RAIDER ZONE: YOU KNOW, IT IS WHAT IT IS
Note: If you're a Raider fan like me you'll understand the joke within the whole review.
RAIDERS(5) SHMUP CONFERENCE
This review might be a short one, but, what can you tell us about Arcade Archives: Raiders5?
Josh McDaniels has a lot of things to explain
Just Shmup Baby.
Raiders5 is a uuuhmmm, you know, a different type of shoot'em up, you know. Since the game is, you know, a combination of shmup and puzzle maze, which can be called "Puzzle'em Up", it will surely require practice, you know, and, you know, the game will send the players to the Exercise level where they can learn the basics of the game, you know, especially movement. Because while in most games you can move freely, you know, here you can only make a turn once you are at full stop like when the ship touches a block, you know, then you can move in order to aim and fire to a destructible block in order to clear your path. You can also increase the ship's speed by moving the Analog Stick or pushing the D-Pad on a specific direction (Up if you're moving up for example), you know. There's also spheric boulders where you can stop and turn your ship, and, eeeehmmm, you know, you can also push those boulders 1 tile off by shooting at them. The idea of the game is, you know, to shoot the gold panels in order to unlock the exit, hinted by a flat gold-brown panel. While most of them are visible, there's a few that are hidden and they're revealed once a specific panel is destroyed. Once the panels are gone, the exit appears.
Commitment to Excellence
If you clear a level within the time limit, you can get two types of bonus, you know. The first one is based on the time limit, where the, aaaahmmm, seconds left become your extra points for your score, and there's also the "No Miss Shooting" which, you know, implies precise firing. This means just shoot the block without missing a single bullet because eeeehmmm, you know, the bullets have a range of 5-tiles long before dissipating. If you miss the shot, the bonus is gone. You know, the best way to get the bonus is clearing the Exercise Stage shooting the blocks and panels required to clear your path and, you know, complete the level with the less shots fired possible.
You don’t adjust, you just dominate.
When I said the "Exercise Level" explained the basic is because, you know, there's more things in this game to be revealed, and you know, it is where the main part of the game hits in. You have to shoot the alien machines, not to destroy them, but to transform them into boulders and, you know, use them to rotate and aim to the desired blocks in order to clear a specific path. But using the enemies as pushable boulders is only temporary as they'll break free and you'll have to shoot them again, you know. While they can't be destroyed, you can turn them into boulders as much as you want. There's Power Panels which, you know, you can use to temporary increase the duration of the enemies transformation as boulders, giving you much more time to use them or move as far as possible from them if, you know, you want to destroy all the blocks. And, you know, If you destroy all the blocks in the level, your ship will evolve and, aaaaahmmm, you know, fire stronger bullets with a slight increased "freeze" time. You can keep the ship's evolved form after losing a life, but if you lose all of them and, you know, you continue the game, you'll return to the default gray ship. Like aaaaahmmm, you know, in the Exercise level, the game will be time based, but you will be given much more time to complete the level and even clear all of the blocks in time. While clearing the levels with the No-Miss shot might, you know, sound tempting due to the 10,000 point bonus, but with the enemies on the move, it should be consider as something for expert players.
Did the game had console ports before the Arcade Archives release?
He has no idea of what to say...
Well, uuuhmmm, you know, for a 1985 game, it had the potential of being homeported to the veteran console Atari 2600 or one of its successors, or, you know, the then-new Nintendo Entertainment System which was making its debut in that year you know, but it didn't. Probably because UPL's games were more of "Arcade fodder", you know, for those who started their arcade business and wanted cheap games to make a reasonable amount of quarters, you know, and combined with the puzzle mixture in the game probably forced Raiders5 to be almost forgotten against the major competitors of that time, you know, until 2015 when Hamster released this as part of Arcade Archives which was starting its line-up of games.
We know Arcade Archives had features?, Why does Raiders5 lacks of them?
Strangefully, you know, for an Arcade Archives release, it lacks of the traditional Hi-Score or Caravan Modes, which is a letdown for those who pick this title today if they've played the latest releases first, you know, and since this was one of the first releases, the trophy progression is very different, you know, becauses it requres to check all the options, reset the game and play until you get a high enough score and upload that score, you know. Its basic stuff and we can't complain about it, you know, since the vintage game is the most important part.
What do you think about the game's visuals? Can you give us a brief talk about the graphics and the sound?That's gonna be an easy question for Josh.
Yeah, uuuhmmm, you know, It is a mid 80's arcade game, so we will be lacking of 3D effects, but it has an interesting gradient effect on the Attract Mode like colored borders around the screen to make it look fancy and vibrant, you know, to improve the traditional single colored logos that were common in early and mid 80s games like Time Pilot, you know. Funny enough, the "silver and black" gradient of the Raiders5 logo has a Raiders feel, the football team, you know. This game also has well detailed sprites with a black border like a cartoon, you know, and the ship has yawing animations when it moves making it more animated than most games of the time and making the game look quite ahead of its time, you know. Not as much as Space Harrier, but it was steps ahead from Defender and their previous shmup Nova2001. As for the sound department, you know, the game only has a short "BRLM-BRLM! BRLM-BRLM! BRLM-BRLM!" sound when you start a level, but the rest of the game remains silent and uuuuhmm, you know, leaving you with the sound effects of your ship firing and exploding blocks.
CURIOSITIES5 (YOU KNOW)
- You know, this is the only console port of the game, you know.
- Curiously, Taito, the Darius guys, you know, distributed this game back in the 80's.
McDaniels already ran out of words.
Uuuhmmm, You know, it is what it is. Raiders5 is a vintage shoot-em-up game that combines puzzle and maze elements and you know, its an interesting piece of old-school shooting that really deserved a home console release, you know, since it UPL games were obscure and sometimes rare and, you know, its worth a try for the sake of old times.
Good to go? Okay, thank you.
You know, it is what it is, the Eda Scale gave it a good score.
That, aaaaahmmm, you know, it means this is a good game.