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Monday 14 January, 2008
SUMMARY
So since I was in the mood to play a game I've never heard of last night, I randomly selected Raiden DX after seeing the PS2 remake (Raiden III) made in 2007. I figured I should start my Raiden experience ten years earlier in 1997 on the first Playstation. So the game is your basic two dimensional scrolling shooter, including a co-op mode, tutorial, and some insane weapons.
GAMEPLAY
The gameplay is instantly recognizable from the past as a classic 2D space shooting experience. Just the format evokes childhood feelings of simple satisfaction, if not downright happiness. We started with the tutorial, which was very short on actual instruction, and long on the "learn from experience" lesson plan. This was not really bothersome since the game was fairly easy to jump right into. The storyline was completely non-existent, in fact i rarely remember seeing written words anywhere besides the opening screen. You just select your difficulty and next thing you know you are cruising over the jungle preparing for a flurry of enemy aircrafts, turrets, tanks etc. However, the lack of storyline was not bothersome either, but it did give me the feeling that this game was just ported over to console from the arcade (suspicions which I still harbor).
So what Raiden lacked in personality, complexity, and emotional involvement, it made up for with interesting enemies, massive bosses, and ridiculous weapons. The enemies were nicely varied and not at all unfair, they included blimps, jets, alien creatures, turrets, tanks, all the good stuff. The bosses were indicated by a marked change in soundtrack and a timer at the top of the screen that started counting upwards (you got bonus points for offing the boss in speedy fashion). And then the weapons ("Oh my God!"). So as enemies died they dropped power up boxes, and these boxes changed color every few seconds between blue, purple, and red. Each color represented a different weapon set: blue was lasers, red was short wide bursts, and purple was a straight powerful beam. So if you wanted to change to a wider attack and you had the purple beam, all you had to do was wait for a power up box to drop, wait for it to turn red and dash froward to snatch it. And the more boxes you got of the color you were on the more powerful it became. There was also special yellow missile powerups that added auxiliary missiles to your arsenal. In addition to this there were two types of bombs that helped clear the screen. This weapon system proved to be fun and easy to use, and was probably the most innovative part of this rather unoriginal game.
So as the game was not incredibly interesting it was pretty fun, especially playing with a friend. It flowed along nicely, the level were not too long, the bosses not too hard, and since it was set to unlimited lives, there was no real fear of failure or losing. Overall a simple yet effective genre piece.
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