Games Raiden IV, Raiden III, Viper Phase 1, The Raiden Project, Raiden DX | ||
Raiden (雷電, Raiden) is a scrolling shooter and a series of arcade games by Seibu Kaihatsu initially available in arcades in Japan and later distributed to other countries by Fabtek and other arcade game manufacturers.
Contents
The game that began the franchise was Raiden, which has been 26 months at the top 10 in the charts. It was ported for the PlayStation as The Raiden Project, and other ports, including Amiga, Atari Jaguar, TurboGrafx-16 (in HuCard and Super CD-ROM² format, the latter version titled Super Raiden), Atari Lynx, Super NES, PC, Mega Drive/Genesis and mobile phones.
Seibu Kaihatsu developed the Raiden games and its related spin-offs from 1990 until 1998. The license of Raiden was later purchased by MOSS. Since 2005, all Raiden games have been on various Taito boards (Taito Type X).
Overview
In each installment, there is a threat to humanity posed by the invasion of Earth by an alien race known as the Cranassians. In the wake of the Cranassian invasion, the World Alliance Military must launch a daring counter-attack with their powerful weapon, a Raiden supersonic attack fighter, for the future of humanity. In most of the Raiden games, the Cranassians have a red crystal that holds many powers and is the final boss. The first two Raiden installments had eight stages, and if all stages are completed, a mission clear bonus is given and the players will start another mission. The third installment has seven stages and no new mission.
Its distinguishing feature was the simultaneous double player mode where one player can play like two players at the same time. Players can get high scores by quickly destroying the enemy which appears, with the new flash shot system. But this feature is not new to the Raiden series release-wise, as a slightly different version of this scoring mechanic was introduced in the Raiden Fighters spinoff.
Main series
The first three Raiden games were published by Seibu Kaihatsu and sent to distributors for specific countries such as Fabtek (US), The Metrotainment Network (Asia), and Tuning Electronic (Germany). After more than a decade, the original series was revived and licensed by MOSS and published by Taito.
Spinoffs
Viper Phase 1 originally had an exhaustible secondary weapon system (indicated by a bar meter). A "new" version of Viper Phase 1 modified the weapons system to be more similar to that of the Raiden games.
The Raiden Fighters games inadvertently became associated with the Raiden series. The first Raiden Fighters game was originally a completely unrelated game with the name Gun Dogs during development. Seibu Kaihatsu changed its name to Raiden Fighters due to market tests of the game performing better in the public with the Raiden name.