GD: Raiden I&II

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FatCobra
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GD: Raiden I&II

Post by FatCobra »

I love the Raiden games, but there's alot of mysteries that I can't quite figure out, and I was wondering if any of you verterians could help me out?

What is the hitbox of the ship in both games?

How come that weird little blue guy appears instead of a medal sometimes and how do I trigger him?

I noticed that in the second stage of both games, a sports car zooms by sometimes that you can destroy for a couple points? How is that triggered?

What's the best weapon combo when you are at low power and when you are fully powered up?

Is there anyway to get extra lives in Raiden II?

Speaking of extra lives, I've had a 1up icon pop up when I destroyed something in Raiden. I think I was doing good at the time. So 1ups are triggerable?

Lastly, is there some sort of ranking system in place? Probably not something evil like Garegga's but something like more power=harder?
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Zach Keene
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Re: GD: Raiden I&II

Post by Zach Keene »

FatCobra wrote:How come that weird little blue guy appears instead of a medal sometimes and how do I trigger him?
The Miclus? AFAIK it's random.
Is there anyway to get extra lives in Raiden II?
Yes; you can trigger 1-ups. The first is about a third of the way through stage 3 where a tank will crash into one of those medal sheds (which is colored a bit darker than usual) releasing a 1-up. Assuming, however, that you don't destroy either the tank or the shed before this can happen. (Easier said than done, especially if you have a powered-up Vulcan and/or homing missiles.)

There's at least another later on but I forget where; there's actually a FAQ on GameFAQs that lists them.
Speaking of extra lives, I've had a 1up icon pop up when I destroyed something in Raiden. I think I was doing good at the time. So 1ups are triggerable?
As you've probably gathered from the above paragraph, yes. The first is in level 3, where some sort of huge square ship will travel backwards through the water, eventually docking if you don't destroy it before then. Destroying it after it docks often results in a 1-up (but not always IIRC.)

Then near the end of level 4 there's an installation you can destroy that releases two random power-ups; sometimes one of them will be a 1-up.

May be others, those are the only two I know.
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TVG
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Re: GD: Raiden I&II

Post by TVG »

since im only playing raiden II, my answers will be for this game only.

"What is the hitbox of the ship in both games?"

in raiden 2, its the ship pretty much, you dont want to make contact with a bullet and that's it.

"How come that weird little blue guy appears instead of a medal sometimes and how do I trigger him?"

as ZK said its probably random.

"I noticed that in the second stage of both games, a sports car zooms by sometimes that you can destroy for a couple points? How is that triggered?"

its triggered by destroying the whole section fast enough, as it is, i tend to not care much since 10000 isnt THAT much.

"What's the best weapon combo when you are at low power and when you are fully powered up?"

at low power, obviously the purple weapon works best, its not that much more powerful at max level, just bigger and more mobile.
as for what weapon is best...depends on where you're at.
i think the purple weapon is the best overall, red is too weak, doesnt destroy stuff in time and you need to dodge 40 times more bullets.
blue is taboo, dont pick it, even against bosses, the little support helicopters/tanks will kill you, either that, or you will need to survive insane stuff between the moment you pick the blue weapon, the boss comes, and the next powerup capsule, so dont pick it unless you find a way i didnt found.

as soon as the game starts i pick purple with M missiles, the firepower is enough to take both spider tanks of stage 1 fast.
i will have maxed purple and M by the end of stage 2, stage 2 boss is pretty easy that way, then as soon as stage 3 starts i pick the H missile at max power, you will either die a lot or bomb a lot without it, dont bother.
since i cant get past stage 4 on one credit (it will come soon now that i know the game better and picking the H missiles for stage 3) i cant really comment on the rest, but as it is, from what i saw of creditfeeding, id stick with the purple weapon until stage 6 where the super fast crafts come and shoot you from both sides, you need red there it seems, dont know about missiles.

the yellow bomb are just much better, when i started playing, i used red bombs because i tought planned bombing with a powerful bomb was better than the yellow panic bombing, but one red bomb is not even enough to kill a powerup carrier....so dont bother, yellow all the way, also, dont be shy to bomb, the game gives you plenty, unless you're trying t break the world record or something.

