Raiden IV: Overkill shows up on Steam for release in Fall

[HydrogLox]

Pages 05-08 (4-5 of the PDF) in Steam\SteamApps\common\Raiden IV OverKill\Digital Extras\Secret File\Secret File.pdf show that MK-II damage values for the same weapons are always higher than the ME-02 ones. The MK-II being slower is the trade off. (For an easier read see RaidenIV_SecretFile.pdf.)

[awry]

Besides the slow speed, Fighting Thunder Mk-II also has a far worse bomb. Its effect is delayed and covers less of the screen.

[thetricker24]

so is the game full of glitch and unplayable for a guy like me who refuse to spend time trying to fix a v-sync of whatever issue after spending 15$ ?

[The Coop]

The game isn't full of glitches. It may not be arcade perfect, but it's a solid port of a rather good game.

The two big issues were the music not looping properly, and screen tearing. The music bug was fixed by someone in this very thread, and all you have to do is turn the v-sync on through your graphics card's control panel to fix the tearing when the game's full-screen (it should say "V-Sync On" or "Force V-Sync On" or something like that for that option in your card's control panel). It'll take you all of five minutes to replace the bgm files and turn on the v-sync.

[DKA_Darius]

Just to confirm the Fighting Thunder Mk-II can deal more damage than the Fighting Thunder ME-02 Kai? Also I notice the Fighting Thunder Mk-II moves slower than the Fighting Thunder ME-02 Kai? I guess if playing with the Fighting Thunder Mk-II try to use the Plasma Laser? I notice with the Fighting Thunder Mk-II the Blue Laser does serious damage.

More on the port itself I found that the bullets more slower in Arcade Mode than in Overkill mode.

Defintely, MK-II is easily to clear loop 2 than ME-II because of its powerful damage and stronger bombs, many fatal bullets can't be shotted and tanks are killed quickly when you use MK-II.

PROTON LASER is much more powerful than PLASMA LASER, both of them. One situation we can use this weapon, there are servial meteorites in the final part of last stage, using PROTON LASER can easily destory these meteorites as compare to other weapsons, 10.000pts for one meteorites!

[KNTain]

I briefly compared Overkill on Steam versus the Japanese Xbox 360 release. Both were Arcade mode, both set to Original difficulty.

Overkill gives the player more powerups when they die. Both have you drop two gems on first death, but on second death Overkill consistently gives the player three gems and a missile pickup, where the 360 release consistently gives the player two gems again.

Bullet speeds seem the same, or maybe slightly faster in Overkill judging by some frame-by-frame comparison (so I'm not sold on "slower bullets" yet).

There was a Raiden IV release for NesicaxLive in March 2012. I wonder if Overkill's Arcade Original differences reflect difficulty tweaks made for that version.

[Weak Boson]

This is a great game! Niggles with the port are just that. Feeling like I'm in the final furlongs of training for a "normal" aracade 1-ALL. It only just hit me that there are more stages to enjoy thanks to Overkill/additional mode!! If they're anything as awesome as stage 5 then I can't wait.

[ZellSF]

so is the game full of glitch and unplayable for a guy like me who refuse to spend time trying to fix a v-sync of whatever issue after spending 15$ ?

There's some really amateurish mistakes in the port, but nothing that severely hinders playability.

[Domino]

I feel in Overkill mode the bullet speed is faster than Arcade mode.

[GhostGK]

so is the game full of glitch and unplayable for a guy like me who refuse to spend time trying to fix a v-sync of whatever issue after spending 15$ ?

There's some really amateurish mistakes in the port, but nothing that severely hinders playability.

I guess I'll keep my hands of this port for now too.. At least until I've gotten a new PC..

Too bad, I was excited for it..
But, I guess I half-expected a bad port..

[The Coop]

It's not a bad port.

It had two main gripes (the music looping, and the V-Sync), and both of those have been addressed here. Other than them, it's all little issues about bullet speed or difficulty settings not being exact, and things like that. The game looks fine, it plays fine, and it has all the DLC that used to be sold separately with the original Raiden IV (the two extra ships). The game isn't a perfect port, but it's far from a bad port or a bad game.

Edit: Typos... yay!

[o.pwuaioc]

It's not a bad port.

It had two main gripes (the music looping, and the V-Sync), and both of those have been addressed here. Other than them, it's all little issues about bullet speed or difficulty settings not being exact, and things like that. The game looks fine, it plays fine, and it has all the DLC that used to be sold separately with the original [i}Raiden IV[/i] (the two extra ships). The game isn't a perfect port, but it's far from a bad port or a bad game.

Plus it means we who don't bother with newfangled consoles can play.

