Raiden II

Raiden II

Title screen.

Developer:	Seibu Kaihatsu
Publisher:	Seibu Kaihatsu
Producer:	Hitoshi Hamada
Music:	Go Satou
Program:	Tetsuya Kawaguchi S. Mori K. Sekimori
Art:	H. Azuma M. Matsuzawa T. Wada M. Ijima S. Yano
Designer:	Tetsuya Kawaguchi
Release date:	November 1993
Previous game:	Raiden
Next game:	Raiden DX

Raiden II (JP: 雷電II) is a vertical scrolling shoot em' up developed and published by Seibu Kaihatsu in 1990. It is the sequel to the original Raiden.

For replay videos, visit the Video Index.

Gameplay Overview

Raiden II uses 2 buttons. There are 8 stages with infinite loops.

Controls

• A button (Press): Fires the player's weapons.
• B button (Press): Activates the player's bomb.

Weapons

There are 3 main weapons, 2 secondary weapons and 2 types of bombs the player can use in Raiden II. These are obtained almost exclusively from item carriers. With the exception of bombs, the weapon item picked up must match the one the player currently has in order to increase its power. For example, going Red->Blue->Red->Blue->Red, or any pattern where the items don't match essentially the weapon won't strengthen at all.

Red shot

This is the weapon the player starts with. The shots are fired in sets of 2, 3 then 4 as it is powered up along with gradually gaining a wider range. Red is considered the best choice for the vast majority of situations due to its wide coverage and pointblank damage. Red primarily suffers from excessive mashing needed when not using autofire (one tap fires one volley).

Blue shot

A concentrated narrow laser. It starts as individual shots, turning into a thick beam at max power. Deals respectable damage even from far away and light tapping will provide a consistent stream of fire unlike Red, but it is severely inefficient at dealing with popcorn enemies even when paired with homing missiles.

Purple shot

The only new main weapon added in Raiden II. Initially, it's fired as individual shots that grow thicker when tapping fast enough, eventually morphing into a purple laser. As a laser, it has the ability to attach to enemies with a high enough HP and can bend to hit other targets nearby. Out of the 3, Purple has the least damage difference when used at pointblank range (non-existent aside from missiles), can suddenly detach from enemies and has similar shortcomings to Blue in regards to popcorn control.

Power-ups increase the number of shots fired (similar to Blue again) and make the laser thicker.

Homing missiles

Missiles with homing behavior. Subsequent power-ups increase their speed, homing capabilities and the number of volleys that can be fired is raised from 1 to 2 when maxed.

Nuclear missiles

These missiles move forward and release a sizeable explosion upon impact, increasing their size and explosion radius with every power-up that is picked up. They have a slower travelling speed compared to homing but outperform them at pointblank range.

Red bombs

The bomb from the first Raiden. A nuke that detonates into a wide explosion with considerably delay.

Yellow bombs

A new type of bomb added for Raiden II. It throws several smaller bombs around the player that proceed to detonate with a much shorter delay compared to red bombs. Unique to them is that the small bombs have actual collision before exploding. When used close to a flying enemy with an enough amount of HP, it can cancel the blast of whatever bomb it collided with, instead causing it to explode similar to a nuclear missile.

Items

Item	Description
Red shot	Powers up the red shot, or changes to it.
Blue shot	Powers up the blue shot, or changes to it.
Purple shot	Powers up the purple shot, or changes to it.
Nuclear missiles	Powers up the nuclear missiles, or changes to it.
Homing missiles	Powers up the homing missiles, or changes to it.
Red bomb	Adds a red bomb to the bomb stock.
Yellow bomb	Adds a yellow bomb to the bomb stock.
Fairy	Drops several items after the player loses a life.
Yellow medal	Grants 500 points.
Blue medal	Grants 3,000 points.
Miclus	Grants 10,000 points.
P	Maxes out the shot and missile weapons.
1UP	Grants an extra life / Extend.

Scoring

Raiden II doesn't have a dedicated scoring system, but the following factors can make a difference when aiming to optimize a score: finding medals/Miclus, collecting surplus items and clearing more loops.

Medals

Medals are found in predetermined spots throughout the stages. They can be gold, blue or a Miclus. Whether a medal is blue or a Miclus instead of the more commonly found gold variants is random.

At the end of every stage there is a hidden medal with a randomized horizontal position.

Medal	Score
Gold medal	500 points.
Blue medal	3,000 points.

Medals contribute towards the end of stage bonus (Micluses don't but are worth 10,000 points when picked up). The end of stage bonus follows the following formula:

((Bomb stock * Gold medals) + Blue medals) * 1,000

Blue medals take the value of the bomb count. For instance, a stage is finished with 4 bombs and 2 blue medals, this means the blue medals are worth 8. If there aren't any bombs or gold medals then they are simply omitted, so the formula never multiplies by 0.

Unlike the first Raiden, losing a life does not reset the medal count (when using 1P side at least).

Surplus items

Picking up the following types of items when they are maxed will grant a certain amount of points.

Item	Score
	5,000 points.
	10,000 points.
	5,000 / 50,000 points.

When all 7 bombs are of the same color their bonus will jump from the usual 5,000 points to 50,000 points. This along with the end of stage bonus makes them the most valuable resource in regards to scoring.

Clear bonus

Clearing the first loops grants 1,000,000 points. This bonus keeps increasing by another million with every subsequent loop that is cleared.

Strategy

Item order

Most of the items in the game appear following a fixed sequence.

1	2	3	4	5-24	25-30	31
				Repeats of 1-4

Fairy

A fairy can be found in stages 1 and 4 by shooting a specific tree and grants 10,000 points when picked up. A collected fairy is released when the player loses a life and will drop items in the middle of the screen. These follow the item order and occasionally missile items appear among the group. The player can have multiple fairies in stock.

Stage 1 location.

Stage 4 location. Destroying the circle of rocks will reveal the tree.

Player side differences

The player 2 side controls the light-blue colored ship. 2P starts with yellow bombs and has other important differences during play.

Checkpoints

Losing a life makes the player start over from a checkpoint. Some of them have an item carrier spawn that isn't normally present in the stage. If the player had a fairy in stock it will reappear at the start of the checkpoint to drop the items.

Oddly enough, losing a life as 2P does reset the medal count back to 0, unlike 1P.

Item order

2P side has a different (shorter) item order.

1	2	3	4	5-24	25
				Repeats of 1-4