Raiden (video game)

 is a 1990 vertically scrolling shooter arcade video game developed by Seibu Kaihatsu and published by Tecmo in Japan. The game's story takes place in the year 2090, when an alien species known as the Crystals invaded Earth. Players assume the roles of the Vanquish Crystal Defense pilot duo, taking control of two state of the art Fighting Thunders aircraft to defeat the Crystals and save the Earth.
The game was conceived after "Dynamite Duke", Seibu Kaihatsu's prior title, failed to sell as well as expected. During development, the game was designed as a vertically scrolling shooter due to the popularity of the genre at the time. Cheaper arcade hardware had to be used due to financial constraints caused by "Dynamite Duke"'s poor sales.
Although Seibu doubted "Raiden"'s success, it managed to sell 17,000 arcade units worldwide, helping to recuperate the company's investments through word-of-mouth. The title became a critical success, with its most lauded features being the graphics, music, gameplay and co-operative play.
Due to the success of "Raiden", several sequels and related games were made. "Raiden" was ported to home computers and various home video game consoles in the early to mid 1990s. The game was released as part of several compilations and through download services such as PlayStation Network. The ports received mixed to positive reception.
Gameplay.
"Raiden" is a vertically scrolling shoot 'em up game consisting of eight stages of increasing difficulty. In each stage, the player maneuvers the Fighting Thunder craft, engaging various enemies and avoiding their attacks. In cooperative play, both players can generate special projectiles that damage enemies by shooting the other player craft. After completing the eighth and final stage, the player returns to the first stage with the difficulty increased.
Collectible items include bombs, which cancel out enemy fire and deal damage over a wide area; weapon power-ups; and score-increasing medals. There are two bonus collectible items: the Miclus (a boss in Seibu Kaihatsu's 1985 title "Wiz") and a fairy that releases power-up items when the player dies. When the player dies, the fighter's shrapnel become projectiles that damage enemies. If all lives are lost during a gameplay session, the game is over unless players insert more credits into the arcade machine to continue playing. Upon continuing, the player will start at the last checkpoint reached.
Plot.
The story of "Raiden" takes place in the year 2090, when a species of alien lifeforms known as the Crystals invaded Earth. The Crystals took control over most of Earth's military hardware to use in the invasion. In response, the world organization known as Vanquish Crystal Defense (VCD) develops the Fighting Thunder attack craft, a cutting-edge weapon based on Crystal technology. To survive against the invaders and fight back, VCD deploys Fighting Thunder as the only hope for humanity.
Production.
Development.
According to graphic designer and current MOSS CEO Toshinobu Komazawa, the creation of "Dynamite Duke" gave Seibu Kaihatsu the opportunity to begin developing "Raiden", as the former did not sell as well as Seibu had hoped. In order to recoup the costs of developing "Dynamite Duke", the decision was made to develop a shoot 'em up instead of a sequel to it. Komazawa noted that the development of "Raiden" had a negative outlook, but an earnest beginning, since the shoot 'em up genre was "relatively inexpensive to produce" games for, as well as increasing in popularity at the time. Due to financial constraints, the company opted to use arcade hardware less powerful than those used in their previous titles. Seibu could only afford to develop a shoot 'em up with their development budget, with the project becoming a financial decision, as they had no other choice of game to make. Seibu took production notes from the overseas market, borrowing ideas from popular titles such as Capcom's "1942", "Xevious" from Namco, and "Twin Cobra" by Toaplan.
The production of "Raiden" was led by Seibu Kaihatsu president Hitoshi Hamada, while Tetsuya Kawaguchi served as its designer and programmer K. Kondo and S. Mori were the other programmers. Komazawa, H. Matsuo, T. Matsuzawa and T. Wada were responsible for creating the in-game artwork. Y. Segawa was responsible for creating the arcade hardware. Near the end of development, Komazawa praised the programmers at Seibu for being able to produce a high-quality game on less powerful hardware.
Audio.
The music for "Raiden" was composed by Akira Sato. A "Raiden/Raiden II" soundtrack was published by INH Co., Ltd. It includes soundtracks from "Raiden" (Arcade, PlayStation), "Raiden Densetsu" (FM Towns), "Raiden II" (Arcade, PlayStation) and "Raiden DX" (Arcade) as well as other extras.
Release and ports.
"Raiden" was first released in the arcades on April 1990 by Tecmo in Japan. It was distributed in North America by Fabtek, Taiwan by Liang HWA Electronics, South Korea by IBL Corporation, and Hong Kong by Wah Yan Electronics. The game was ported to various platforms, with each port featuring several changes and additions.
