Anyone else thinks Raiden is the Hardest Danmaku Space Ship SHMUP in existence?...

[r3d_belmont456]

Now before I start with this I just wanted to add a disclaimer here... This is in NO WAY a complaint thread about Raiden's difficulty (particularly this one's Overkill mode). This is merely a critique as well as my thoughts of the series overall when compared to other Space ship Shooters/Bullet Hell games that are still being released. So with that out of the way, let's begin~!!!

I, for one, am no stranger to the difficulty of Spaceship Shooters, and I am especially familiar with how crazy Raiden's difficulty can be, even from the first stage, as I have pretty much played every iteration of Raiden in existence, from the Arcade versions to the console versions, and even some flash games based on it (Raiden I-IV, Viper Phase 1, Raiden Fighters/Fighters Jet, etc.).

That being said however, Raiden seems to be the only Spaceship Shooter (especially the later versions), that is especially difficult to play at a casual level, mainly because the bullet patterns are not only fairly tight at times, but fly at you so fast that you often have no time at all to react... literally blinking might get you killed, and even on the easier difficulies, the bullet speed and patterns tend to go relatively unchanged. It's a very strange thing to me when compared to other Spaceship Shooters/Bullet Hell games which tend to have a far FAR more accessible difficulty curve, even on Normal... Allow me to make a few comparisons to show you what I mean.

Raiden Series Compared to Gradius, R-type and Darius Series:

Gradius, to this day remains my all time fav Shmup since it was also the first I ever played (it saddens me that it is pretty much a dead series now...), and not only are the console versions fairly accessible on their normal difficulty, but the arcade versions also ramped up their difficulties quite comfortably, it took several stages, often 1/2 way through before enemies began bombarding the screen with bullets, and even then the bullets wouldn't start traveling at the speed that they do in Raiden until roughly the 2nd loop (sooner in Arcade versions, but it still took a good while...). What I also notices in Raiden games is that bullets often times could come unexpectedly (and sometimes cheaply) from any direction on the screen which often times gaves me little to no time to react, while in Gradius games this was rarely if ever the case as many of the enemies came from the front, and if they DID come from the back or sides they often didn't start shooting until they were right next to you instead of as soon as they appeared... The Shield/Force Field system also helped mitigate some of the frustration by a LOT as well, Which is something many Spaceship Shooters rarely, if ever, implement...

R-Type is an interesting one to compare it to as it is still challenging, but possibly the easiest of the 3 since you can, for the most part, hide behind your weapon capsules, despite having a large hitbox. This would often trivialize many of the tight levels outside of a first time play through... What especially made it accessible was the unique mechanic of being able to transfer weapon capsules to the front or back of your ship in order to deal with enemy waves that WOULD come behind you at times, and this at times was also required to deal with bosses, but it was certainly a unique mechanic for the time... At the very least, even on hard, this game is still comfortable to play to a degree, but Raiden games for the most part, even on easy tend to be so ridiculous that I often have to resort to bomb scumming my way through them, which just isn't fun...

Darius is pretty much the closest thing to Gradius I can play that is still alive and kicking to this day, and it, like Gradius is fairly laid back with it's difficulty ramp up, despite it getting to the point where very large waves of enemies try to bombard your ship. Despite the large number of ships that can often appear on screen, however, the amount of bullets you have to deal with, even against bosses is actually on the low side, made even easier by the amount of damage you can take with the Upgradable Force Field.

Another thing this game gets well is even with it's crazy backgrounds, the bullets and enemies never seem to blend into them, making it easy to keep track of everything going on, whereas Raiden games have yet to deal with this properly as most of my random deaths tend to come from a stray bullet that I couldn't see well at all... Hell, I thought the upcoming Raiden V had finally dealt with this issue by making the bullets bright red, but after seeing the glowing blue crystal stage with certain enemies firing bright blue bullets, I ended up facepalming because I could barely make out the bullets at certain points, even when they were going slow (it's as if the Raiden Developers think masking bullets with the terrain is part of the difficulty, when that's just outright cheap...).

