Official Raiden IV thread

Post by **Icarus** » Sun Sep 17, 2006 8:23 pm

They need to fix the Plasma laser. I don't ever recall it being that easy to warp and coil the laser in the past Raiden games.

Twiddle · Post by **Twiddle** » Sun Sep 17, 2006 8:41 pm

It's way too instant and non-wavering.

Nice to know that they didn't really add anything in the system after the location test

NTSC-J · Post by **NTSC-J** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 4:25 am

Another loke test at HEY this week. I watched people play for a while and it looks like they removed that corny movie when you kill the first boss, but didn't notice any other changes.

It didn't seem like anyone gave a shit about it, the same guy kept playing it because no one else wanted to (contrast that with the Mushi 2 loke test where you had to wait an hour and a half to play one coin).

Post by **Icarus** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 5:01 am

Maybe I should have kept my trap shut. -_-;;
Thanks for the update NTSC-J. Strike another off the must-watch list.

nazca · Post by **nazca** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 10:46 pm

http://insomnia.ac/japan/raiden_iv/

videos etc..

Twiddle · Post by **Twiddle** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 10:53 pm

And let's face it, the original games were competent but unremarkable shooters

raiden dx would like to have a word with the writer

Skyknight · Post by **Skyknight** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 1:22 am

I'm wondering why they didn't keep the original Proton Laser. Personally, I would have liked to see all four weapons available throughout the game, without having to choose between Plasma and Proton (i.e. take your pick between range, power, pursuit, and pierce as needed).

I'll trust the Proton Laser still pierces enemies...?

I've noticed, by the way, that the series still seems to be using the SAME FIRST-THREE-BOSSES SETUP FROM THE OTHER GAMES. Twin tanks for st. 1, missile-carrier skyship for st. 2, giant aqueous vessel for st. 3 (okay, this I haven't heard for Raiden IV, but...). I have no qualms for R4's last boss being another crystal-bearing idol, but can't Moss come up with a completely new boss archetype line-up?

(On a side note, after listening to the dual-plays for Raiden III...the soundtrack isn't horrid, but it's definitely not on par with Tatsujin-Ou, Battle Bakraid, etc. Literally average, except for three of the songs. Those songs would be "Lightning Strikes" [st. 1], "Passing Pleasures" [boss], and "Dawn of Sorrow" [st. 3].)

EOJ · Post by **EOJ** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 8:54 am

For those that care (yeah, both of you!), Danmakugata reports this game is now scheduled for release in July. Apparently they're doing some (more) location tests now and they've completely changed the system, and a lot of the graphics and other stuff. Sounds like a complete overhaul. Maybe it will be a good game this time around?

Moss are certainly taking their time with it.

JBC · Post by **JBC** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 11:23 am

That's pretty cool TWE. Gives me more insentive than just honesty to buy the actual release

Randorama · Post by **Randorama** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 11:47 am

It sounds like they got the "We want a new Raiden DX" vibe. It would be nice to have a title in that vein and possibly not as difficult, eh.

Strider77 · Post by **Strider77** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 12:17 pm

to bad taito won't be doing a port..... ever

Macaw · Post by **Macaw** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 12:18 pm

Strider77 wrote:to bad taito won't be doing a port..... ever

It will probably come out on PC anyway.

icycalm · Post by **icycalm** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 12:43 pm

When I played it in September at the AM show I thought it was just about ready to be released, and now they are pushing it back all the way to July. That certainly sounds interesting.

I don't see how they could significantly improve the graphics, though. The game looked just great as it was. I bet all the extra time is going into the system.

stratos · Post by **stratos** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 12:51 pm

I bet all the extra time is going into the system.

Not necessarily; they coul'd wish to release the game in a particular period of the year, pheraps wanting to avoid this year AOU Cave and Konami games competitiveness, or mushi futari one...

JBC · Post by **JBC** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 12:54 pm

I kind of hope they make scraping give you points this time because i keep doing it on purpose in III and it gets me killed alot for nothin'!

Macaw · Post by **Macaw** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 2:13 pm

I hope they make a more raiden fighters style score system with medals and stuff or just try somthing completely original. I like Raiden 3 but was bored by its score system which basically required you to memorize the location of every single enemy in order to maximise score.

gameoverDude · Post by **gameoverDude** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 5:02 am

Macaw wrote:
Strider77 wrote:to bad taito won't be doing a port..... ever
It will probably come out on PC anyway.

A PS3/360 port probably wouldn't have to come from Taito. Chances are another publisher could step forward and grab the rights to a PS3 and/or 360 version, similar to what's happened many times before on 32-bit systems- i.e. NaxatSoft grabbing Twin Cobra II, and Ving putting out several Taito F3 games.

tekneekz · Post by **tekneekz** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 10:33 am

sweet videos, stage 2s background look pretty and the ship speed seems alot faster than the slug from raiden 3

jluedtke · Post by **jluedtke** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 5:34 am

And...it's coming to the Xbox 360!

