Raiden Trad

"Decent Old School Shooter"

Back in my day, we used to play scrolling shooters where your tiny lil airplane would slowly and gradually gain enough firepower to fight the flurry of enemies comin' at ya! And when you died, you lost all your firepower and had to start over at square one! That's the way it was and we liked it!

*ahem* Now that I've gotten that crotchety old man rant out of the way ... Raiden is an old arcade shooter from the era of late 80's, early 90's that produced other old school classics like Sky Shark or Twin Cobra. In 91 it was ported over to the Genesis by Micronet in a pretty decent translation. In what little story exists, you pilot one lone aircraft, the ''supersonic fighter bomb called Raiden'', against an entire armada of enemy warcraft.

Like most shooters, you have a top down view over the country side as you move your plane across the screen and strafe shots at the enemy. The levels are pretty standard with a rural setting, a cityscape, a harbor installation, leading up to a final confrontation in outer space. You start off with a pretty standard selection of enemies: kamikaze jumpjets, tanks that drive in off screen or from behind obstacles, and big brown bombers. When you destroy a bomber, it releases a powerup that will float around the screen for you to collect. In later levels the variety of enemies increases, like the appearance of patrol boats on level 3 (the water level). At various spots through the level you'll come across some mini bosses. Usually a semi-large tank or two that spray shots at you and aren't too hard to beat. And of course there's a boss waiting for you at the end of each level.

There are three kinds of powerups that you can collect:

Weapon Powerups - these gradually increase the firepower of your main weapon. If you grab the red powerup, you get spread shots. If you grab the blue powerup, you get a concentrated laser beam. While the powerup floats about the screen, it will change from red to blue, giving you the choice of which kind of weapon to use. Personally, I like to use the blue laser on Level 1 (where it's easier to use) or just prior to fighting a boss. But for the most part you'll want to stick to red shots, especially in later levels where enemies constantly stream in from all sides. After grabbing 8 shot powerups, your main gun will be maxed out. Any additional powerups are worth 5000 points.

Max Power - This powerup is rare and appears at random intervals in Raiden Trad. Its a floating P and it will max out your jet's current firepower. It'll even give you missiles if you didn't have any!

Missile Powerups - like shot powerups, the missile powerup will alternate between two choices. The yellow M gives you missiles that shoot straight forward. The green H gives you homing missiles. The more powerups you get, the more missiles you'll have to launch. The homing missiles are much much more effective than straight shots. They help you locate enemies from off screen, and can actually find hidden bonuses for you. Grabbing 4 powerups gives you the max for missiles.

Bomb - the floating B gives you an extra bomb. You can drop a bomb to destroy everything on the screen or to cause huge amounts of damage on boss enemies. You start off with three bombs, but Lord knows you can always use more!

Bonuses: Unlike powerups, these don't float around the screen. The bonuses are usually hidden inside brown boxes that are revealed once you shoot them open. Just fly over and snatch them up. The gold badges are used for increasing your bonus at the end of the level. But if you get shot down, you lose all the badges you've collected. But who really cares about getting a bigger bonus? Collect them if you want, just don't get yourself in a tight situation just to grab that one gold badge. Another kind of bonus is a blue thingy. There's no mention of it in the instruction manual, and I have no idea what its supposed to be. Probably a tiny lil mech of some kind. The Japanese love their giant robots ^_^. The blue things are good for 5000 points.

Powerup Fairy - another undocumented feature! The powerup fairy is usually hidden in a clump of trees, and can be freed by shooting her hiding spot. Grab her and whenever you die, she'll appear when you restart and grant you three powerups (weapon, missile, and bomb). This is extremely useful, considering that when you die you lose all your weapons and are left with red shots. Keep an eye on your homing missiles, they may just locate the hidden fairy for you!

The controls are pretty good. D-pad moves you around the entire screen, although you'll want to hang around the bottom. A is single shot, B drops a bomb, and C is rapid fire. Just make sure to go into the Options menu and turn Rapid Fire on to use the C button. My only complaint about the controls is that when you press B for a bomb, there's a slight delay before your bomb detonates in a big explosion. So you can't really rely on bombs to save your hide when your ship can't escape a tight flurry of enemy fire. To use the bombs, you have to anticipate your enemies attacks, especially the bosses.

The graphics are very good, faithful reproductions of the arcade game. Which isn't saying much, considering it was 1991 and all. There's no slowdown, but I have noticed some sprites disappearing when a large boss or two are on the screen.

The audio is pretty disappointing. Typical bland video game music for each level, plus Boss Music at the end of the stage. No neat sound effects for weapons or explosions either. Oh well, plenty of eye-candy.

As for replayability, a shooter like this is really more for a hardcore shooter fan who has to play all games in the genre. Get a friend over to play for over the weekend, but then never play it again. The games don't last terribly long, so its a good way to kill a half hour.

Rent or buy? Rent, if you can find Sega Genesis games to rent, to see if you like it. If it's selling for 5 or 10 bucks, buy it! Beats spending that cash on junk food.

And that's one old man's viewpoint.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 10/30/01, Updated 10/30/01