Raiden IV

Raiden IV, the seventh full game in the Raiden franchise, was developed by MOSS and was first released on June 7, 2007 in arcades.

Raiden IV is considered to have refined the ideas that Raiden III introduced to the series. Raiden III used 3D graphics instead of sprites; the ship had smaller hitbox; and the bomb deployed instantly instead of after a delay. All these changes were carried over to Raiden IV.

Two significant updates were made to the game in later releases. The Xbox 360 port, released in Japan on October 2, 2008, added two additional stages playable in the “Xbox 360 Mode”. This was renamed Additional Mode in later releases, distinct from the Arcade Mode in which only the original five stages are played.

In April/May 2014, Raiden IV: Overkill was released worldwide for the PS3, which featured Overkill Mode. This mode featured an entirely new scoring system and added two new bonus stages, bringing the total stage count to nine. Enemy patterns were also adjusted.

Raiden IV

Title screen

Developer:	MOSS
Music:	Go Sato
Program:	Person B
Art:	Person C
Release date:	June 7, 2007
Next game:	Raiden V

Gameplay Overview

Raiden IV’s gameplay is characterized by medium quantities of bullets, fast bullet-speeds, an absence of static obstacles, and a multiple-weapon power-up system. This puts it in line with the style of previous game in the series as well as traditional vertical arcade shmups of the early 90s, where the Raiden series originated.

Controls

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Raiden IV has two-button controls with autofire by default.

• A: Fire
• B: Bomb

Sub Weapon Charge Shot: After a sub weapon (ie. missile) has been obtained, releasing the fire button will charge your ship. Firing after a few seconds will release a larger barrage of your missiles. Each missile that hits will score additional points.

Ships

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The arcade release had only one playable ship (Fighting Thunder ME-02).

For the Xbox 360 release, two additional characters were made available as DLC. Raiden MK-II is the ship from Raiden II; Fairy was first seen in the original Raiden as a point-scoring item first, now turned into a playable character.

Later releases, for PS3 and PC, made all three ships available in the base game.

Hitbox

An approximation of the hitbox size/location of Fighting Thunder ME-02

Ship Comparison

Ship Name	Player 1	Player 2	Speed	Max Power-Ups	Max Damage	Bomb Effect	Notes
Fighting Thunder ME-02			Medium	5	Medium	Instant start. Expanding circle with full screen coverage
Raiden MK-II	Example		Slower	7	Stronger	Delayed start. Circular area-of-effect with partial screen coverage.
Fairy	Example		Faster	5	Weaker	Instant start. Spreads bottom to top with full screen coverage.

Weapons

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There will be three main weapons in a run that correspond with the three coloured power-up items, and three sub-weapons corresponding to the M, H and R items.

Each ship starts the game with its respective red weapon and no sub-weapon.

Weapon Levels Terminology

Weapon levels will be refered to by the number of items needed to reach that level. Therefore, the player starts at level 0 for both weapons (the weakest main weapon and no sub weapon).

Effect of Death/Continue on Weapon Levels

On death, the ship's main-weapon power is set to 2 and sub-weapon power is set to 1. The weapon types (ie. colour/missile type) will be unchanged. (This happens even the player's weapons are less powerful than this, for instance, at the start of the game. If they player does not have a subweapon when they die, they are equipped with nuclear missiles of power 1)

Additionally on death, weapon items are released on the screen. Either two or three power up items are released, based on the players main weapon power. One sub weapon item is released, unless the player had no sub weapon.

On continue, the ship's power is set to 0. A full power item is released onto the screen (if there is not on there already).

Main Weapons

Ships
	Vulcan	Laser	Plasma Laser	Proton Laser
Fighting Thunder ME-02 At max level	5.2 damage per shot	5.1 damage per frame	0.64 damage per frame	5.6 / 1.4 damage per frame (front laser/side lasers)
Raiden MK-II At max level	6.2 damage per shot	7.1 damage per frame	0.64 damage per frame	13.0 damage per frame

The function of the purple power-up for the ship characters is selected from the two choices at the start of a run, and cannot be changed during a run.

