Raiden Fighters

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Raiden Fighters

Title screen

Developer:	Seibu Kaihatsu
Publisher:	Seibu Kaihatsu Fabtek (US)
Producer:	H. Hamada S. Mori
Music:	G. Satoh
Program:	Y. Kasai T. Saitoh
Art:	N. Machino T. Sasaki H. Azuma C. Takahashi W. J. Seo Y. Yoshihara T. Wada
Designer:	S. Yano
Release date:	Arcade JP: November 1996 US: December 1996 Xbox 360 JP: March 27, 2008 US: May 5, 2009 iPhone: December 13, 2012 PC: 2013
Previous game:	Viper Phase 1
Next game:	Raiden Fighters 2: Operation Hell Dive

Raiden Fighters (JP:ライデンファイターズ) is a vertically scrolling-shooter developed by Seibu Kaihatsu in 1996, being the first game in the Raiden Fighters series. It is known for its soundtrack and several secrets that heavily contribute to scoreplay.

Raiden Fighters was planned to have a Sega Saturn port in 1997 developed by Electronic Arts but was cancelled. An Xbox port titled Raiden Fighters Evolution that would have the first 2 Raiden Fighters games was planned for release in 2003, but this was also cancelled. A few years later, Raiden Fighters Aces came out in 2008 for the Xbox 360 which featured the entire Raiden Fighters series. The Raiden Fighters trilogy along with the original Raiden also made it to mobile phones and PC via Raiden Legacy.

For replay videos, visit the Video Index.

Gameplay Overview

Raiden Fighters has 7 stages with a single loop. There are no extends granted at any point.

Controls

• A button (Press): Fires the player's main weapons and slaves' bullets.
• A button (Hold): Charges the player's special attack.
• B button (Press): Activates the player's bomb.

Ships

The attributes of each ship are represented the following way:

MOV	Movement speed
DEF	Defensive spread
POW	Attack power
RPD	Rapid fire-rate

Default ships

The player can collect missile and laser items, which add a secondary weapon and power-up the main shot. Holding the A button charges a unique special attack (how long it takes for the attack to be ready depends on the ship and secondary weapon). The ships start with 2 bombs per life. When used, the player can control the bomb detonation by holding the B button, where pressing it lightly detonates the bomb immediately and holding it for about a second makes it go off at the top of the screen.

Furthermore, "slaves" can be collected, these are option items that follow the player and shoot. Slaves can be destroyed by enemy bullets and collision.

The numbers in the Speed bullet point represent it in a pixel per frame measure for horizontal and vertical movement respectively (X-Axis and Y-Axis).

Aegis

Aegis
Speed: Medium (3.2X, 2.3Y). Shot: Medium width. Fire-rate: Medium. Missile: Fires missiles forward. Special attack: Fires several missiles forward. Laser: Fires short homing lasers. Special attack: Fires a single burst of lasers followed by several of them.

Beast Arrow

Beast Arrow
Speed: Slowest (2.5X, 1.8Y). Shot: Wide 7-way shot. Fire-rate: Lowest. Missile: Fires homing missiles. The missiles have a slight delay before tracking their target. Special attack: Fires several homing missiles. Laser: Fires two lasers forward. Special attack: Fires a large laser. The damage is at its highest when the attack first starts.

Chaser

Chaser
Speed: Fast (3.6X, 2.6Y). Shot: Narrow single shot. Fire-rate: Very high. Missile: Missiles are deployed to the sides and move forward slightly tracking targets. Special attack: Fires 6 rows of missiles forward. Laser: Fires a homing curved laser. Special attack: Plasma Laser from Raiden II.

Devastator

Devastator
Speed: Slow (2.8X, 2.1Y). Shot: Wide 5-Way shot. Fire-rate: Lowest. Missile: Fires slow missiles forward that release a 3-way explosion upon impact. Only 2 missiles can be on screen at the same time. Special attack: Fires many missiles in a row. Laser: Fires straight lasers that tilt towards nearby targets. Special attack: 4 lasers rotate around Devastator clockwise (when moving left) or counter-clockwise (when moving right) and stick to whatever they hit.

Endeavor

Endeavor
Speed: Slow (2.8X, 2.1Y). Shot: Narrow twin shots. Fire-rate: High. Missile: Throws slow grenades at a diagonal angle. Their explosion has the unique feature of erasing bullets. Special attack: Throws grenades at every direction. Laser: Fires long lasers at diagonal angles. Special attack: Fires several short lasers in a cone.