[GhostGK]

It's not a bad port.

It had two main gripes (the music looping, and the V-Sync), and both of those have been addressed here. Other than them, it's all little issues about bullet speed or difficulty settings not being exact, and things like that. The game looks fine, it plays fine, and it has all the DLC that used to be sold separately with the original [i}Raiden IV[/i] (the two extra ships). The game isn't a perfect port, but it's far from a bad port or a bad game.

Ohh.. I overlooked your post up there..
I never got the DLCs back then.. I think I'll get it after all..

[The Coop]

It's not a bad port.

It had two main gripes (the music looping, and the V-Sync), and both of those have been addressed here. Other than them, it's all little issues about bullet speed or difficulty settings not being exact, and things like that. The game looks fine, it plays fine, and it has all the DLC that used to be sold separately with the original Raiden IV (the two extra ships). The game isn't a perfect port, but it's far from a bad port or a bad game.

Ohh.. I overlooked your post up there..
I never got the DLCs back then.. I think I'll get it after all..

Just use the music fix that DKA_Darius posted on page 3, turn on the V-Sync in your graphics card's control panel if the screen has any tearing (not everyone's had it happen to them), and you'll be golden

[RHE]

This game is sooo much better than Raiden III. I have high hopes for Raiden V now.

So, what is the Overkill mode about?

[Observer]

Overkill seems to have two point items, small and big that appear out of enemies but I don't know why sometimes I trigger small ones and during others the big items spawn. I take it's because of how fast you kill things? The good thing is that these items are auto-collected.

Then there is the key mechanic "Overkill", which was also present in Ether Vapor: bigger enemies will linger in the air for several seconds before exploding and you have to keep shooting at them, filling a bar of five levels for an overkill bonus item. Problem with this mechanic is that you have to pick up the bloody item and you have to get up close and personal to fill the overkill bar. I just feel that doesn't fuse too well with fucking sniper tanks and little small planes quickly going to the bottom of the screen to fire a tiny little yellow bullet at your ass or firing the millisecond they enter the screen. Let's not even talk about the charge attack. You try not firing for a millisecond during the second loop to charge the attack and, well, good luck making it out alive. I'm sure there is a huge pattern I'm missing here, a certain rigid order of enemies that are worth going for the Lvl.5 overkill bonus and such. I'm getting Touhou 12 UFO nightmares all over, ugh.

tl;dr: you shoot down stuff fast, shoot big enemies even faster at melee range as they explode for more score, all while dodging heavy lead. Oh, and rescue all 20 fairies in the first bonus stage, destroy over 1,000 meteorites on the second bonus stage.

I've been getting my ass handed by those god damn sniper tanks and planes unless I'm using a maxed out Homing missile item to keep them at bay. And I'm playing this on Easy, how the hell is this considered "Easy"!?!? I must be getting really old and grumpy. Hand-eye coordination failing overall.

Frankly, having most of the achievements tied to Overkill ended pushing me to Arcade Mode, in which I'm having much more fun so far. I like that zen state of "look everywhere but where your ship is because omg bullets so fast". I may go back to Overkill mode soon but the whole "stick to a big enemy to fill up a bar" just feels restrictive as hell if I want to push scores.

The music in this game is fantastic, even though most of the songs are arranges of previous Raiden tunes. So glad they included the OST!

[awry]

Is melee range really necessary to get quicker overkills? Red weapon sure, but I thought the blue and purple weapons did the same damage no matter the range. I use blue and purple situationally, and pretty much never use red in overkill mode.

As for the sniper tanks and planes, I find that simply tapping in a direction constantly will avoid all of their bullets, allowing you to focus on the bigger enemies.

[Chaos Phoenixma]

You pretty much have to point blank with the spread to get a high overkill value. You won't get the max on everything though.

Raiden IV just isn't designed around that kind of score system. Overkill mode just doesn't really work out well.


Definitely feel free to do it in 1-1. it's quite doable there for most of the enemies. Even a little bit at times in 1-2. Anything past 1-2 and you're pretty much just inviting an enemy to just destroy you with a sniper shot from behind or close by. Maybe you could do the overkill stuff in 2-1/2-2 as well, but if you actually make it to the loop in Overkill Mode, I don't think you'd want to risk lives on that.


The game is still going to be mostly survival for score.


Overkill does get rid of most of the boss milking though. The charge shots give less points than they do in the other modes, so milking the bosses with them isn't as profitable as it would to speedkill them on Overkill. Even on the other modes, I don't think the milking is worth that much more than just going for a quick kill, but optimally, you'd be just attacking with charge shots in those since the 500 per missile would make up more points overall than you lose by not getting the high multiplier on boss kills.