"Is there anyway to get extra lives in Raiden II?"

what ZK said, at stage 3 there's one if you let that little tank blow up that box, right before the water part, at the end of the structure.
here's my strategy for picking it:

destroy everything quickly (prefferably with the purple weapon) even that tank that comes right before the 1UP one. then stop shooting. since the next part REQUIRES homing missiles, and since homing missiles will blow up the box, you got to stop shooting, a powerup carrier will come, dodge its stuff, a couple helicopters will come from the left side, dodge their stuff until you cant anymore, then bomb (yellow), if you're lucky, you might do it by bombing only once, if not, bomb twice, who cares, be sure to bomb far enough from the box. as soon as the 1 up appears sweep the screen with the purple weapon from right to left, pretty easy but hou might have to dodge a bit, then grab the 1 up safely when everything is destroyed.

"Lastly, is there some sort of ranking system in place? Probably not something evil like Garegga's but something like more power=harder?"

im pretty sure that bullets are faster when you're at max power, not sure about the rest.

credit goes to randdorama and his DX guide or most of this stuff.
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GD/RQ: Raiden 1

Post by Limbrooke »

As far as I've tested, The Raiden Project's difficulties do not match the difficulty of any of the MAME builds, up to MAME 0.126. I also couldn't find a test menu for any of these, just the dipswitches.

Code: Select all

Raiden 
- Raiden(Alternate Hardware) audio sounds messed up
- Raiden(Korea)
- Raiden(Taiwan)
All these have more enemies and fire off bullets sooner than the highest difficulty (General) on The Raiden Project. The only changes I recall are the 2nd extend point at 500k rather than 400k on General versus Colonel(default) coupled with slightly faster bullets. I'll test out Raiden Project (NTSC-J) to see if there are any further options or differences, pardon the checkpoints.

Another point to add is that the INH The Aces High Raiden replay is akin to the PlayStation game versus the MAME builds on default, making the plot stranger still. I wish the local arcade that had a Raiden cab was still around to make for complete comparison.

Input is welcome.
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malik11
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Re: GD: Raiden I&II

Post by malik11 »

@Limbrooke:
There's a factor that you probably haven't realized. The number of enemies, and probably other things as well, is affected by which ship/player side you use. In stage one, the red ship yields more enemies.
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Re: GD: Raiden I&II

Post by Limbrooke »

malik11 wrote:@Limbrooke:
There's a factor that you probably haven't realized. The number of enemies, and probably other things as well, is affected by which ship/player side you use. In stage one, the red ship yields more enemies.
Thanks for reminder. What a strange property of difficulty being affected by the side. I was thinking when recently trying Raiden out where certain enemies had gone as it had been a very long time since I last ran Raiden in The Raiden Project, no less on 1P. At least that's cleared up now.

Anyone aware how to properly trigger the Stage 3 1UP?
Last edited by Limbrooke on Mon Sep 21, 2009 10:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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malik11
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Re: GD: Raiden I&II

Post by malik11 »

Limbrooke wrote:Are you aware of how to properly trigger the 1UP on Stage 3?
No. I don't bother with that.
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Re: GD: Raiden I&II

Post by spadgy »

malik11 wrote:
Limbrooke wrote:Are you aware of how to properly trigger the 1UP on Stage 3?
No. I don't bother with that.
Please elaborate though Limbrooke!
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Re: GD: Raiden I&II

Post by =SNC= »

I would like to play this game to reach a score higher than 3.1 millions but some friends of mine told me that 1.06 wolfmame inp registration desync.

Do you know which wolfmame version should I use to avoid desync? (I use autofire, so preferably 0.106<)

Thank you!
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Re: GD: Raiden I&II

Post by Mills »

Limbrooke wrote:
malik11 wrote:@Limbrooke:
There's a factor that you probably haven't realized. The number of enemies, and probably other things as well, is affected by which ship/player side you use. In stage one, the red ship yields more enemies.
Thanks for reminder. What a strange property of difficulty being affected by the side. I was thinking when recently trying Raiden out where certain enemies had gone as it had been a very long time since I last ran Raiden in The Raiden Project, no less on 1P. At least that's cleared up now.

Anyone aware how to properly trigger the Stage 3 1UP?
Yeah, you need to using Red firepower and M-missile, at this point though its kinda hard to explain. There are two ground installations that contain medals (the second power up little hover ship will arrived at this point....destroy that using missile.....note the screen is double width so before you reach that point position your ship to the far right top corner of screen so that your red firepower weapon doesn't destroy the far left installation that contains the 1-up, if you destroy it you get a medal instead. I'll try and get a pic or video or how i do that. Anyone know how to get the 1-up from stage 6 and 8 from those red crystal things?
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Re: GD: Raiden I&II

Post by saucykobold »

In level 6, you need to do a sufficient amount of damage to the crystal as it tries to escape. I almost never get it when I use the red weapon. Blue and purple have a fairly good chance of success.

