Raiden Legacy -- New iOS/Android Collection from DotEMU

[njiska]

Collection Contains:
- Raiden
- Raiden Fighters
- Raiden Fighters II
- Raiden Fighters Jet

So I woke up this morning to find the following Press Release in my inbox. Doesn't say a whole lot else, but it looks like a nice Raiden collection is on the way to mobiles later this year. No idea how well touch controls will work with a Seibu game. Especially one where grazing is important.

RAIDEN LEGACY - coming this fall for iPhone & Android! Four classic shooters in one awesome application!

Paris, France – August, 17th 2012 – DotEmu, developer and publisher specializing in modern releases of beloved retro games, announces the impending release of RAIDEN LEGACY on iPhone/iPad and Android. This one-of-a-kind pack includes the extremely popular shoot ’em up RAIDEN, along with three other thrilling series installments: RAIDEN FIGHTERS, RAIDEN FIGHTERS II and RAIDEN FIGHTERS JET.

Raiden devotees will well remember the storyline: an invasion of Earth by an alien race known as the Cranassians threatens humanity’s very existence. To repel the onslaught, the World Alliance Military launches a daring counter-attack with a powerful new weapon: Raiden, a supersonic attack fighter. The Cranassians are closing in as you take the controls. It’s up to you to utilize Raiden’s powerful weaponry against waves of enemy ships, and save the human race!

This fall, play RAIDEN, RAIDEN FIGHTERS, RAIDEN FIGHTERS II and RAIDEN FIGHTERS JET in RAIDEN LEGACY. Defend the Earth and become a legend!
For more information, visit the Raiden Games’ official Facebook page for breaking news and cool surprises!

RAIDEN, RAIDEN FIGHTERS, RAIDEN FIGHTERS II and RAIDEN FIGHTERS JET © SEIBU KAIHATSU

About DotEmu:
DotEmu, a publisher/developer has the mission to bridge the gap between the best of the old video games on today and tomorrow devices: Flash, iPhone and PC. In May 2010, DotEmu opens its own gaming digital distribution shop and distributes today over downloadable 200 titles. DotEmu has worked on several projects including Street Fighter II – Champion Edition on Adobe Flash, R-Type, X-MEN and Another World on iPhone, and Boulder Dash on various platforms. Created in early 2007, DotEmu provides service, technologies and products to customers in Europe, USA, and Japan.

Contact:
For Media inquiries please contact Jessica IRAGNE jessica.iragne@dotemu.com
For Business inquiries contact Xavier LIARD xavier@dotemu.com

[trap15]

I'm not sure how to feel about this

[MathU]

I can hardly contain my indifference.

[moh]

no raiden II ?

[BIL]

No Raiden II or DX? edit: ohh, I geddit.

[njiska]

I can hardly contain my indifference.

I do wonder how the Europeans who won't have Aces will feel about this.

[Sined]

https://www.facebook.com/RaidenGamesOfficial

ps: I feel well

[PaulEMoz]

After the Raiden Fighters Aces debacle, I'll believe it when I see it!

[Drum]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jq9JaTp7pFo

[Necronom]

Great news. More shmup love for Android users...and Raiden Fighters on the Nexus 7, hell yeah

[gameoverDude]

Nice. Let's hope Raiden II & DX make it out as addon DLC, or even a Legacy II pack.

[Deca]

Bizarre...cool though. Hopefully they don't screw it up completely.

[moh]

Nice. Let's hope Raiden II & DX make it out as addon DLC, or even a Legacy II pack.

I just bought myself a Raiden II pcb, so i'm getting all the raiden II i can handle

[Moniker]

Didn't DotEMU also do the R-Type port for android? Well done in general, but the controls left a bit to be desired, hopefully they improve.

[Kavera85]

Looking forward to this!

[BPzeBanshee]

If this doesn't fall under the curse of RFA and have a control scheme more or less like Cave's ports I'll be happy.

[IseeThings]

No Raiden II or DX? edit: ohh, I geddit.

of course not, they'd actually have to port it from source or figure something difficult out.

If it was already emulated in MAME I'm sure the story would be different.

[BIL]

Yeah, I figured.

[DotEmu]

Hello there,

I'm Jessica from DotEmu, the company in charge of that port on iOS/Android.

I just want to let you know that we are glad to work on that project.
RAIDEN games are great and we hope you'll like it on smartphones. Moreover, want to precise that the application will be iCade compatible.

Be sure we will do our best!

Stay tuned

[moh]

Hello there,

I'm Jessica from DotEmu, the company in charge of that port on iOS/Android.

I just want to let you know that we are glad to work on that project.
RAIDEN games are great and we hope you'll like it on smartphones. Moreover, want to precise that the application will be iCade compatible.

