It hasn't gone under the radar per se; it's just largely ignored because Raptor is a
euroshmup, and friends don't let friends suffer euroshmups. I mean, if you're going to play one, at least play Tyrian 2000, which is one of the rare examples of a euroshmup that could be considered genuinely great (in spite of its flaws). The footage of Raptor's remake so far has purely been tech demos showing off new lighting systems, which has no impact on the gameplay, the area which would benefit the most from remaking.
I say this with this game being one of the first DOS games I ever bought a registration for and played the absolute heck out of. As a kid, I loved Raptor. I cherished those little floppies. But honestly, my nostalgia's worn off for it now that I've played other, far more interesting shoot 'em ups. Including
ones for DOS.
There were actually three major large hitbox, healthbar shmups with a money/shop system that were popular for MS-DOS, and all of them feature similar problems: Raptor, Tyrian 2000, and Stargunner. All of them have relatively large hitboxes that demand pre-emptive movement and memorization to actually avoid being hit, or outright assume you're going to take some hits and are more about mitigating how much damage you take rather than actually precisely dodging everything. They also all have varying degrees of visibility issues, with Raptor being the best of them here (Tyrian 2000's dark levels are overused way too much and suck, Stargunner has tons of lethal, poorly telegraphed attacks).
The weapon systems offer a lot of customization options theoretically as all three have a large selection to choose from, and this is perhaps where the games differ the most. Tyrian 2000 and Stargunner's offer a tremendous selection of weapons, with enough meaningful competitive variation that there's a lot to realistically play around with, even when you've got tons of cash to use. This means that there's some fun in experimenting with different loadouts and finding what works in different levels, even when you've essentially got infinite money. Unfortunately, this is also where Raptor basically falls flat.
Raptor's weapon system is almost an entirely linear progression. You work your way up until you've got the wave cannon that can hit high and low targets in the shareware version, and in the full version it's the dual lasers that you eventually get to, which are hilariously overpowered and flatten even bosses once you get them. At times it's helpful to switch to the auto aiming laser (or the auto aiming machine gun for a ground target), but there's rarely any reason to use anything else once it's available. You buy the addons that are always equipped, and then you just use whatever your best subweapon available is. There's bombs, but they're entirely forgettable and relatively unimpressive both in terms of usefulness (aside from early on) and in terms of visuals. Because the stages have some pretty aggressive formations, the real deciding factor about midway through the game is remembering to keep refilling the Phase Shield items because they make you hilariously difficult to kill compared to without them.
Sadly, it's also rather required to use Phase Shields as you eventually run into enemies with similarly ridiculous lasers, and the game's boss patters often include stuff that isn't realistic to completely avoid (eating a few yellow bullets is preferable to missiles or a laser, which rips off a LOT of health). And speaking of patterns, they get reused a LOT. Compared to Tyrian 2000 which has an insane number of levels that all feel very distinct and intense (as well as a variety of modes, distinct weapons that are well-balanced and when maxed, and multiplayer), Raptor's pacing is slow and plodding, and the levels struggle to really feel distinctive.
Compared to many other arcade games out there with much tighter design and a better variety of memorable levels that feel unique and different, Raptor just really hasn't aged well. Major Stryker (also published by Apogee games a year earlier) is an example of a significantly better MS-DOS shmup than it thanks to its mechanics, despite being visually less detailed and with a much more limited palette. It's got some
very good parallaxing especially on the levels where you're descending to a planet. Despite the less proficient sound effects and somewhat choppy scrolling (I think it's only like 30 FPS?), it's ultimately the more enjoyable game.
tl;dr: Raptor isn't all that good and was mostly cool to us kids because there was frankly limited access in 1993 to other, better shmups when it was made. But there are plenty of shmups that predate it that are far superior in terms of game mechanics. If the remake wants to really excel it needs to revamp the mechanics instead of just aiming to be a graphical overhaul. If that happens, then I'm all for it and will heartily support it.