Hidden ships

The hidden ships have the following differences:

• No special attack.
• 3 bombs per life instead of 2 (Raiden mk-II/Judge Spear).
• Bomb detonation can't be controlled by holding the B button (Raiden mk-II/Judge Spear).
• Smaller hitbox (Slave).
• Raiden mk-II and Judge Spear borrow all of their weapons from their respective games. They only have a missile secondary weapon and it doesn't power-up their main shots, instead this is done by laser items, making them take the longest to max out their weapons. Slave doesn't have secondary weapons at all and can collect items in any order.

Raiden mk-II

Raiden mk-II
Speed: Slowest (2.5X, 1.8Y). Shot: Plasma Laser from Raiden II. Starts as a narrow twin shot, when powered-up it turns into a laser that bends to hit multiple targets. Fire-rate: Highest. Missile: Homing missiles from Raiden II. Bomb: Thermonuclear (red) bomb from Raiden II. Very long detonation time.

Judge Spear

Judge Spear
Speed: Fastest (5.4X, 4Y). Shot: Narrow twin shots. Fire-rate: High. Missile: Napalm missiles from Viper Phase 1. Sets of 2 missiles are fired forward that release several napalm explosions upon impact. Bomb: Bomb from Viper Phase 1. Detonates slightly ahead of the ship into a large sphere.

Slave

Slave
Speed: Inherits the speed of the ship originally highlighted. Shot: Wide 5-Way shot. Fire-rate: Highest.

Items

Item	Description
	Missile Powers-up the missile weapon, grants 5,000 points when maxed out.
	Laser Powers-up the laser weapon, grants 5,000 points when maxed out.
	Slaves Adds a slave, grants 5,000 points when 2 are equipped.
	Bomb Adds a bomb up to a maximum of 7, grants 5,000 points when at full stock.
	Medal Score item.
	Fairy Grants 100,000 points when collected, but drops a bomb item before leaving.

Rank

Rank affects bullet speed, enemy fire-rate and the duration of certain attacks. Rank decreases considerably after dying.

Scoring

Medals

There are 3 types of medals that appear depending on how many slaves the player currently has. Medals only increase in value after every one on the screen has been collected, this means it's better to collect them one at a time.

Gray medals appear when the player has no slaves.

10 points

20 points

30 points

40 points

50 points

60 points

70 points

80 points

90 points

Blue medals appear when the player has 1 slave.

100 points

200 points

300 points

400 points

500 points

600 points

700 points

800 points

900 points

Green medals appear when the player has 2 slaves.

1,000 points

2,000 points

3,000 points

4,000 points

5,000 points

6,000 points

7,000 points

8,000 points

9,000 points

After each medal group has been maxed out, they will be replaced by gold medals worth 10,000 points. Gold medals can increase their value as well through different means: when nine 10k medals are on screen at once they will explode, now their maximum value is 100,000 points. This can be done in the train and final stages, though it's easier to achieve by discovering a Miclus as they release 9 medals. Dropping a 100k medal will reset their value back to 10,000 points, though the unlocking method doesn't have to be done again and the player can build back to 100,000 points any time.

10,000 points

20,000 points

30,000 points

40,000 points

50,000 points

60,000 points

70,000 points

80,000 points

90,000 points

100,000 points

Hidden bonus

By performing different tasks the player can trigger several hidden score bonuses. A message appears near the top of the screen when a bonus is done successfully.

• QUICK SHOT! (10,000 points - 100,000 points)
  • Quickly destroy a large enemy.
• DESTROYED AT A TIME! (100,000 points)
  • Destroy two specific targets under roughly 1 second.
• DISCOVERED THE FAIRY! (100,000 points)
  • A fairy will appear when achieving multiple bonuses in a row, stalling the destruction of a large enemy, or other tasks. The fairy can be collected for 100,000 points, but drops a bomb item before leaving.
• DISCOVERED FAIRIES! (100,000 points)
  • Similar to the above, but no bombs are dropped.
• KILLED THE FAIRY! (10 points)
  • Fairies can be killed by the player's weapons when damaged too much.
• DISCOVERED THE MICLUS! (100,000 points)
  • A Miclus appears when flying over a specific spot or by doing other tasks. They release up to 9 medals when shot at and subsequently explode granting 100,000 points.
• DEFENDED THE HOUSE! (100,000 points x 4)
  • Forest stage only. Prevent the boss from destroying the houses.
• DESTROYED HOVERSHIP FIRST! (10,000 points x 2)
  • Stage 3 only. When the two hovercrafts at the beginning are destroyed, some of the tanks will be worth 10,000 points if they weren't destroyed before.