If you manage to destroy the flying crystal in level 8, you'll get a whopping 300k points (but no 1-up). It has an obscene amount of health, so you'll probably have to bomb a lot. (A Pyrrhic victory, since you effectively lose 50k per bomb.)

Btw, Limbrooke was referring to level 3 in the original Raiden.
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Re: GD: Raiden I&II

Post by Mills »

I've only got the stage-6 1-up with red firepower once, i didn't shoot it straight away as i destroyed those surrounding turrets things first. As for stage-8 i never destroy that red crystal until it reaches its final destination mainly because i'm too busy taking out those big enemies ships that come down with the enemy helicopters (using red firepower and either M-missle or Homing)
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Re: GD: Raiden I&II

Post by saucykobold »

Here's something I recorded a few days ago. I thought our sizable Raiden II community might find it helpful, so I put it on Rapidshare. (SuperPlay! has been dormant for several months, unfortunately.) The video is about 400 MB, split into three .rar files.

http://rapidshare.com/files/399800913/s ... .part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/399787161/s ... .part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/399776400/s ... .part3.rar
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BIL
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Re: GD: Raiden I&II

Post by BIL »

Thanks for the high-quality upload, really enjoyed watching that!
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Re: GD: Raiden I&II

Post by toaplan_shmupfan »

One other thing to be aware of is in the Genesis port version of Raiden I, they call it Raiden Trad, the wingtips to the left and right of the white plane engines are able to pass through shots. This makes the stage 5 boss play quite differently vs. the arcade, where one can sit in one spot for a while as the shots pass over the wingtips.
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Re: GD: Raiden I&II

Post by CptRansom »

I'm having an issue with Raiden Project (US) playing on PS2. The games have the score and bomb displays completely hidden at setting 1. When I set their displays even to 3, I have to scroll the screen to decide between seeing the score or seeing the bomb stock. I've tried this with my PS2 set to Full and 4:3 with no luck. Any advice? I've never had this issue with any other game and it is making me sad. :cry: <---See?

I play on two TVs: a ~17" CRT and a ~27" CRT. This issue happens on both.

Sorry to bump this topic for something so trivial. I can't seem to find answers anywhere else, though.
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Re: GD: Raiden I&II

Post by BPzeBanshee »

CaptainRansom wrote:I'm having an issue with Raiden Project (US) playing on PS2. The games have the score and bomb displays completely hidden at setting 1. When I set their displays even to 3, I have to scroll the screen to decide between seeing the score or seeing the bomb stock. I've tried this with my PS2 set to Full and 4:3 with no luck. Any advice? I've never had this issue with any other game and it is making me sad. :cry: <---See?

I play on two TVs: a ~17" CRT and a ~27" CRT. This issue happens on both.

Sorry to bump this topic for something so trivial. I can't seem to find answers anywhere else, though.
It's a bit of a pain for me too, I find that setting the things to 3 and then using panorama mode does the trick, but then emulating it on the Wii behaves differently with screen issues. :P
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Re: GD: Raiden I&II

Post by toaplan_shmupfan »

I'm on a 20 inch CRT TV and setting both Score Position and Bomb Position to 2 seems to work. I don't care that the 1UP/High Score/2UP text is partially clipped.
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Re: GD: Raiden I&II

Post by CptRansom »

I've given up and just decided to live with it. I don't need to see my score while I'm playing, so I go with bombs. It'd be nice to see the enemies a few frames earlier, but if it comes down to it, I'll just play the games on a PS1 emulator (assuming I ever find a working ISO that isn't 50fps). Whatevskis. =D
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Re: GD: Raiden I&II

Post by rjosal »

Just need to add something here about rank. As you increase shot power, I'll assume it does more damage, but it's an implementation detail. What happens is non popcorn enemy life increases/changes. I'm not sure if it changes for each enemy the same ratio, but the game is for sure not well balanced in this respect in my opinion. The enemies die quicker with the first 3 power ups and then it gets harder, maybe easier and then harder again. Once I figured out I could kill the first tank boss in stage 1 without it firing at level 3 power, I tried more of the game at that level and had much more success. At some levels of power I can't kill the first tank before the second one starts shooting! Missile power doesn't seem to affect rank or enemy health though.
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Re: GD: Raiden I&II

Post by cathoderaze »

A tip fpr playing the Raiden Project in tate mode on the NTSC version. If you have a gameshark disk or something of that nature enter 80050BAC003 to get tate controls! :D
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Despatche
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Re: GD: Raiden I&II

Post by Despatche »

In Raiden, the Miclus is fixed and seems to be based on how many total medals you've exposed (not collected) so far. In II, it seems to be completely random, as does the blue/silver medal.

