I went ahead and just paid the $50, as Raiden was one of the series that got me into shooters to begin with way back when. I wanted to show my support that there is still a fanbase, no matter how small, for these types of games. We'll never see a Raiden VI if this one doesn't do well.
To answer the question above, I do believe if you purchase the Japanese physical copy, that the patch updates it to the english version when played on a domestic console. I cannot personally confirm this, but that is what I have read to be the case elsewhere on the net. I may buy the physical copy too at some point, just to have it.
As far as the rest of this thread goes, it seems to have just devolved into a console wars fight. We're barely even discussing the new game due to all the point > quote > counter point nonsense going on in here. I don't post much at all, but I do frequent this forum and read topics fairly often because some of the members here are more in-tune and in the know about shooters than anywhere else on the internet (at least in the english speaking realm that I can read anyway.)
I gave up this console wars crap during the Super Nintendo / Sega Genesis days. If a console has games I want to play, I buy it, period, regardless of manufacturer. All the anti-Sony or anti-Microsoft stuff is really just childish. Both consoles are very similar, and the overlap between the libraries is probably somewhere around 60-70% of games available. People at work start this talk all the time, and they get ticked at me because I'll just play devil's advocate for whichever console they are trashing. I personally own the Xbox One, so it worked in my favor for Raiden V. I went with Microsoft because I like shooters like this, and the 360 had a wealth of Cave titles and such made for it. I also owned a PS3 last gen, because despite a weak library of disc-based shooters, there was a healthy back catalog of ones on the Japanese PSN store I missed out on, or didn't want to hook up old rigged PS1 or PS2 consoles and disc swap to play imports anymore.
Point is, I'll go where the games are, and could very well find myself with a PS4 down the line if it gets shooters that I can't get on Xbox. That's how it is, and has always been since the earliest console battles. My first console was Mattel Intellevision, and it had some superior ports to the Atari 2600 versions, but the overall library size wasn't near what Atari had. So make whatever arguments you want about what you can afford, inflation, what typical gamers in Japan do, or in the west, or whatever really, no one single console is ever going to completely have every game you might want to play. You just choose the one that offers more exclusives that you're interested in early on, then purchase the other console down the line when the price drops. If you can't do that, then just accept that you won't play certain games, and keep your snide comments to yourself, and I mean that both ways.
Self perceived wit and cleaver one liners only impress you on the "post preview" screen, to everyone else, it's just thread clutter. Now that I've ticked off half the people here (probably), I'll share my thoughts on the new game.
The music is decent on Raiden V, but I would have liked at least one remixed tune from one of the classic titles, that was one thing I really liked about part IV. What we got is catchy enough in places I suppose, nothing thrilling in my opinion, but decent. The graphics are par for the course, and the gameplay is very challenging. I like that you don't de-power your weapons upon losing a ship (more on that in a moment) and that there are three variations of each weapon type to choose from. The Purple options in particular are all very fun to use, but Blue is still highly situational and my least favorite. The third Red option changes the spread of the waves by letting off the shot button and tapping up or down on the D-pad to narrow or spread out the patterns then pressing shot again to re-engauge auto-fire, it was confusing at first but really pretty versatile.
Some balked at the "life meter" concept coming to the Raiden series, but it is just an "extra lives" counter under a different guise. Once that "Health meter" depletes and your ship blows up, it is the end of your run, requiring you to continue. So each "chunk" of the meter is basically a "ship", with a bumped delay each time you are hit. Essentially a game mechanic that really hasn't changed at all, and just has a different coat of paint.
Overall, I'm pleased with the game. I set the "Cheer" button to one of the triggers, so that when someone needs cheering, I can nail it every time without having to move my thumbs off an important function to hit a face button for that function. It is standard Raiden fare otherwise, with all the challenge and frustration that you would expect, but also all the fun and excitement the series has always been known for. After playing through a couple of times, though, I think I'll go into options and turn the voices off. Their conversations during gameplay were mildly interesting the first two times through, but now when they talk about coffee at the start of stage 2, I just want to pause and go make coffee myself! I grew tired of that fast enough, but the core game is good enough to keep me playing for some time to come.
