Raiden

[SPM]

Congrats, pretty sure I'd hate the game even more if I could actually fucking clear it properly though. Raiden is such a twisted distortion of one of the already distorted Toaplan titles (Kyukyoku Tiger) that Hi Sho Zame is a very different kind of game in comparison.

Yeah, it may be more Kyuukyoku Tiger than it is Hishouzame, but they're close enough IMO (apart from length and accessibility).

You only like the latter out of the three? For me it goes Hisho > Raiden > Ktiger
(but I've just tried Raiden DX and it may blow all of them out of the water based on first impressions, we'll see)

[Despatche]

I utterly despise old Raiden. If it wasn't for Raiden Fighters and new Raiden, I'd want it all deleted from history.

[SPM]

Damn You should give them another go, they're fun! In this game in particular I'd highlight stages 3, 4 and 5, especially from halfway through stage 3 up to (but not including) the 5th boss.

[maximo310]

Arcade - Normal - 2P
maximo - 3,106,360 - 2-3 - Yes - MAME (US Set 1)

Replay

Came back to beat an old foe. Haven't done much practice with loop 2 yet, but a death without a P is extremely hard to come back from there.

[Despatche]

Congrats, updated. (I mean, I updated it earlier, but whatever.)

Think I'd better make some kind of official statement on the player sides. Raiden II just had a similar mechanic made more obvious to the public. I see no reason to do anything special there, because that's Raiden II and you'll need all the help you can get, and really it's not any different from Yagawa attract rank madness. Likewise, I do not see some pressing need to split by player side in Raiden here, as I imagine people will appreciate the freebie more than not. That being said, you may notice that I actually did split for Same! Same! Same! 2P versions, which have a very similar mechanic. To be completely honest with you, I'm not really sure why I did anymore. I am actually kinda hoping people really want me to split player side in Raiden for this reason. It'll make the boards look awful, but the boards already look awful, and nothing can really be done about that for this particular game without making separate threads for every conversion. Which I still want to do, to be totally honest.

Anyway, if people really want me to split by player side in Raiden, I'll do it. Alternatively, if people want me to merge player side in Same! Same! Same!, I'll do that too.

[atro_city]

I guess I'll post my arcade PB although it's not very good.

Arcade - Normal - 2P
937,640 - 1-6 - 2P - PCB (No Checkpoints)



This was a while ago but it's the first and only time I've made it to Stage 6.

[Steven]

This game is hard

Arcade - Normal
Steven - 432,150 - 1-3 - 2P - Yes - PS4 (ACA version 1.01. Rank change Off)

Spoiler

Apparently the starting rank changes depending on what the attract mode is displaying when you put your coin in. On ACA there is a setting that lets you change the starting rank from 1-4, presumably having something to do with this, but it also has an OFF setting, which it defaults to, although I'm not sure if it disables this entirely or it makes it behave like the PCB.

[Despatche]

Oh boy, more stupid bullshit hidden mechanics. Thanks Raiden. Fuck Raiden.

Thank you for detailing this. I'm gonna leave this alone... for now.

[Steven]

Oh yeah, I forgot that I was going to look into this. I think BIL checked the English ACA manual and although it did say something about it, it wasn't really useful. I can check the Japanese manual to see if it says anything more useful. Might as well check to see what the English one says while I am there.

Japanese ACA manual just says that the rank changes depending on when you put the credit in, and to try different timings. That's not very helpful. Too lazy to change my system language to English right now, but I think BIL said it basically says exactly the same thing but in English.

[atro_city]

Went to Japan and had the opportunity to play a real cabinet for the first time in almost 30 years (I just have the bare PCB at home). The responsiveness combined with the massive CRT was a great experience.

After some practice I finally broke new ground and got some ways into Stage 7 aka. sniper hell. This was on a machine with checkpoints enabled. It felt good to actually be able to start recovering from deaths and not just lose all my lives in succession.

1,214,910 - 1-7 - 2P - No autofire - PCB (checkpoints enabled)



On another note, I forget which attempt I did this on but I was finally able to recover once (without a fairy or P powerup) from the checkpoint of death (the one before the Stage 5 boss) that kills a good portion of my runs.

