| paleface [sys=PCB; cat=Shooter_Vert; reg=NA] |
| | | It's just a darn darn shame that none of the later Raiden games have come to a home console. This one would have kicked serious booty on the Dreamcast--and heck they probably could have smoothed out most of the arcade version's slowdown, which is pretty fierce at times even with only one player.
Blame it on the massive explosions and ballistic barrages at your nimble fighting plane's command. The weapon system diverges from the early Raiden games: rather than the tri-weapon system, you've got a different main weapon for each of the 12-14+ selectable airplanes, a very powerful charge attack for each airplane, a generic fireball bomb, and then a host of powerups that increase the power of your gun, add diminuitive sidecar-style wingmen, laser blasts, and so on.
The tiny jewel-like detail of Raiden DX has been left in the dust left behind by the onslaughts of these mighty engines of destruction. No slouches themselves, the enemies come in tougher and tougher waves, with the common enemies of later stages being rather challenging to take down singly, let alone in groups. If you make it past them and maybe a sub-boss or two you then, of course, get to battle it out with the boss of the stage, invariably a screen-sized mechanized and vaguely modern-warfarish-looking metal titan who lulls you in with gentle opening shots before unleashing a nearly unavoidable screenful of death.
It's more about blowin' stuff up big-time than about the dainty dodging of the early Raiden games, and thus a little more like a host of other vertical shooters, but as far as blowin' stuff up goes this game does a good job, slowdown aside, and the challenge and ship selection will keep you coming back for more. |
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