Raiden Fighters 2: Operation Hell Dive
Title screen
| Developer: | Seibu Kaihatsu |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Seibu Kaihatsu Fabtek (US) The Metrotainment Network (Hong Kong) Dream Island Co. (Korea) |
| Producer: | H. Hamada S. Mori |
| Music: | G. Sato |
| Program: | T. Saito N. Idesawa K. Terasaka |
| Art: | N. Machino T. Sasaki T. Hatsuse K. Morino H. Okumura N. Kato C. Takahashi K. Muto T. Honda T. Wada Y. Yoshihara |
| Designer: | S. Yano T. Saito |
| Release date: | Arcade JP: December 1997[1] US: January 1998[2] Xbox 360 JP: March 27, 2008[3] US: May 5, 2009[3] iPhone: December 13, 2012[4] PC: 2013[4] |
| Previous game: | Raiden Fighters |
| Next game: | Raiden Fighters Jet |
Raiden Fighters 2: Operation Hell Dive (JP:ライデンファイターズ2) is a vertically scrolling-shooter developed by Seibu Kaihatsu in 1997. It is the sequel to Raiden Fighters. Raiden Fighters 2 retains several elements from its prequel, featuring more playable ships, hidden bonuses scattered throughout each stage and the introduction of a true last boss.
An Xbox compilation titled Raiden Fighters Evolution featuring Raiden Fighters and Raiden Fighters 2 was planned for release in 2003 but ended up being cancelled. Raiden Fighters 2 is part of Raiden Fighters Aces for the Xbox 360 and Raiden Legacy for PC and mobile phones.
For replay videos, visit the Video Index.
Contents
Story
4 years have passed since the defeat of the dictator's army. However, remaining guerillas gathered under the dictator made a new nation and started attacking our forces. The new government force assembles old fighters and orders a special mission using the newest weapons. This mission shall be called operation "Hell Dive".
Game Modes
There are 3 different modes present. By default, only Normal is playable and the other two are made available in Service Mode (under GAME SETTINGS set SPECIAL STAGE to ON).
Normal
This mode follows a very similar structure to its prequel. The players goes through 2 missions made up of 3 stages followed by a third mission that is simply the final stage. If the player accomplished a Target Destroy Rate of 100% at the end of stage 3 and 6 and hasn't used a continue up to that point, then the true last boss "Red Eye" will appear, otherwise the game will end after the previous boss "Rafflesia" (which boss is the final one is indicated in the mission briefing screen). During the final stage, using a continue resets the medal state and sends the player back to a specific part of the stage. If the TLB requirements weren't met this is the very beginning of the stage, if the TLB requirements were met and Rafflesia was defeated, then the player starts right before this boss encounter but doesn't need to fight it again.
Special
This is a boss rush mode. Unlike Normal mode there are no requirements for facing the TLB. Using a continue in the last two bosses is handled similar to Normal mode.
Expert
This is the same as Normal mode but with increased difficulty. Suicide bullets are fired by almost everything, though most of them can be sealed when at a close enough distance.
Gameplay Overview
Raiden Fighters 2 has 7 stages with a single loop.
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.
Items
| Item | Description |
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Missile Powers-up the missile weapon, grants 5,000 points when maxed out. |
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Laser Powers-up the laser weapon, grants 5,000 points when maxed out. |
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Slaves Adds a slave, grants 5,000 points when 2 are equipped. |
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Bomb Adds a bomb up to a maximum of 7, grants 5,000 points when at full stock. |
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Medal Score item. |
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Fairy Grants 100,000 points. Drops a bomb item before leaving. |
Ships
There are 17 playable ships, 7 of them are available by default and the rest need to be unlocked. Devastator and Endeavor from Raiden Fighters aren't playable in this entry, though some of their attributes are present in other 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
Every ship has a a missile and laser secondary weapon they have access to each with their own special attack. Special attacks may be firing their respective weapon at a faster rate or something completely different, in both cases the player can't fire their regular bullets, though slaves can if there are any. The time it takes to use a special attack depends on the weapon equipped, with the stronger ones taking the longest such as Beast Wing and Eraser's laser weapons. All the fighters have the same bomb: a medium-sized sphere that cancels nearby bullets and deals heavy damage. The detonation can be controlled by holding the B button, the longer it is held the farther the bomb will go.