Link

We had the Product Manager from UFO Interactive on the podcast (Team Fremont Live) this week and after discussing the upcoming US release of Raiden III, he dropped the news that Raiden IV is in Alpha stage for the Xbox 360 and is scheduled to release in the United States.

For the full interview, check out the 2/26/2007 episode:
http://www.teamfremont.com/podcasts/02.26.2007.mp3

Happy Shmuppreciation Month from TeamFremont.com!

icycalm · Post by **icycalm** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 9:14 am

Hey, this is great news.

Does that mean people will have to tate their widescreen plasma displays, somehow?

Will the port output 640x480, just like the arcade, so that we can hook up the 360 to a VGA monitor or a 31kHz arcade monitor?

EOJ · Post by **EOJ** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 9:17 am

Hopefully it's not an XBLA release, as there likely wouldn't be a TATE option with that. I'm hoping at least the Japanese market gets a regular disc release.

Then again I probably won't like this game much anyway, so it doesn't really matter.

icycalm · Post by **icycalm** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 9:20 am

jluedtke wrote:Happy Shmuppreciation Month from TeamFremont.com!

You should also post here more. At Shmups.com every month is Shmuppreciation Month!

sven666 · Post by **sven666** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 11:36 am

having just bought a type-X im really looking forward to this, i too hope it will be more like the raiden fighters series tho im very sceptical it will..

elvis · Post by **elvis** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 11:46 am

sven666 wrote:having just bought a type-X im really looking forward to this, i too hope it will be more like the raiden fighters series tho im very sceptical it will..

Pardon the rather off-topic and newbie question, but how do games come on TypeX? Do you get a new hard disk with the game on it? Optical media to load the game to the onboard hard disk? Something else?

I've always been curious, but never seemed to be able to find information anywhere [in english].

And if it's just a hard disk, wouldn't it be open to some pretty simple piracy? Or do you get an encryption device (hardware dongle, etc) to go with?

sven666 · Post by **sven666** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 12:12 pm

its indeed a HDD (looks like a standard computer one encapsuled in metal) and a security USB dongle similar to naomi games.

afaik it loads the game straight from the HDD and doesnt load anything into the type-x mobo itself.

if encryption was broken then yes it would be very open to piracy, however the game ROMs themselves arent expensive to purchase so i hardly think it would be worth it?, also concidering the system doesnt load media from anything but a HDD...

the system itself is the expensive part, most game HDDs fetch well under $100 these days.

elvis · Post by **elvis** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 12:22 pm

Considering Type X is virtually consumer-level PC hardware, I wonder if it would be possible to build your own box with identical northbridge chipset and ATI video card? I would assume as long as the hardware is close enough, WinXP-embedded would be happy and boot.

Assuming of course there's no closed/proprietary magic stuff in the guts that I don't know about. Could make for an interesting experiment for Type X owners out there.

sven666 · Post by **sven666** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 12:33 pm

it may look like a standard computer but i doubt it will work like one, this thing is encrypted out its ass.. i highly doubt taito with their long tradition of arcade hardware would make such a mistake as to let a bogstandard PC with winXP run their games.

but hey i know jackshit about tinkering with computers and programming so anyones guess is as good as mine

zakk · Post by **zakk** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 12:40 pm

elvis wrote:Considering Type X is virtually consumer-level PC hardware, I wonder if it would be possible to build your own box with identical northbridge chipset and ATI video card? I would assume as long as the hardware is close enough, WinXP-embedded would be happy and boot.

Assuming of course there's no closed/proprietary magic stuff in the guts that I don't know about. Could make for an interesting experiment for Type X owners out there.

A few of us were wondering about this just the other night, actually.

Identifying which chipsets are used should be easy enough. The big question is the BIOS. I could see them spinning a custom BIOS to prevent you from just plugging in your USB dongle and hard drive into a home PC and having it work. I thought I'd heard somewhere they actually DID do this; but I can't find anything proving it either way. I may be remembering someone else's speculation...

If they did do this, dumping them and burning your own custom BIOS chips shouldn't be that difficult. It just requires someone with a Type-X system and the will to hack around a bit. I'd almost be interested in picking one up myself to see; but the boards are nearly $1k and the shipping would kill me.

There could be additional protection of course. Hard to say.

Gorecki · Post by **Gorecki** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 1:29 pm

If it's a full disc release then I hope they release it in Europe as well.

Hilden · Post by **Hilden** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 6:45 pm

Chong mentioned that it'll be a retail release at first. Not sure what the "at first" part means but he wouldn't clarify any further.

I'm betting it'll make it over to Europe as well. They'd be stupid not to port it over there.