[Obscura]

To be fair, it's not like Raiden IV has any mode that isn't garbage for scoring.

Honestly, the whole game seems really half-assed. The way the power-ups interfere with the charge missile mechanic (herp-de-derp, this powerup didn't spawn in the right color, so now you can't charge your missiles when you should because otherwise the powerup will be vacuumed to you at the wrong color!), the way that milking charge missiles contributes more to your score than using the flash-shot mechanic, the way that in Overkill mode your homing missiles home in targets that you've already killed instead of helping out with the hordes of snipers, the awful bullet-wobble... it's just very "thrown-together". I've barely spent 10 hours with it, haven't even seen the last stage, and I'm already pretty much tired of it; it just isn't very good.

"Raiden III < Raiden IV" is just another shmup farm meme with no basis in reality, much like "Psikyo games are more memo-heavy than Cave" or "DOJBL is significantly harder than the first loops of other Cave games released around the same time".

[Squire Grooktook]

I don't think Raiden IV is the greatest shmup in the world, but I'd take everything it does wrong over Raiden III's move speed any day of the week.

Agree that DOJBL is probably easier then most of the Cave shmups of the era. It probably would be harder if it weren't for hypers making it much easier to cheese through the last stage without learning it. Bomb Bomb Hyper Hyper Bomb Bomb Hyper Hyper (Hachi dead).

Psyikyo vs Cave memo...hmmm...

Having recently 1-alled Dragon Blaze, it's kind of hard to compare because of the different number of stages. I'd say most Cave games are pretty improv friendly (for survival) up until the final stage where you get walled for 10 minutes straight unless you know a route. DB's memo is simpler, but I find it becomes necessary from around stage 5 (of 7 stages), as there's a lot of gimmicks that leave you no mercy if you don't know what to do.

[o.pwuaioc]

Sometimes I feel as if I'm the only one who enjoyed Raiden III...

[The Coop]

I enjoyed Raiden III. Got a physical copy of the PC version off of Yesasia back when it was something like $10 with cheap shipping. I wouldn't put it in my top 10 shmups, but I don't regret the purchase at all.

[Tregard]

I've been ignoring this release due to not really getting on so well with Raiden III back on PS2. Does IV truly address that game's shortcomings? III felt so slow and lacking in personality.

[Obscura]

I don't think Raiden IV is the greatest shmup in the world, but I'd take everything it does wrong over Raiden III's move speed any day of the week.

Slow move speed is better than a move speed that, relative to on-screen bullets, randomly changes constantly depending on where you are on the screen and the whims of the level designer on that particular day.

Moving to avoid a bullet, and then dying because you only scrolled the background but didn't actually move your ship in relation to the bullet is the dumbest fucking thing ever.

@Tregard -- If you didn't like Raiden III, I'd sure as fuck stay away from IV. IV is like III with fully-retarded system design and the worst implementation of left-right scrolling ever in a vertical shmup.

[Squire Grooktook]

I noticed a little bullet wobble, but it didn't seem that bad.

[BPzeBanshee]

Didn't seem that noticeable to me either let alone bad. Bullets in screen space rather than background space has been a staple of every Raiden game from the beginning with the exception of Raiden III. This isn't Tyrian by a long shot.

[trap15]

Uh, no? None of the Raiden games have bullet wobble except for 4. I understand why 4 has it (hint: it's because 3D is hard), but it's pretty minimal that it doesn't really annoy me. It's not like it's a Dooyong game or anything. However, I do prefer 3 over 4.

[BPzeBanshee]

Well not "wobble" per se but I'm pretty confident they moved with the screen "view" rather than with the backgrounds in all of the games especially Raiden Fighters, just isn't nearly as noticeable. Some folks refer to that as wobble but rather they're just moving in screen-space co-ordinates. It's just noticable in IV because as you say, 3D rendering etc.

[Obscura]

Huh, now I'm curious -- are there any 3D verts (not counting 2D games done with 3D prerenders, like Crimzon Clover) other than RIV that have left/right scrolling?

I can't think of any, but the list of 3D verts I've spent any significant time with is only SnS (and I haven't played that seriously in years, so maybe it does left/right scroll and I just don't remember? I thought it didn't, though), RIII, and RIV.

[trap15]

Well not "wobble" per se but I'm pretty confident they moved with the screen "view" rather than with the backgrounds in all of the games especially Raiden Fighters, just isn't nearly as noticeable. Some folks refer to that as wobble but rather they're just moving in screen-space co-ordinates. It's just noticable in IV because as you say, 3D rendering etc.

No, definitely not. In the older Raiden games, player bullets move in screen space, everything else is world space. In RF everything is world space iirc.