Raiden Series Compared to Cave Shooters:

Cave Shooters, especially the Arcade versions, are notorious for not only having ludicrous True Final Boss Requirements, but also having the True Final Boss be the very definition of "Quarter ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥". I have yet to see ANYONE beat a Cave True Final Boss without resorting to Cheese tactics due to how stupidly difficult they were designed, but I digress...

Even tho Cave Shooters in the Arcade are Fairly Challenging, they're actually fairly accessible, especially later titles and ESPECIALLY on Console/Mobile where you eventually got access to things like Auto Bomb, Seeing your hitbox/reducing it's size, etc... This didn't stop the True Final Boss requirements from being ridiculous, but just about every Cave Shooter can be enjoyed on normal at a casual level relatively stress free, which in my opinion, cemented it's balance between casually accessible and Hardcore Bullet Hell. You could play it either way and still get an experience worth your while, with the ONLY major downside with most Cave Shooters being that not all of them had 2 player Co-op which is my favorite part of most Spaceship Shooters...

One Cave Shooter in Particular that I still go back and play to this day is DeathSmiles, mainly because it is not only the easiest of all the Cave titles, but also allows 2 player Co-op AND it also reminds me a lot of Castlevania, Asthetic and music wise (which is my all time fav 2D Game)... Raiden may not have the overwhelming level of bullet flooding patterns that cave shooters tend to (for the most part), but the speed of the bullets that every single enemy spits out on top of all the different directions the enemies tend to shoot from just ends up adding FAR too much layers of randomness to the levels, to the point where often times the bosses end up being EASIER than the levels themselves which never really made any sense to me, and is most likely all the cause of my woes for the more modern Raiden Titles...

Raiden Series Compared to Touhou Shooters:

Just like Raiden, Avoiding Death comes from being in the right place at the right time, especially once patterns start becoming utterly ludicrous... Unlike Raiden however, most if not all of the RNG that is present in nearly every Raiden title is non existant. Enemies will pretty much always shoot at the same tempo, bullets go exactly where you expect, they don't blend in with the backgrounds and even on harder difficulties, bullet speed tends to be farily slow. This essentially means that even when boss patterns fill the screen with hellfire, you are usually given ample time to find the right place to be in so as to avoid death, not to mention the boss patterns are always static, meaning that you don't have to worry about that one magic bullet going faster than all the bullets surrounding you and catching you completely off guard (something that bosses in Raiden have had since it's first incarnation)...

All this essentually means that even on the hardest difficulty, Touhou shooters can end up becoming so ludicrously easy that even the least savvy Shmup player could make Lunatic Look like a breeze, mainly because everything at play can be comfortably learned and for the most part you are never thrown an RNG monkey wrench which can cause a cheap death or three. This is probably one reason why no matter how long I play a Raiden game (particularly the newer ones), I can never 1 CC them without resorting to bomb spam because of the lightning fast and random nature of the patterns, even on Easy difficulty since you're often reacting to bullets coming from right next to you with no time to think...

Conclusion and the Future of Raiden:

So basically, while Raiden's simple gameplay and scoring system may seem to be appealing from a casual perspective, It has many MANY inherent flaws that have been there since the beginning and only seem to have gotten worse... and while many of the companies that make Shmups are dead, dying or struggling to innovate within a very niche genre of shooters, leaving the choices we have for new shooters to play very limited, just about any shooter you could think of and go back and play holds out far FAR more than most of the Raiden Library for the sole reason that said games tend to be far more reasonable in difficulty curve... With Raiden 5: Director's Cut releasing to steam soon, I decided to check out it's gameplay to see if it would be worth picking up.

While It appears the Raiden Developers are doing everything they can for mass appeal without isolating it's core audience by adding a Story mode, Shields vs Stock (Health System) that allows you to keep your upgraded weapons when you take a hit, possibly allowing access to free play right off the bat, etc... If much of the core of Raiden remains unchanged, I sincerely have doubts that the devs will get the success they expect from it, especially in the west where these games are far FAR less likely to sell than in Asian Markets... Despite it being on such a large platform such as Steam.