I have no idea how to trigger the car in Raiden stage 2; it seems to be different from II as well. I think I've gotten it a grand total of once, ever.

There's that large structure in the middle of Raiden stage 4 that holds two powerups hostage. The powerups seem to cycle off, in which case it's timed so that you can reasonably destroy the structure while getting the best possible powerups: a 1up and a bomb.
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Re: GD: Raiden I&II

Post by beatsgo »

Despatche wrote: I have no idea how to trigger the car in Raiden stage 2; it seems to be different from II as well. I think I've gotten it a grand total of once, ever.
What's even more odd is it seems I can't destroy the stage 2 car on Raiden II. Shot go through it and leaves completely unharmed. Might need to bomb see if that helps.
I'll give Raiden a look see what I can get out of stage 2 car.
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Re: GD: Raiden I&II

Post by malik11 »

Despatche wrote:I have no idea how to trigger the car in Raiden stage 2; it seems to be different from II as well. I think I've gotten it a grand total of once, ever.
I've just done some research with state saves and without, and I can't seem to trigger the car. I triggered it once early on, then never again. However, I'm pretty sure you have to destroy the bottom-most five tanks (one at the bottom column, three in the next column, and one other one in the same column that appears abruptly from the left edge of the screen) before a certain time so that the car has a clear path on the road to drive on with enough time.
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Re: GD: Raiden I&II

Post by beatsgo »

Luckily Raiden is decently emulated, so it's easy to check with save states.

I'm having a theory for ST2 of Raiden II that you have to destroy the dark brown tanks (shoots faster bullets than normal tanks) before the car section. It makes sense since I let go those popcorn ships and popcorn tanks to pass by, except those dark brown ones and still get the car to appear.
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Re: GD: Raiden I&II

Post by Despatche »

beatsgo wrote:What's even more odd is it seems I can't destroy the stage 2 car on Raiden II. Shot go through it and leaves completely unharmed. Might need to bomb see if that helps.
Do you have the PCB, maybe that so-called "easy" (pirate) one? It could be a bug. You can destroy it very easily in Raiden Project, at least.
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beatsgo
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Re: GD: Raiden I&II

Post by beatsgo »

Despatche wrote:
beatsgo wrote:What's even more odd is it seems I can't destroy the stage 2 car on Raiden II. Shot go through it and leaves completely unharmed. Might need to bomb see if that helps.
Do you have the PCB, maybe that so-called "easy" (pirate) one? It could be a bug. You can destroy it very easily in Raiden Project, at least.
I do have one, but there's nothing indicating an easy marking on the board or the actual in-game other than selecting easy mode in test mode. It could be just me being terrible at the game lol.
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Re: GD: Raiden I&II

Post by Despatche »

It's just supposedly easier is all. It's a pirate with crappy sound.

By the way, for Raiden II: apparently, playing the toothpaste laser makes more blue/silver medals appear and more often. It also seems to make it easier to get those "secret" medals at the boss areas. God damn it, Seibu.
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Re: GD: Raiden I&II

Post by Despatche »

Wait a minute, this might be that "Raiden II New" I've heard about. By the way:
Emo Fox Jet Pilot wrote:Just use a PSX emulator, such as ePSXe, to play Raiden Project, it has Raiden II on it, and it's way better than the Windows PC port.
This is incorrect. The PC version is almost a direct port of the Raiden II half of Project.
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Re: GD: Raiden I&II

Post by beatsgo »

Despatche wrote:Wait a minute, this might be that "Raiden II New" I've heard about. By the way:
Emo Fox Jet Pilot wrote:Just use a PSX emulator, such as ePSXe, to play Raiden Project, it has Raiden II on it, and it's way better than the Windows PC port.
This is incorrect. The PC version is almost a direct port of the Raiden II half of Project.
...and better than the *cough* MAME version.

Thanks Despatche, glad I don't have the new version.
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