Be sure we will do our best!

Stay tuned

iCade compatibility? thats pretty awesome

[Op Intensify]

Can you confirm or deny that the absence of Raiden II/DX is due to their lack of MAME support?

[moh]

Can you confirm or deny that the absence of Raiden II/DX is due to their lack of MAME support?

LOL

[Rcranium]

Raiden4 is my favorite of the series but I'll probably get this for both my ipad3 and galaxy note. Please have relative touch controls and auto fire!

[Drachenherz]

Hello there,

I'm Jessica from DotEmu, the company in charge of that port on iOS/Android.

I just want to let you know that we are glad to work on that project.
RAIDEN games are great and we hope you'll like it on smartphones. Moreover, want to precise that the application will be iCade compatible.

Be sure we will do our best!

Stay tuned

Cool, that might be an incentive to get an iCade. And the raiden ports, of course.

Ah, and by the way, nice to have you on the boards, it's nice to have some people from the industry here.

[BPzeBanshee]

Can you confirm or deny that the absence of Raiden II/DX is due to their lack of MAME support?

I'm willing to bet it's more likely that not only the lack of MAME support but the lack of the source code of the existing ports out there as well ie. the PC version.

Does seem a little suss that the only games missing in MAME from the pre-3D Raiden series are also the ones 'omitted' in this bundle. Good luck getting DotEmu to admit MAME usage though.

I'm more concerned about the controls. History has shown virtual joystick/gamepads to work horribly for these sort of games, and while some complain about how Cave's games work they do make for a very playable setup.

[DotEmu]

Thanks a lot for your support.

The fact is that we only have the rights for RAIDEN, RAIDEN FIGHTERS, RAIDEN FIGHTERS II and RAIDEN FIGHTERS JET for the moment. There is no RAIDEN II or DX scheduled yet but be sure we will keep you updated if there are some changes

Concerning the touch controls, we are working hard on it and all the updates will be post on the official Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/RaidenGamesOfficial

Last question, what would be your best arcade shmup you'd like to see on smartphones?
If you have to choose "THE ONE"

[BPzeBanshee]

Raiden II!

(I actually can't think of any other arcade games that'd be good for the iPhone to be honest, though our own Rozyrg has a pretty sweet mouse-controlled game called Last Chance that'd be a good seller I'd imagine)

[trap15]

Battle Garegga, Battle Bakraid or Armed Police Batrider

No really, I'd kill to have any of those.

[BPzeBanshee]

Actually, Batrider would be a good one to have on the smartphones. If Raiden Fighters is anything near playable for score on a smartphone then by hell Batrider should be.

How about XII-Stag? No more breaking joysticks from wobbling - just move your fingers left and right to wiggle it, just a little bit!

[IseeThings]

Can you confirm or deny that the absence of Raiden II/DX is due to their lack of MAME support?

I'm willing to bet it's more likely that not only the lack of MAME support but the lack of the source code of the existing ports out there as well ie. the PC version.

Does seem a little suss that the only games missing in MAME from the pre-3D Raiden series are also the ones 'omitted' in this bundle. Good luck getting DotEmu to admit MAME usage though.

They can use MAME as a reference, we're very explit in saying that the knowledge contained in MAME can be used by anybody (it's facts about the hardware and we're generally glad to see people using it) The only thing we claim ownership over is the actual code / implementation.

I was just pointing out the very common pattern you see with these type of releases, where if something isn't in MAME it often doesn't end up in the packs. Even many of the original manufacturers no longer have usable sources or information about their hardware and often fall back on MAME. Also the people doing the packs aren't usually experts at reverse engineering and so a problem (such as the R2 protection) which has had MAMEdev stumped for years is likely to be an even bigger challenge for people with no experience in that field and no access to original information. The hardest part of working on MAME by far is figuring out how things work. That's why I regard it as an important document because it makes things easier for other people.

It's a shame we haven't managed to figure Raiden 2 / DX out because none of the ports are 'perfect' and it's starting to seem very obvious that unless we do manage to figure it out how these older Seibu titles work they're not going to see the light of day in any official emulated form either and it would be cool to see some legitimate licensed re-releases of them. (Zero Team while not a shmup is, like Raiden 2, often considered one of the finest games in it's genre) Even the most recent (2000 version) PCBs had butchered sound.

There probably are R2 sources somewhere, because it did get both a PC release, and a PSX release, although even if you were given access to the source for those to port you'd have to restore the things changed from the original arcade version if you wanted to call it authentic.

But no, don't worry, I'm not having a dig at them, it was more along the lines of "we'd better actually figure that out one of these days"