Honestly, it could just be my personal tastes talking here, but I've played enough space ship shooters, new and old, to know what could at the very least hold attention today. Even with the rise in popularity of hard Rogue Lites such as Binding of Isaac, Enter the Gungeon and so forth, Devs for those games still make sure that said games are accessible enough that even the most casual player could have a good chance to enjoy their game. Take the recent Cuphead for instance... Despite everyone saying the game is too hard. Comapred to something like Contra 3 it's quite a cake walk, especially when you add in that not only do you not have to start over from the beginning for getting a game over, but you can also purchase upgrades by simply playing the game which can eventually even trivialize certain areas you're struggling with...

Although the last thing I want the devs to do (though I sincerely doubt they'd read this thread anyway...) is to dumb the game down to the point where it pleases neither casual nor core fan, I'd argue there's honestly nothing wrong with finding a minor compromise in at the very least givnig a casual player some leeway to enjoy your game, even if it means making the nornal difficulty, or at the very least easy mode, actually an easy mode (not NES easy which in today's standards would probably be considered hard mode, not even joking...).

I don't know what the status of the Raiden Developer Team is, nor do I know if Raiden V will be the last Raiden game we will get in the west (or ever for that matter), but because both Raiden and Darius are pretty much the last big names in Spaceship Shmups left in the industry that have had a recent release (to my knowledge at least, since I'm not sure if Cave is releasing Shooters still, and I sure as hell doubt Konami will anytime soon...), the last thing I want is for these big name SHMUPS to seize to exist, only to really exist in spirit via indie games inspired by them or via fan games...

If you've read this far, I appreciate the time you gave this read :3 , hopefully I provided some insigt to what a fan of SHMUPS thinks of the Raiden Franchise, i'll bee seeing you around! (cause Hachi scarred me that badly :x...)

[Ricky the "No Guard"]

None of these games are reactionary. Again, reacting to things is generally a really big mistake.

No miss no bomb of Raiden III, IV, and V are all possible, and are basically required for really good scores.

I really wish people would stop saying these games have bullet visibility problems, because they just don't. The only real issues in this series are the desert level that most of the games have, and Raiden V's annoying bloom, and in both cases they don't really ruin the game at all.

[Daikatan]

Well, you are entitled to your opinion.

[r3d_belmont456]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από tenlinkedparts:

None of these games are reactionary. Again, reacting to things is generally a really big mistake.

No miss no bomb of Raiden III, IV, and V are all possible, and are basically required for really good scores.

I really wish people would stop saying these games have bullet visibility problems, because they just don't. The only real issues in this series are the desert level that most of the games have, and Raiden V's annoying bloom, and in both cases they don't really ruin the game at all.

I really wish people WOULDN'T say Raiden has no visibility problems when it is apparent when you see some of the levels have color palettes similar if not the same to enemy fire (even Raiden 5 is guilty of this...), bloom and blur of course makes it worse...

You say shmups are not reactionary but that's not entirely true, as a first time playthrough in ANY SHMUP means you'll be relying on your reflexes more than anything until you memorize enemy placement and boss patterns. But one of the things I honestly always hated about Raiden bosses was Alternating Patterns (meaning the boss will overlap certain patterns and bullets in a way that if you are in the wrong place then what would've been a safespot is now an unsafe one...).

in the first few Raiden games, the overlaps had such big gaps that mistakes were a bit more forgiving, despite the gargantuan ship hitbox, but the newer Raiden games have such significantly tinier gaps between safe spots now that it is ludicrously easier to mess up when you're blasted by many pattens with tiny gaps (not helped by the fact that you still cannot see the ship's hit box and must assume it is in the middle, just below the cockpit... My argument was not for them to make the game easier overall (at least not normal and above), but to finally address all of the flawed design desicions that make Raiden games an unpleasant experience when compared to other SHMUPs which have design desicions to make the game more playable, like slower, brighter bullets, darker backgrounds, powerups and bonuses that don't blend with enemy attacks, etc...

FFS, even Ikaruga, which I have to take a break after 30 mins of playing due to eye (and brain) strain, has easier to see bullets and enemies... and that game is older than Raiden III-V...

[Ricky the "No Guard"]

I like how you think anyone actually says that. They don't. The whole bullet visibility thing is a meme that started with Garegga. It was just as stupid then as it is now.

Why are you even talking about the first playthrough? The only time the first playthrough is at all relevant is when a game is so disgustingly easy that pretty much anyone can beat it on their first try ever.