Grazing

When a bullet makes contact with the player's grazing hitbox points will be granted per frame, starting at 10 and increasing by 10 points every frame until reaching the max of 1,110 points per frame.

Mission bonus

Raiden Fighters is divided on 3 missions: Mission 1 (stages 1 through 3), Mission 2 (stages 4 through 6) and Final Mission (stage 7). At the end of each a special bonus is awarded, the total amount of points is calculated by the following formula:

Target Destroy Rate * Earned Medals * 100

Clear bonus

There is a 1,000,000 points bonus for finishing the game without using a continue.

Strategy

Stage order

Normally, the order of stages 1-2 and 4-5 is swapped at random. However, by holding Up, Down, Left or Right when starting a credit the player can set them to a fixed order.

Direction	Stage 1	Stage 2	Stage 3	Stage 4	Stage 5	Stage 6	Stage 7
Up	Forest	Airship	Battleship	Arctic	Train	Flying Fortress	Final Mission
Down	Forest	Airship	Battleship	Train	Arctic	Flying Fortress	Final Mission
Left	Airship	Forest	Battleship	Arctic	Train	Flying Fortress	Final Mission
Right	Airship	Forest	Battleship	Train	Arctic	Flying Fortress	Final Mission

Unlock the hidden ships

Depending on the machine configuration, Raiden mk-II and Judge Spear may already be available to select. If they aren't and the player has access to the Service Mode they can be unlocked the following way:

1. Enter the Service Mode.
2. Go to GAME SETTINGS.
3. Go to RAIDEN & VIPER and set it to ON.
4. Press Start to exit.
5. Go to EXIT.

Otherwise, if Raiden mk-II and Judge Spear aren't available:

• Highlight Endeavor and hold Right then press the A or B buttons, this will select Raiden mk-II.
• Highlight Chaser and hold Down then press the A or B buttons, this will select Judge Spear.

The Slave can be selected by holding any direction when highlighting a ship and pressing Start+A+B at the same time. If Raiden mk-II and Judge Spear aren't unlocked, the method to play as their Slaves is similar to the one described previously.

• Highlight Endeavor and hold Right then press Start+A+B at the same time, this will select Slave of Raiden mk-II.
• Highlight Chaser and hold Down then press Start+A+B at the same time, this will select Slave of Judge Spear.

Slave formations

The slaves assume different formations depending on the sum of lives and bombs the player has. The formations are active for a limited time when using the special attack, but activate immediately and are permanent for the hidden ships since they don't have one. To trigger a formation, the player simply has to collect a surplus slave item.

This system is also present in Raiden Fighters 2 and Raiden Fighters Jet.

#Lives + #Bombs	Formation
0, 4, 8	Slaves positioned ahead of the player fire spread twin shots.
1, 5, 9	Fixed position (default ships). Slaves slowly follow the player (hidden ships). Both fire narrow twin shots.
2, 6	Slaves move sideways and fire 3-way shots.
3, 7	Slaves home-in on enemies and fire at pointblank range.

Development History

Seibu Kaihatsu was developing the game under the working title of "Gun Dogs" before changing it to Raiden Fighters as a last-minute decision for wider appeal. Remnants of this original title are present in the final game and prerelease material. During the opening sequence, the Aegis has "GD-1" painted on its back, "GD" standing for Gun Dogs. Furthermore, the Gun Dogs logo can be seen in the background during the score ranking and mission briefing screens.

Version Differences

US version

This is an international release published by Fabtek. It has the following differences:

• Raiden mk-II and Judge Spear are available by default.
• A second loop has been added. The second loop must be finished in order to see the credits and receive the clear bonus.
• Upon continuing after losing all their lives, the player can select ships instead of respawning with the one they first chose (this option is present in the Japanese version but is disabled by default).

Gallery

• 

  Gun Dogs prerelease flyer.

References & Contributors

• Page creation by Andrew98
• Raiden Fighters Emporium
• Ship movement speed in pixel per frame by trap15 | via shmups.wiki Discord