Ship
	Fairy Vulcan	Milky Laser	Bubble Launcher
Fairy At max level

Sub Weapons

Ships	M	H	R
Fighting Thunder ME-02 Raiden MK-II	Nuclear Missiles	Homing Missiles	Radar Missiles
Details	Details	Details	Details
Fairy	Flower	Feather	Leaf
Details	Details	Details	Details

Despite their appearance, the fairy’s subweapons function identically to those of the Fighting Thunder ME-02, with just a marginal reduction in damage.

Items

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Item	Images	Description
Power-Up		This item cycles through the three colours in a Red-Blue-Purple repeating pattern. An indicator around the edge of the item shows how long until the next change. The process will be halted if the player stops firing, and one power-up item on the screen will be drawn to the player. Otherwise, all power-up items will move in a circle near the middle of the screen, and eventually leave the screen if not collected.
Sub Weapon	Example	This item cycles through the three options in a M-H-R repeateding pattern.
Point Scoring Items	Example	Medals. Fairy. Miklas.
Bomb	Example	Example
1UP	Example	Gives the player an extra life. There is one 1UP item in each loop. See below for the hidden location of these items.

1UP Locations

Coming soon...

Rank

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To be confirmed^?

Loops

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A second loop follows the completion of Stage 5 (Arcade) or Stage 7 (Additional/Overkill). There are no requirements to enter loop 2.

A True Last Boss is faced at the end of loop 2.

Scoring (Original)

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The following applies when playing in the Arcade or Additional/Xbox 360 modes.

Action	Image	Points	Explanation
Inflicting Damage	Example	10 points/hit?	Example
Destroying Enemy / Flast Shot System	Example	Enemy Base Value x Flash Shot Multiplier	See below
Charged Sub Weapon Shots	Example	500 points/hit (8,000 for one full barrage)	Example
Collecting Medals	Example	3,000 points/medal	Medals are found on the ground or by destroying certain enemies or objets. Medals on the ground of a stage start invisible and are revealed when they are hit. Note that medals also provide an end of stage bonus (see below)
Collect Fairy	Example	30,000 points	Example
Destroy Sols (aka Hidden Towers)	Example	100,000 points/Sol	Each level contains one Sol. The Sol is in a fixed location and is hidden until revealed. To reveal a Sol, hover your ship over the location. Destroy the Sol to collect the points.
Collect Miklas	Example	100,000 points/Miklas	In loop 2, destroying a Sol will also reveal one Miklas item nearby.
End of Stage Bonus: Bombs	Example	10,000/bomb in stock	Example
End of Stage Bonus: Lives	Example	50,000/remaining life	Example
End of Stage Bonus: Medals	Example	30,000/medal collected on this stage AND on this life	Example
End of Loop 2 Completion Bonus	Example	5,000,000?	Example

Enemy Destruction Points / Flast Shot System

Each enemy has a base point value. For example, the first enemy you meeet is a small ship with a base value of 1,000 points. Medium size ships are [usually^?] 10,000 points, and bosses are 100,000 points.

When an enemy is destroyed, a multiplier is applied to the base value based on how quickly you killed the enemy. The maximum multiplier is x5.0, and decreases the longer the foe is on the screen. The rate of decrease depends on the enemy.^?

The multiplier appears on top of large enemies after you kill them, and to the side of th screen when killing small enemies.

Scoring (Overkill)

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Coming soon...

Strategy

See (Template Page)/Strategy for stage maps, enemy and boss descriptions, walkthroughs, and advanced play strategies.

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This section details some particular strategic information about the game and its gameplay, such as hidden 1UPs and some basic scoring tricks. For anything particularly deep or highly complex, you can probably leave it in the Strategy page.

(Currently evaluating whether or not this specific section should even include information outside of the separated Strategy pages. Worth thinking about as a community.)

Story

Basic story breakdowns, plot information, and endings are included here.

If there is no story at all, or any information about the setting, then this section can be omitted. Try to include at least small things here when you can.

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Development History

If available, you can include information here about the hardware, the development of the game, and its general reception. Try to have as much information in this section cited as possible.

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Version Differences

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Trivia

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Gallery

See (Template Page)/Gallery for our collection of images and scans for the game.

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Video References

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We have support for wikitables, giving us the potential to add lots of cool info in a small box on the page somewhere, but we are not using them at the moment. I'm just leaving this here so we can have it handy in case we decide to actually use them. Feel free to not use this section.

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