By Seibu Kaihatsu 1995

The first time I ever played a Raiden game was at a Pizza Hut (which in my area always have better games than the arcades) back in 1993... and I must have wasted 5 bucks on the thing. I liked the game so much that I soon went looking for the SNES port known as Raiden Trad... but I never could find a copy. Supposedly the SNES version was a crappy port, so perhaps that worked out for the best. A few years later, it came to my attention that this new-fangled Sony device was receiving a two-in-one deal known simply as "The Raiden Project". Needless to say, I was sold on the PSX right then and there. Toshin-what? Ridge who? Now, it was a full year after the PSX's launch before I got one, and by then RP's great popularity was apparent; I had the hardest time finding a copy, and when I did I paid only $19 for it, brand new. I almost feel sorry for ripping off that poor Kaybee store like that. :)

STORY: Standard shooter fare...

Raiden: Aliens are invading Earth, and have utterly destroyed our defenses! Some nameless group of scientists have managed to capture an alien fighter and used the technology to create a super-fighter, which naturally is humankind's last hope.

Raiden II: Aliens come back for revenge blah blah blah.. Well, if you're looking for some sort of deep plotline in your shooters, learn Japanese and go play Radiant Silvergun. :)

GAMEPLAY: RP's greatness lies not with
what it does, but how it does it. Gameplay wise, Raiden and Raiden 2 are little removed from Xevious, though you do get a few new weapons. In both games, your ship has three sets of weapons. The main cannons can fire vulcan shots, lasers, or this neat looking homing plasma (R2 only). Once the coolness of the plasma weapon wears off, you'll realize it pretty much sucks and start using the other two weapons. The laser is supposed to be the most powerful weapon (since it only fires in a small area ahead of your ship); however, the vulcan shots can cover the entire screen when powered-up fully, and at point-blank range the vulcan is actually more powerful than the lasers. Of course, fighting bosses at point-blank is usually quite risky. You also have missiles at your disposal. Normal missiles fire straight ahead and are more powerful than the homing missiles, which are weaker but fire more quickly. Also, you have a limited supply of Bombs. Normal Bombs create a large blast radius that causes heavy damage to anything in its range and absorbs enemy fire. Cluster Bombs (R2 only) spread over a larger area but cause less damage.

OVERALL: 10/10. Raiden 2 remains to this day the standard to which I compare all vertical shooters. It might not have the innovation or graphics of, say, Radiant Silvergun, or the awesome Zuntata soundtrack of Darius Gaiden, but makes up for that by still being a blast to play. A must have for anyone with a PSX. Don't just sit there, go grab yourself a copy now!