The PC Engine conversion was developed by A.I Company and first published by Hudson Soft in Japan on 22 November 1991, and released a few months later on the North American TurboGrafx-16 by NEC Technologies. It is a mostly faithful port of the arcade original.
The Atari Jaguar version was developed by Imagitec Design, then released in North America on December 1993. The North America, Europe and Japan releases were distributed by Atari Corporation and Mumin Corporation in 1994 respectively. It features various presentation and gameplay changes from the original arcade version.
The MS-DOS port was coded by Nigel 'Freddy' Conroy, Steve Cullen and Martin Randall, and spearheaded by Martin Hooley at Imagitec. It shares the same visual design as the Jaguar conversion with the addition of a full-screen display. Its differences from the Jaguar port include support only for FM sound. It was released only in North America in 1994.
A handheld version was developed by BlueSky Software and launched for the Atari Lynx across North America and Europe in 1997 by Telegames, long after the Lynx's commercial lifespan had ended. It was only available through direct order and a few select retailers.
Raiden Trad and Raiden Densetsu.
The FM Towns release was titled "Raiden Densetsu" ("Legend of Raiden") in Japan, while both the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo Entertainment System ports were given the name "Raiden Trad" across all regions ("Trad" being an abbreviation of "tradition", an alternative meaning of "densetsu"). Each version of "Trad" was developed and distributed by different developers and publishers. A European release of the Sega Genesis version was planned for release by UbiSoft as part of a multi-game licensing deal with Bignet, but was never officially released in the region.
Super Raiden.
"Super Raiden" is a PC Engine Super CD-ROM² version of the TurboGrafx-16 HuCard port. Its main new feature is the use of Redbook CD Audio for an arranged soundtrack, along with additional stages exclusive to the CD version. It was developed by A.I Company and released on 2 April 1992, in Japan by Hudson Soft.
The Raiden Project.
Both the original "Raiden" and "Raiden II" were included as part of "The Raiden Project" compilation. The included games are based directly on the original arcade releases and offers several options not found in other ports. The "Project" version of the first "Raiden" was re-released by HAMSTER Corporation as a stand-alone PlayStation title for their "Arcade Hits" series. It was later available as a digital download on the Japanese PlayStation Network store, playable on the PlayStation 3 and the PlayStation Portable.
Re-releases.
"Raiden" was first adapted on mobile phones by Com2uS in 2004. The original game was later included as part of the 2012 compilation "Raiden Legacy" by DotEmu for mobile devices, PCs and other platforms. "Raiden Legacy" also includes the three games in the "Raiden Fighters" sub-series.
Cancelled ports.
An Amiga version was announced in late 1993 to be under development by Imagitec Design. It was intended to be published by U.S. Gold, but according to a former Imagitec employee on an Amiga-dedicated internet forum, it was left unreleased due to the arrival of newer systems on the market. Another version was made by Imagitec for the Atari Falcon, announced in 1994. Early playable builds of both versions have since been leaked online.
Reception.
The original arcade release of "Raiden" did not make as much money initially, with Komazawa attributing this to the game's underpowered hardware and lack of flashy visuals to draw players in. A few months after its release, the game began to generate increased income, resulting in an increase in arcade establishments requesting orders of the hardware. Seibu Kaihatsu ended up selling around 17,000 units through steady sales for a year. In Japan, "Game Machine" listed the title on their 1 July 1990 issue as being the most-successful table arcade unit at the time, outperforming titles such as "Trigon" and "Columns".
"Electronic Gaming Monthly" gave the Atari Jaguar version an average of 6 out of 10. The four reviewers agreed that it was virtually identical to the arcade version, but were divided about the quality of the game itself. Two of them described "Raiden" as "above average", and two described it as mediocre, saying that the ship moves too slow, enemy fire often blends in with the background, and the graphics are subpar given the Jaguar's capabilities. "GamePro" similarly criticized that the gameplay is outdated, the ship moves too slow, and that the graphics do not live up to the Jaguar's potential. They concluded that "a snoozer like "Raiden" just seems out of place on a powerful system like the Jaguar". The Jaguar version has sold more than 22,000 copies since its release as of 1 April 1995, though it is unknown how many were sold in total during its lifetime.
"Raiden" was included as one of the titles in the 2010 book "1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die".
Legacy.
The success of "Raiden" resulted in several sequels and spin-offs across multiple platforms. Seibu Kaihatsu developed the "Raiden" games until they went bankrupt in 2005. Japanese developer MOSS, formed by Seibu Kaihatsu's development staff, purchased the rights to the series, with their first release being "Raiden III" in 2005. In 1994, the game's trademark was abandoned.