Game of the Month: May 2025 - Super Raiden

[geise]

Super Raiden

Shooter Time! A good one as well. Super Raiden! It's a really good arcade conversion that is quite a bit better than the HuCard. Raiden is one of those shooters like R-Type or Gradius. Everyone knows about them and everyone plays them. Super Raiden has really nice cd tunes and some extra levels not in the HuCard version. Also, the sound effects are a little nicer. Not sure if I will 1cc this but I will try. I can come close, but it's been a while. Hope you all will be able to play this one this month. Enjoy!

[Mathius]

After I spent eons with the HuCard version the extra sound effects of the Super CD version was very cool.

[Necromancer]

Mmm, noice shewty.  No chance of me beating it, but I'll have fun trying!

[Naniyue]

TFH!!!!!!  (Too F'n Hard)!!  Both releases!

I first played this on the Genesis. 
I can't get any further than the third or fourth stage for any version.

I still prefer Raiden II.

[seieienbu]

I don't know why, but I own Raiden on the Turbo, SNES, Genesis, and Jaguar.  I don't own this version, I'm honestly curious about the differences so I may pick it up.

[Mathius]

I don't know why, but I own Raiden on the Turbo, SNES, Genesis, and Jaguar.  I don't own this version, I'm honestly curious about the differences so I may pick it up.

Either format on PCE is better than any other port. Jaguar would've won if it wasn't for the huge status bar and baffling lack of rapid fire.

[majors]

Great pic, classic balls hard check point STG. I think it has to be a 1cc b/c if you die in stage 4 or 5, might as well start over due to losing power ups.

Visually, the card and CD are just about the same to me, it's the CD tunes that make it a "get" for me. I don't think I've ever seen any extra stage(s) but maybe this month I'll attempt to get good.

[seieienbu]

I don't know why, but I own Raiden on the Turbo, SNES, Genesis, and Jaguar.  I don't own this version, I'm honestly curious about the differences so I may pick it up.

Either format on PCE is better than any other port. Jaguar would've won if it wasn't for the huge status bar and baffling lack of rapid fire.

As far as I can tell, the Jaguar version tried to take a vertically oriented monitor and display the same graphics on a standard oriented monitor.  The game suffers for it.  Also I weirdly don't like the audio for the game.  I just listened to the 1st level on a bunch of versions of the game, here's my non-scientific rating!

9.  Lynx:  Yeah, you can hear the bullets.  Honestly, I've never played the game on the Lynx and was surprised that there wasn't a soundtrack.
 
8.  Snes:  It sounds, well, faded?  Muted?  It gives me the audio equivalent of looking at a favorite t-shirt that has been washed so many times you have trouble seeing the artwork on it.

7.  Jaguar:  I mean, it's fine I guess?  It vaguely reminds me of, say, lousy US made Genesis games that used the Gems sound library for their music.

6.  Playstation:  It doesn't hit the way that I want it to, and I guess I'll leave it at that.

5.  Arcade:  I would say this is the first non-disappointing version of the song.  I like it a lot.

4.  Turbografx 16.  Yeah, my version is turbo so I'm calling it that for the purposes of this dumb list.  It sounds good and I honestly like the arrangement more than the arcade even though they're rather similar.  This is probably the one I've listened to the most over the years (as this is the version of the game that I actually play when I'm feeling up for a game of Raiden) and it has the edge to it that I enjoy.  Nice work.

3.  Genesis.  Honestly, it sounds very similar to the Turbo and Arcade versions but it hits the hardest so I like it the most out of the 3.  It's got that sort of vintage synth sound that I enjoy more and more as I get older. 

2.  PCE Super Raiden.  It's so much better than all the previous entries on this list that it's honestly an unfair comparison imo.  Yeah, CD arranged music isn't Always better but this time (and many other times in the era) it is.

1.  FM Towns.  Holy shit!  That soundtrack is INCREDIBLE!  Do yourself a favor and give it a listen, like, right now. 

[lukester 3.0]

never really got past stage 3 but pce has a nice cheat where if you continue on the zero, you get a few powerups. definitely an autofire game