There is a hidden version of the special attack that is only available in a two-player game. To trigger it, both players must be very close to each other and activate the special attack at roughly the same time. When done correctly, both ships fire a large blue beam and are invincible for its entire duration, however, they also can't move.
Included in the Speed bullet point is the speed measured in pixels by frame for both horizontal and vertical movement.
| Aegis IV |
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| Beast Wing |
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| Chaser 2000 |
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| Death Header |
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Some of Death Header's arsenal is a nod to Devastator from Raiden Fighters, notably the shot and laser weapon.
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| Eraser |
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| Flying Ray |
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| Griffin |
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Hidden ships
The guest fighters and the secret Slave from Raiden Fighters return. With the exception of Hell Diver, all of them start with 3 bombs per life, lack a special attack and may only have a single weapon.
| Hell Diver |
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| Raiden mk-II |
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| Judge Spear |
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| Aegis IIC |
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This is a camouflage painted version of the Aegis IV. Both secondary weapons have a higher fire-rate compared to the regular Aegis IV.
Fun fact: Very rarely, at the start of the airport stage a supporting Aegis IIC appears to assist the player. |
| Raiden mk-IIβ |
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This is the 2P side version of Raiden mk-II in Raiden II. It has the vulcan shot, nuclear missiles and cluster bomb. Just like in Raiden II, a key difference with the mk-IIβ is faster movement speed.
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| Blue Javelin |
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This is the 2P side version of Judge Spear in Viper Phase 1. Blue Javelin has slower movement speed, a slightly wider shot and different missiles.
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| Miclus |
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| Fairy |
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Fairy is the Slave of Miclus.
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| Slave |
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Unlike the previous game, Slave always starts with 3 bombs regardless of the fighter originally selected. It also shares the bomb this time around. Slaves (and therefore the Fairy) have a smaller hitbox than the rest of the fighters.
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| Dark Sword |
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This is one of the few ships to not appear in the player select screen even when all the others have been unlocked. Minus its shot which is the same as Judge Spear's, Dark Sword is functionally identical to Blue Javelin with faster speed.
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Rank
Rank affects bullet speed and enemy fire-rate. Rank decreases considerably after dying.
Scoring
Medals
The medal system is virtually unchanged from how it worked in Raiden Fighters. At first, 3 different groups can appear depending on how many slaves the player currently has. Upon collected, medals increase in value when no other medals are on the screen, making it important to uncover and collect them one by one.
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. Dropping a 100k medal will reset their value back to 10,000 points, but the unlocking method doesn't have to be done a second 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
There are several bonuses that can be triggered by performing specific tasks. A message appears near the top of the screen when a bonus is done successfully.
- QUICK SHOT! (10,000 points - 100,000 points)
- Destroy an enemy before it fires.
- 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)
- During the sky stage, destroy the engine parts of every large aircraft and several fairies will dive down the screen at the end, taking the place of regular enemy spawns. These fairies don't leave bombs.
- KILLED THE FAIRY! (10 points)
- Shoot down a fairy.
- 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 TANK! (100,000 points x 3)
- Near the end of the airport stage, prevent the large tank from destroying the 3 smaller tanks. This is a reference to the "DEFENDED THE HOUSE!" bonus from Raiden Fighters.
- DESTROYED TANK FIRST! (30,000 points x 2)
- During the beach stage, there are 2 hovercrafts with a tank appearing, destroy the tank before the hovercraft it came out of to achieve this bonus. This is a reference to the "DESTROYED HOVERSHIP FIRST!" bonus from Raiden Fighters.
Grazing
When the player is close enough to a bullet sparks will appear to the left or right side of their ship (depending on where the bullet is) and a unique sound effect plays. This grants points in a per-frame basis, starting at 10 and increasing by 10 points every frame until reaching the max of 1,110 points per frame. Compared to its prequel, graze opportunities are much more prominent in Raiden Fighters 2 particularly during boss encounters.
Playing the game normally and uncovering most of the secrets usually results in scores in the 70-80 millions range by the end. By implementing grazing strategies it is not rare to reach scores over the 100 millions range with enough practice, though how much is required can heavily depend on a ship's scoring potential. For more information see the STG Hall of Records.
Mission bonus
At the end of stages 3, 6 and the final stage this bonus is awarded. The total amount of points is calculated with the following formula:
| Target Destroy Rate × Earned Medals × 100 |
Clear bonus
A special bonus is awarded for clearing with a single credit. If Red Eye was the final boss this is 10,000,000 points, or 1,000,000 points if the final boss was Rafflesia.