Are you seriously complaining about enemies aiming at you, and failing to position yourself properly?

It's funny because the newer Raiden games are significantly easier (and significantly less dumb) for the exact thing you're taking issue with.

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Daikatan:

Well, you are entitled to your opinion.

Games being reactionary or not, Raiden III/IV/V being perfectable or not, and bullet visiblity are not matters of opinion.

You keep talking about all of these supposedly clear flaws that the developers need to fix, yet you claim that all I'm doing is spouting opinion. This is why I'm so tired of this "opinion" thing; people use the concept as a weapon to spread obvious lies, then swear that they're just expressing opinion when called out for it. It's completely disgusting and I will not have it.

Absolutely nothing of what you're saying is grounded in reality. I am not at all being elitist here, nor am I even remotely suggesting that these games are perfect (especially not Raiden IV).

[r3d_belmont456]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από tenlinkedparts:

I like how you think anyone actually says that. They don't. The whole bullet visibility thing is a meme that started with Garegga. It was just as stupid then as it is now.

Why are you even talking about the first playthrough? The only time the first playthrough is at all relevant is when a game is so disgustingly easy that pretty much anyone can beat it on their first try ever.

Are you seriously complaining about enemies aiming at you, and failing to position yourself properly?

It's funny because the newer Raiden games are significantly easier (and significantly less dumb) for the exact thing you're taking issue with.

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Daikatan:

Well, you are entitled to your opinion.

Games being reactionary or not, Raiden III/IV/V being perfectable or not, and bullet visiblity are not matters of opinion.

You keep talking about all of these supposedly clear flaws that the developers need to fix, yet you claim that all I'm doing is spouting opinion. This is why I'm so tired of this "opinion" thing; people use the concept as a weapon to spread obvious lies, then swear that they're just expressing opinion when called out for it. It's completely disgusting and I will not have it.

Absolutely nothing of what you're saying is grounded in reality. I am not at all being elitist here, nor am I even remotely suggesting that these games are perfect (especially not Raiden IV).

Please elaborate to me how none of my arguments are grounded in reality when they are based on personal experience, not just from playing many different and well known SHMUPs, but just about every Raiden Incarnation in existence minus Raiden 5 (I don't wish to buy that game yet as it is grossly overpriced for the content it offers when compared to other more recent SHMUPS).

[Ricky the "No Guard"]

Uh, my posts did just. You're putting forward your personal experience, whether your judgment is clouded or not, as proof of actual problems the devs need to spend resources trying to "fix". You can't just make strange demands and expect people to satisfy them.

Raiden V is not even remotely overpriced, and is actually significantly underpriced. Most video games are. The only game that really tries to compete with V is Dariusburst, and that game has a lot of qualifiers that prevent it from being directly compared.

[r3d_belmont456]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από tenlinkedparts:

Uh, my posts did just. You're putting forward your personal experience, whether your judgment is clouded or not, as proof of actual problems the devs need to spend resources trying to "fix". You can't just make strange demands and expect people to satisfy them.

Raiden V is not even remotely overpriced, and is actually significantly underpriced. Most video games are. The only game that really tries to compete with V is Dariusburst, and that game has a lot of qualifiers that prevent it from being directly compared.

Your logic on this only tells me you'd most likely be the first in line to defend corporate anti consumer practices... If I am shelling out 35-50 Dollars for a SHMUP in 2017, it not only better damn well be made of Gold, but have enough modes and replay value to warrant said price, not to mention the devs would do well to take any kind of constructive criticism towards their game, else they will never learn...

If the Raiden Devs (or any game dev for that mater) are not capable of addressing common sense issues, taking feedback, and putting more than just a handful of Hours worth of content in an arcade shooter that is priced at 35 Bucks, then they neither Want nor Deserve my business...

When Cuphead, a 20 dollar Side Scrolling Shooter has more content AND balanced difficulty on top of amazing visuals that are hand drawn instead of cheap re-used assets from previous games, something is SERIOUSLY wrong. If you really wanna talk business, then I can tell you for a fact that the biggest reason Raiden 5 will fail and be quickly forgotten is BECAUSE of how poorly the devs are handling the IP with outdated practices and design decisions that should've been addressed forever ago...

