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Tuesday 4 March, 2008
Raiden III Gamelog Entry 2
Gameplay
After getting the hang of the game, I decided to try playing it at the normal difficulty and got a friend to play along as well to see if the game got any easier. Sure enough, having two players cover opposite sides of the screen made the battles much easier and more fun as we coordinated power-ups as well as plans of attack for the seven bosses of the game. The multiplayer functionality of the game extends the game exhaustion of this game, as each level is different when played with two players rather than just one.
Because enemies of the same type have the same shooting patterns, it became easier to dodge attacks once we started recognizing them. It also allowed us to prioritize which enemies to take out first, as the ones that shoot the harder patterns to dodge become exponentially harder to dodge if you lose your powerups and are unable to keep the amount of onscreen enemies to a minimum.
Something I didn't realize until after playing for a while was the placement of power-ups and score multipliers. The game purposely puts them in dangerous areas where those who go straight for them tend to die on the spot. Not only do they cause one to move further upscreen and more likely to die sooner, but they also distract one from all the enemies and onscreen fire, which adds a temptation element to this game. Do I play it safe and forget about the score multiplier or do I go for it and achieve a higher score? This element seems to work best against boys, who place a higher value on competition and elitism than girls do.
Design
Without bombs, this game would be impossible for me. Not only do bombs typically take out every onscreen enemy or do a lot of damage to a boss, but they also eliminate all onscreen enemy fire. This is particularly useful when too many enemies appear or your ship cannot avoid a shooting an oncoming shot pattern. The respite they provide is particularly useful, as the amount of action in this game rapidly wears down your focus as the onslaught never ends.
The power-up choices significantly affect the gameplay experience of Raiden III. The vulcan cannon makes it much easier to eliminate small foes rapidly, but makes it harder to kill larger enemies due to the spread unless you move closer to them, which is risky. The straight laser makes it harder to destroy enemies spread across the screen, but makes short work of larger foes as well as enemies in a line. The proton laser can cover the whole screen by moving back and forth small distances, but can be harder to focus on larger enemies. In a way, the different power-ups make an entirely different game and require different approaches to the enemy hordes of each level.
There also some extra modes available for those who get bored of story mode or complete it. Score attack allows players to replay single levels to try and achieve the maximum score possible. It also doubles as a practice mode as you can replay a level you beat over and over in order to master it and easily beat it in story mode with a minimum amount of deaths. The boss attack mode also adds the same functionality as score attack, but for the hardest enemies in the game. By memorizing boss attack patterns and streamlining their destruction, the game becomes much more manageable to beat on a single continue.
One of the difficulties in the high score mechanic of this game lies in the fact that your score gets reset when you use a continue, which would equate to inserting another coin in the arcade machine. This is definetely a hardcore gamer feature as players can spend hours mastering the game in attempt to beat it on a single continue or even a single life in order to achieve the highest score possible.
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