Strategy
In Raiden Fighters 2, there are 2 ways to play as the hidden ships: wait for them to be available once the (normally secret) days of operation counter reaches a certain point, and button combos. These 2 factors are intertwined, however, and under certain conditions most hidden ships won't be available. For example, the days of operation counter is under 15 and the player tries the code to play as Miclus (who is unlocked very late), this will never work, not until enough days have passed.
Probably for debugging purposes, there is a way to visualize and manually increase the days of operation. In the Service Menu, inside GAME SETTINGS set both options under SHOOTER1 and SHOOTER2 to 9 and enable Free Play. Now, under I/O TEST the days of operation are visible. Furthermore, holding the buttons corresponding to TEST SW and SERVICE SW followed by pressing the 2P side's Start button increases the days of operation.
Days of operation
In the player select screen, the ? icon (random selection) occasionally shows Hell Diver, Raiden mk-II and Judge Spear. This is the only way to as them initially
| Days of operation | Available by default | Available by button combinations |
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| 0-14 | Aegis IV, Beast Wing, Chaser 2000, Death Header, Eraser, Flying Ray, Griffin | None |
| 15-42 | Aegis IV, Beast Wing, Chaser 2000, Death Header, Eraser, Flying Ray, Griffin, Hell Diver | Raiden mk-II*, Judge Spear, Aegis IIC |
| 43-70 | Aegis IV, Beast Wing, Chaser 2000, Death Header, Eraser, Flying Ray, Griffin, Hell Diver, Raiden mk-II, Judge Spear | Aegis IIC, Raiden mk-IIβ, Blue Javelin, Miclus, Fairy, Slave |
| 71 and onwards | Aegis IV, Beast Wing, Chaser 2000, Death Header, Eraser, Flying Ray, Griffin, Hell Diver, Raiden mk-II, Judge Spear, Aegis IIC, Raiden mk-IIβ, Blue Javelin, Miclus | Fairy, Slave, Dark Sword |
*During this period, for some reason Miclus' button combination also selects Raiden mk-II.
Button combinations
| Ship | Inputs |
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Since Slave's button input simply involves holding the B button it can be used alongside other codes. This is helpful if the player wants to use the Slave of a ship not currently present in the select screen. This is also the only way to play as Slave of Dark Sword.
Stage order
By holding Up, Down, Left or Right before starting a credit stages 1-2 and 4-5 can be set into a fixed order.
| Direction | Stage 1 | Stage 2 | Stage 3 | Stage 4 | Stage 5 | Stage 6 | Stage 7 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Up | Airport | Lake | Train | Sky | Beach | Desert | Final Mission |
| Down | Airport | Lake | Train | Beach | Sky | Desert | Final Mission |
| Left | Lake | Airport | Train | Beach | Sky | Desert | Final Mission |
| Right | Lake | Airport | Train | Sky | Beach | Desert | Final Mission |
Aegis IIC assistance
When airport is stage 2 and the player has died beforehand, Aegis IIC will appear at the start of the stage to support, up to 2 can be assisting the player depending on the number of deaths (but more than 2 won't trigger this secret). Every enemy destroyed by it awards 10,000 points. 100,000 points will be awarded for every remaining Aegis IIC by the end of the stage.
In a two-player game, these rules do not apply, with 2 Aegis IIC always appearing regardless of the number of deaths.
Slave formations
There are different formations the slaves can assume depending on the sum of lives and bombs the player has, to trigger a formation the only requirement is collecting a surplus slave item. For the 7 default fighters and Hell Diver these formations are only available when using the special attack, otherwise they are permanent until its changed or all of the player's slaves are destroyed.
| #Lives + #Bombs | Formation |
|---|---|
| 0, 4, 8 |
Slaves positioned ahead of the player fire spread twin shots. |
| 1, 5, 9 |
Both fire narrow twin shots. |
| 2, 6 |
Slaves move sideways and fire 3-way shots. |
| 3, 7 |
Homing slaves. |
Player side differences
Either due to bugs or intentional design, many shoot em' ups have differences between 1P side and 2P side. In Raiden Fighters 2, the grazing hitbox when playing on 2P side is larger, extended 4 pixels in both vertical dimension[5].
Version Differences
US
This version has the following differences:
- A Parental Advisory warning screen has been added. It is seen when the game first boots up and throughout the attract cycle.