A SHMUP can still succeed today, but only if the devs give even 1/2 a rats ass... games like Cupead and Nex Machina certainly proved that...

[Ricky the "No Guard"]

It blows my mind that you think pricing games for what they're actually worth is anti-consumer. Like you honestly believe that releasing a good game for, say, $80 is the same thing as microtransactions and lootboxes. What is actually wrong with you?

Protip: The vast majority of "constructive criticism" comes from whiny little brats who have no idea what they're talking about.

Protip: Cuphead is just a boss rush and isn't really any more or less balanced than Raiden V.

Protip: Basically nothing in Raiden V is actually reused from previous games (seriously?).

Protip: Nex Machina was a complete failure and the devs have announced they no longer want to make "arcade-style games" because of it. Meanwhile, Sine Mora is a legitimately poorly-designed game in many ways, but was actually a minor success entirely on the back of aesthetic. It's completely insane. Do not try to tell me this isn't happening.

You continue to be outright wrong about very basic things. Does any of this sound like opinion to you? I sure hope not, because it's only gonna prove my point further.

The real reason Raiden V is going to be forgotten is because people keep lying about what it is and how it works, endlessly saying it's a bad game for reasons that make no actual sense and are not supported by the game itself. Such people usually lie about all sorts of other things, such as my shortlist right here.

[r3d_belmont456]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από tenlinkedparts:

It blows my mind that you think pricing games for what they're actually worth is anti-consumer. Like you honestly believe that releasing a good game for, say, $80 is the same thing as microtransactions and lootboxes. What is actually wrong with you?

Protip: The vast majority of "constructive criticism" comes from whiny little brats who have no idea what they're talking about.

Protip: Cuphead is just a boss rush and isn't really any more or less balanced than Raiden V.

Protip: Basically nothing in Raiden V is actually reused from previous games (seriously?).

Protip: Nex Machina was a complete failure and the devs have announced they no longer want to make "arcade-style games" because of it. Meanwhile, Sine Mora is a legitimately poorly-designed game in many ways, but was actually a minor success entirely on the back of aesthetic. It's completely insane. Do not try to tell me this isn't happening.

You continue to be outright wrong about very basic things. Does any of this sound like opinion to you? I sure hope not, because it's only gonna prove my point further.

The real reason Raiden V is going to be forgotten is because people keep lying about what it is and how it works, endlessly saying it's a bad game for reasons that make no actual sense and are not supported by the game itself. Such people usually lie about all sorts of other things, such as my shortlist right here.

Even though I may not have been entirely thorough when mentioning my examples, that STILL doesn't stop the facts that the Raiden Devs have and seem to continue to choose poorly when it comes to the enemy bullet color palettes matching either the color of medals, the color of the background and even the color of the basic weapon (Vulcan) which can sometimes obscure enemy fire, especially when fully powered up, it's not made up lies, it's fact, many people having the exact same complaint should be more than enough proof of that...

But in case you need more, just look up any 1CC Vid of any of the newer Raiden games, especially on harder difficulties, and keep a close eye on the ship. If at any point you randomly see it explode and didn't see where the player may have gotten hit to have lost a ship unless you slow it down significantly, that alone should tell you how bad the bullets blending in with everything still is... Why they've yet to address this is beyond me.

As for the game's pricing, it's Marketing 101... if it's not popular nor trending, then selling it at a high price is the equivalent of commiting suicide. No one's gonna wanna buy it because of how obscure it is, and even if they somehow manage to find it, there's a very good chance that the price being stupidly high, as well as many other factors, will negatively influence the person and thus deterring them further from purchase.

Don't think for one second Raiden 4 or 5 are worth more than 15 dollars, as a monkey would most likely be more than capable of making a less sloppy and more competent SHMUP on Adobe Flash than what these guys have done with Raiden 5... If you seriously expect anyone with 1/2 a brain to pay 35 bucks for 8 stages, a mediocre "cheer" system, Shields over Stock, and all of the flaws that have plagued previous Raiden games and continue to make them a subpar experience, then you sir, are far more deluded than you claim...