Despite the progress it feels like I'm approaching my skill cap with this game. Would love to get the 1CC someday but the harder I push, the further away it feels.

[Despatche]

So not only is it a dumb hidden mechanic, but also it's a mechanic with no obvious explanation as to how it works.

I just wanna say that I respect anyone who dares to sit down in front of this game with no autofire. I'm too weak for that.

[Flashman]

Raiden seems to be like Marmite, either love it or hate it - personally it’s one of my favourites, though at the same time one of the most frustrating experiences of my gaming life - a year or so ago I put a good 3 months in, playing almost exclusively, with an aim of getting the 1CC. I used the blue ship and auto fire…

… Suffice to say it’s not very fun, practising the same bosses 100 times+ and not getting the desired 1CC.

I did make it to the final boss once, on my last life and only half powered, suffice to say I promptly died. That was the closest I ever came and was never able to replicate that.

I’ve not really been playing for score (more survival - long ago got over trying to save bombs in stock for points etc) but may get back into it and try and post a score as just getting far on one credit gets you a better score than most, in this game.

One thing I’ve always wanted to know, never been able to figure out and no info seems to be available online:

What in the hell, causes the secret car which you can shoot for points on stage 2, to appear?!

I’ve been working on the theory it’s something like Tiger-Heli where it is dependent on your screen position, but I’ve pretty much flown all over the screen in the area just before the bridge and never triggered it. Some console versions of the game, it just always appears and I used to get it quite a lot on PS1 Raiden Project, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it on ACA and MAME.

[Steven]

I think I kind of don't really like this game very much.

Arcade - Normal
Steven - 787,630 - 1-4 - 2P - Yes - PS5 (ACA version 1.01. Rank change Off)

Spoiler

[atro_city]

One thing I’ve always wanted to know, never been able to figure out and no info seems to be available online:

What in the hell, causes the secret car which you can shoot for points on stage 2, to appear?!

I’ve been working on the theory it’s something like Tiger-Heli where it is dependent on your screen position, but I’ve pretty much flown all over the screen in the area just before the bridge and never triggered it. Some console versions of the game, it just always appears and I used to get it quite a lot on PS1 Raiden Project, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it on ACA and MAME.

I usually see it if I die and respawn at the checkpoint right before the car. Also saw it on a first pass on the arcade version before but it's very rare. I agree with you that the car is likely a reference to Tiger Heli's secret car (Raiden DX also had the hidden diamonds from Tiger Heli), but that one is actually based on how many shots you've fired upon reaching the car's spawn point. I don't think this is the case in Raiden because the rate you fire depends on how far you are up the screen, and I get the car pretty much every time when respawning at the checkpoint. Alternatively, it could also be that it tallies the shot count and determines the car spawn much earlier, right around the checkpoint starting point. If it does a loop counter like Tiger-Heli does in the M2 port, it could be checking for it to wrap back to zero, which is why it always appears when respawning at the checkpoint.

It could just be RNG though, and if it is, it apparently must be initialized to the same value when respawning at a checkpoint. The 1UP spawning in Stage 4 could also be working off this RNG, which if it is that's a real bummer. I'd love to be wrong on this.

Played again and got to the Stage 7 boss recently. I need to clean up my Stage 6 though, keep dying to the two big ships that come from behind.

[Arino]

I think I kind of don't really like this game very much.

One thing I’ve always wanted to know, never been able to figure out and no info seems to be available online:

What in the hell, causes the secret car which you can shoot for points on stage 2, to appear?!

I’ve been working on the theory it’s something like Tiger-Heli where it is dependent on your screen position, but I’ve pretty much flown all over the screen in the area just before the bridge and never triggered it. Some console versions of the game, it just always appears and I used to get it quite a lot on PS1 Raiden Project, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it on ACA and MAME.

I usually see it if I die and respawn at the checkpoint right before the car. Also saw it on a first pass on the arcade version before but it's very rare. I agree with you that the car is likely a reference to Tiger Heli's secret car (Raiden DX also had the hidden diamonds from Tiger Heli), but that one is actually based on how many shots you've fired upon reaching the car's spawn point. I don't think this is the case in Raiden because the rate you fire depends on how far you are up the screen, and I get the car pretty much every time when respawning at the checkpoint. Alternatively, it could also be that it tallies the shot count and determines the car spawn much earlier, right around the checkpoint starting point. If it does a loop counter like Tiger-Heli does in the M2 port, it could be checking for it to wrap back to zero, which is why it always appears when respawning at the checkpoint.