- The text in the mission briefing screens has been translated to English.
- There are no requirements for accessing the Red Eye fight.
- There is a second loop with faster bullets and suicide bullets, similar to Expert mode in the Japanese version. Only after finishing this second loop the clear bonus is granted.
- Using a continue in the final stage no longer sends the player back to a specific point. This is an option that can be turned on or off in the Japanese version.
- After using a continue, the player can choose a different ship as opposed to starting with the one they originally selected. This is another option also present in the Japanese version.
- The time it takes to uncover a Miclus by flying over its hidden spot has been significantly shortened. For ships with medium to slow speed simply reaching the spot is enough to make the Miclus appear.
- The days required to unlock the hidden ships is the same as the Japanese version. However, the option to enable the Special and Expert modes only appears once the days of operation counter is over 70 days.
- Moreover, Expert mode is not selectable in this version, possibly because of the newly added second loop.
US Single Board
This is known as "US Single Board" in emulators like MAME. It is an updated version of the US release (notice the modified logo, Raiden Fighters 2.1). It has the following differences:
- There is no 999 countdown when the machine is first booted up.
- All the secret ships are unlocked.
- Special mode isn't locked under the days of operation (for some reason, the days of operation are maxed out at 9999 by default) and can be enabled anytime in Service Menu just like the Japanese version. But again, Expert mode is not playable.
Aside from that, all the prior changes from the first US release carry over to this version.
China
This is an unofficial Chinese version released in the year 2000, it is known as Raiden Fighters 2 Operation Hell Dive 2000/Raiden Fighters 2 2000 Operation Hell Dive. It has the following differences:
- The text in the mission briefing screens has been translated to English.
- There are no requirements for accessing the Red Eye fight.
- There is no 999 countdown when the machine is first booted up.
- All the secret ships are unlocked.
- Expert mode is not playable, but Special mode can be unlocked in Service Menu.
- Rank is much lower compared to any other version. This causes both demos during the attract sequence to desync.
Audio differences
The Japanese version and every other release use the Yamaha YMF271 for their sound chips, while this version has two Oki MSM6295 (Note: both of these specifications were taken from MAME's "System Information" menu). This version has considerably inferior sound quality, several songs (stages and boss BGM) play as one part of their entire track in a short loop and many sections of the game have the wrong BGM being played.
- The 'insert credit' sound effect is the same as Raiden Fighters Jet.
- The intro sequence has no BGM.
- The lake stage plays the beach stage BGM.
- The second portion of the train stage (everything after the 'target approaching' warning) plays the boss BGM.
- The desert stage plays the BGM of the first portion of the train stage.
- The final stage plays the sky stage BGM.
- The Red Eye fight plays the beach stage BGM.
- The ending screen plays the airport stage BGM.
- The name entry screen plays the mission briefing BGM.
- The staff roll plays the BGM of the first portion of the train stage.
Korea
- The text in the mission briefing screens has been translated to English.
- There are no requirements for accessing the Red Eye fight.
- There is a second loop with faster bullets and suicide bullets, similar to Expert mode in the Japanese version. Only after finishing this second loop the clear bonus is granted.
- Using a continue in the final stage no longer sends the player back to a specific point. This is an option that can be turned on or off in the Japanese version.
- After using a continue, the player can choose a different ship as opposed to starting with the one they originally selected. This is another option also present in the Japanese version.
- Hell Diver, Raiden mk-II and Judge Spear are available by default along with Aegis IIC, Raiden mk-IIβ, Blue Javelin, Miclus and Slaves via their secret codes (equivalent to the Japanese version when the days of operation are over 42). Setting the days of operation in this version to over 42 unlocks Dark Sword.
- The option to enable Special mode is only made available once the days of operation are over 70, but Expert mode is not playable.
Trivia
- In a two-player game with Raiden mk-II and Raiden mk-IIβ, if the Raiden mk-IIβ's bullets touch the back of Raiden mk-II they will spread into sparks that damage enemies. This is a reference to the original Raiden games where the same behavior is seen with the vulcan shot and blue laser.
- In the airport stage there are 3 stationary Endeavors that can be seen in the background. Unlike the nearby Aegis IIC these don't trigger any hidden bonuses and are purely a reference to Raiden Fighters.
Gallery
References & Contributors
- Page creation by Andrew98
- Raiden Fighters Emporium
- Ship movement speed in pixel per frame by trap15 | via shmups.wiki Discord