Brand name means nothing for niche games, because if it did, than much more well known SHMUPS like Namco's Galaga and Konami's Gradius would alive and well, Cave would most likely not be struggling either. So the Raiden name alone will not be enough to help it in the long run if they don't keep reusing the stagnant design decisions that have not made Raiden any better...

[Ricky the "No Guard"]

But it does, because what you're saying is not a fact at all, it's a very personal opinion. I've played every game in the Raiden series and watched countless videos and I have never had a problem with bullet visibility except for super low-res videos of ancient runs from the early days of YouTube, or something silly like that. There's nothing to address. There's no actual problem here to fix.

You claim marketing this and that, yet you go on about how the game is supposedly sloppy and incompetent, based entirely on strange claims that are not actually supported by the games you're talking about. What part of this is supposed to be based on any kind of fact? Your "rule" isn't even true: there's a ton of appeal for a super rare object that is expensive because it's rare and that no one would care about if it wasn't. Happens all the damned time, especially in collector hell.

What does the Shield bar have to do with anything? The Shield bar is significantly better than a normal life stock: you get more hits at any given time, you keep your bombs instead of losing them, and it transforms the Fairy from a dangerous (I/II/DX) or useless (III/IV) powerup fountain into a cool shield recharge item.

You do know that III tried to fix a lot of the actual flaws in this series, right? Instead of worrying about how to design checkpoints well, they just got rid of them to ease frustration. Powerup items (specifically, the Fairy) aren't hilariously dangerous or useless anymore, but still give you a bonus for sticking to a specific weapon. The false choice of bombs is gone, replaced by a single strictly superior bomb; bombs no longer suck. The only real flaw introduced in any of this is that powerups themselves aren't terribly interesting, but that's because the original Raiden weapon system sucked... and that's where Raiden V comes in, once again. V not only introduced the really great Shield system, it also overhauls how powerups work and actually encourages you to keep switching between weapons.

What's all this garbage about branding? Games like Galaga were making millions upon millions of dollars in their day, nothing niche about that. The entire genre as a whole is niche now, like so many arcade-based genres, entirely because of external factors. The vast majority of nostalgia for old games is catered to consoles, not arcades (except for a specific handful of games from the days where there really wasn't anything but arcades) or computers (until the mid-'90s).

Once again, all you're showing me is that you truly have no idea what you're talking about, whether it's about the Raiden series or about any other video game in the world. You cannot even begin to accuse me of being deluded. You wouldn't know what a truly stagnant design would be if someone slapped you in the face with it.

[r3d_belmont456]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από tenlinkedparts:

But it does, because what you're saying is not a fact at all, it's a very personal opinion. I've played every game in the Raiden series and watched countless videos and I have never had a problem with bullet visibility except for super low-res videos of ancient runs from the early days of YouTube, or something silly like that. There's nothing to address. There's no actual problem here to fix.

You claim marketing this and that, yet you go on about how the game is supposedly sloppy and incompetent, based entirely on strange claims that are not actually supported by the games you're talking about. What part of this is supposed to be based on any kind of fact? Your "rule" isn't even true: there's a ton of appeal for a super rare object that is expensive because it's rare and that no one would care about if it wasn't. Happens all the damned time, especially in collector hell.

What does the Shield bar have to do with anything? The Shield bar is significantly better than a normal life stock: you get more hits at any given time, you keep your bombs instead of losing them, and it transforms the Fairy from a dangerous (I/II/DX) or useless (III/IV) powerup fountain into a cool shield recharge item.

You do know that III tried to fix a lot of the actual flaws in this series, right? Instead of worrying about how to design checkpoints well, they just got rid of them to ease frustration. Powerup items (specifically, the Fairy) aren't hilariously dangerous or useless anymore, but still give you a bonus for sticking to a specific weapon. The false choice of bombs is gone, replaced by a single strictly superior bomb; bombs no longer suck. The only real flaw introduced in any of this is that powerups themselves aren't terribly interesting, but that's because the original Raiden weapon system sucked... and that's where Raiden V comes in, once again. V not only introduced the really great Shield system, it also overhauls how powerups work and actually encourages you to keep switching between weapons.

