectly emulated in MAME.
This is a simple video showing each of the three games, then with the attract modes coming after and finally ending with the credits -- we need to be more aware of who makes the games we enjoy and play, right? Enjoy.
ADDITION -
Like Us On Facebook: / thegamingsanctuary
Follow Us On Twitter: / gs_vyse_and_bel
Visit Us At: http://www.gamingsanctuary.com