It could just be RNG though, and if it is, it apparently must be initialized to the same value when respawning at a checkpoint. The 1UP spawning in Stage 4 could also be working off this RNG, which if it is that's a real bummer. I'd love to be wrong on this.

Played again and got to the Stage 7 boss recently. I need to clean up my Stage 6 though, keep dying to the two big ships that come from behind.

I think I only ever saw it when dying before, too. Not sure if it's always the case but yeah I don't think I ever saw the car when not dying once before that part where the appears (if it does).

Score:

VERSION - DIFFICULTY
NAME - SCORE - STAGE - PLAYER SIDE - AUTOFIRE - DETAILS

PlayStation version (Raiden Project) - Normal (Colonel) difficulty
Arino - 3,081,350 - 2-2 - 2P - Yes - US version, played on real hardware/PSX

[Nguyen VinhLOC]

Currently reworking on the Arcade version since my old videos of Major 1cc has been lost... It was good though until I mistimed the bomb on stage 3 boss, could anyone show me how you time the bomb when he enters phase 2

[Nguyen VinhLOC]

By the way, watching saucykobold's NMNB loop 1 again in 2024 was still my inspirational

[Steven]

Arcade - Normal
Steven - 810,920 - 1-5 - 2P - Yes - PS5 (ACA version 1.01. Rank change Off)

Spoiler

I’ve been working on the theory it’s something like Tiger-Heli where it is dependent on your screen position

Tiger-Heli's has nothing to do with your position. It appears if the number of shots you have fired is a multiple of 16.

[Steven]

I'm not really playing this, except I kind of am. I don't even know anymore.

Arcade - Normal
Steven - 812,300 - 1-4 - 2P - Yes - PS5 (ACA version 1.01. Rank change Off)

https://i.imgur.com/OTHIPHA.png

[atro_city]

I'm not really playing this, except I kind of am. I don't even know anymore.

This has been my experience for the last few years. I play Raiden a handful of times before the salt really starts seeping in, then move on and come back to it every once in a while.

[Steven]

I'm not really playing this, except I kind of am. I don't even know anymore.

This has been my experience for the last few years. I play Raiden a handful of times before the salt really starts seeping in, then move on and come back to it every once in a while.

This game is so weird. I don't think it does anything better than Hishouzame, Kyuukyoku Tiger, or Same! Same! Same! at all except for maybe graphics. I know a lot of people probably hate Same! Same! Same! because of its insane bullet speed and difficulty, but Same! Same! Same! is also as cool as it is difficult and is an amazing game. I also like and enjoy the insanity and feel it adds to the game's greatness.

Raiden is just hard, and maybe not in a good way. I'm not even sure why I am kind of playing it other than to take a break from Same! Same! Same!, and even then I think Raiden is the more frustrating game, although it (probably) has aspects that I like. Maybe. The sound that the Vulcan makes also reminds me of a sprinkler that my mother had when I was a kid.

[jd213]

Got a no-death run on Hard on Genesis Raiden Trad, final score: jd213 - 2,342,550 ALL - 1P - Yes - arcade gfx hack on a homemade EEPROM cart, model 1 VA6 Genesis+CRT.


This took me a lot longer than I thought it would, probably could have 1CC'd 10 other Genesis shmups in the same timeframe, but I'm stubborn that way I guess. Seems that in my dozens of practice runs, I found a new way to keep messing up on a single stage that killed my chance of recovery.

I doubt my score is very good compared to some runs on YouTube, especially the no-bomb run (don't think I'll ever try that myself).

Of course the damn stage 2 car didn't bother showing up this run, it seems to only show up like 1 out of 10 times, not sure if there's a reliable way to trigger it. I didn't bother farming for points anywhere, and I forgot to get the stage 4 fairy. Ah well.

edit: Don't think the arcadegfx hack has any gameplay differences, but there might be slightly more slowdown in some parts. I also have a region switch in my Genesis and it was set to JP, but again I don't think this affects gameplay, unlike game like Same! Same! Same!.