What's all this garbage about branding? Games like Galaga were making millions upon millions of dollars in their day, nothing niche about that. The entire genre as a whole is niche now, like so many arcade-based genres, entirely because of external factors. The vast majority of nostalgia for old games is catered to consoles, not arcades (except for a specific handful of games from the days where there really wasn't anything but arcades) or computers (until the mid-'90s).

Once again, all you're showing me is that you truly have no idea what you're talking about, whether it's about the Raiden series or about any other video game in the world. You cannot even begin to accuse me of being deluded. You wouldn't know what a truly stagnant design would be if someone slapped you in the face with it.

Well, I and many others know what I like, and as an Arcade Junkie as well as someone that still loves SHMUPS to death I've got a cabinet in my room with like 70% of the games in it being SHMUPS, so my intuition and experience when these games are concerned are something I'd trust far more than anyhting any random online fanboy has to say... The last SHMUP I EVER paid 50 bucks for was Gradius 5 and Otomedius, mostly because I had no choice back then as I either had to import them due to how little they'd ship from Japan, OR I'd have to hope to find it used for a reasonable priced somewhere...

But now that Digital Distribution has caught on, there is literally NO logical reason to pay a premium for SHMUPS anymore (FFS, I can get Ikaruga and Radiant Silvergun for 15 dollars or less now, unheard of back if I had to get either the Sega Saturn version or Dreamcast/Gamecube version just to play it)... Not only because Eastern devs no longer have to import or even translate their games anymore, but also because they don't have to spent more money on making physical copies, and the ones they do, they can easily inflate to ludicrous prices for the nostalgic collectors.

The game industry has turned into a buyer's market, where the consumer has more choice than ever now, and if old school devs like the Raiden ones refuse to learn that, then their games will never sell at the price threshold they're still setting, regardless of quality or how premium the team may be, as quality as this point is synonymous to price to content ratio, not about how shiny it's graphics may be when compare to an indie title, hence why people would rather go for the indie title instead... You can argue replayability as much as you want, but that won't fool most consumers these days...

[Daikatan]

And now you went wrong way.

And no, physical or digital - isnt related as much as you make it look.

[r3d_belmont456]

I really didn't wanna argue anything here tbh... I was merely stating that bullet visibility has been an issue in Raiden games for awhile and only became worse when it shifted to 3D... if they could finally address that issue and stop making enemy bullets match certain stage backgrounds among other QoL changes then the game would honestly be Perfect outside of the price... I'd honestly consider picking it up were that the case, but it isn't.

I watched a full playthrough of Raiden 5 before making up my mind wether I should pick it up or not, and what cemented my decision was that on the final stage, where the game becomes the hardest in terms of bullet speed, the enemies shoot blue bullets in a background that is pretty much the exact same color, I facepalmed hard and didn't look back...

[Ricky the "No Guard"]

See, now you're just gonna call me a fanboy instead of reading anything I'm saying. You are wrong about what you claim with Raiden, and you continue to be wrong about things that have nothing to do with Raiden. Calling you out for your lies does not make me a fanboy, and your supposed years of love for the genre only make you look even more ignorant.

That whole bit about this "buyer's market" means a whole lot of nothing, yet at the same time is perfect proof of exactly what I'm talking about. Most to all games are severely underpriced, not just Raiden or even any shmup. In addition to ridiculously low retail prices, you also have endless sales and bundles that reduce games to sub-$1.00 amounts. On top of that, people treat games as disposable one-time affairs and have no idea what replay value actually is, which is almost certainly why these same people keep demanding lower and lower prices. That's not sustainable, especially if you're spending any real money on developing a brand new game, like with Raiden V. It's a lot easier to just rerelease an older game, which the vast majority of the "cheap" games on Steam are, than it is to make one from scratch. Raiden V itself is already a lot cheaper now than the original sticker price on its launch a year ago.

And yes, that sticker price was completely worth it. I ended up getting the game during the $15 Gold sale and I immediately regreted not buying the game new. The developers clearly deserve money for this game, and I'd still like to get one of the physical releases at some point.

This bullet visibility thing is obviously a big deal to you, is something wrong with your eyesight? Look, that sucks, but that's not something the developers really can or even should do anything about. Developers should not bend over backwards for the demands of a small group.

[cola.beans]

3rd one feels harder.