Super Raiden

Did You Know?

• The game's trademark was abandoned in 1994.
• The Miclus collectible item is a boss from Seibu Kaihatsu's 1985 title Wiz.

Gameplay

In this vertically scrolling shoot 'em up, players pilot the Fighting Thunder craft across eight stages that get harder as they go. The goal is to blast enemies while dodging their attacks. When two people play together, they can create special damaging projectiles by shooting each other's ship. Beating the eighth stage loops back to the first with a tougher challenge. Collectible items include bombs that clear enemy fire and hit a large area, weapon upgrades, and medals that boost your score. Two special items appear: a Miclus and a fairy that drops power-ups when you die. If your ship is destroyed, its shrapnel turns into projectiles that can hit enemies. Losing all lives ends the game unless you insert more credits to continue, which puts you back at the last checkpoint you reached.

Development

The development of Raiden was a direct consequence of Dynamite Duke's underperformance. According to Toshinobu Komazawa, a graphic designer who later became CEO of MOSS, Seibu Kaihatsu created Raiden to recover the costs of Dynamite Duke, opting for a shoot 'em up rather than a sequel. The project began with a negative outlook but earnest effort, as the genre was both inexpensive to produce and growing in popularity. Financial limitations forced Seibu to use less powerful arcade hardware than in previous titles. The shoot 'em up was the only game they could afford to develop, making it a purely financial decision. To appeal to overseas markets, the team borrowed ideas from popular games like Capcom's 1942, Namco's Xevious, and Toaplan's Twin Cobra.

Production was led by Seibu president Hitoshi Hamada, with Tetsuya Kawaguchi as designer and programmer. Additional programmers were K. Kondo and S. Mori. The in-game artwork was created by Komazawa, H. Matsuo, T. Matsuzawa, and T. Wada. Y. Segawa handled the arcade hardware design. Near the end of development, Komazawa praised the programmers for producing a high-quality game on weaker hardware.

The music was composed by Akira Sato. A soundtrack for Raiden and Raiden II was released by INH Co., Ltd., featuring music from the arcade and PlayStation versions of Raiden, Raiden Densetsu for FM Towns, Raiden II for arcade and PlayStation, Raiden DX for arcade, and additional extras.

Release and ports

Raiden first hit arcades in April 1990, published by Tecmo in Japan. Outside Japan, it saw releases through Fabtek in North America, Liang HWA Electronics in Taiwan, IBL Corporation in South Korea, and Wah Yan Electronics in Hong Kong. The game later traveled to many home systems, and each port brought its own tweaks and extras. In 2022, the original arcade version was set to appear on the Sega Astro City Mini V, a vertical-screen version of Sega’s mini console.

The PC Engine port, handled by A.I Company, launched in Japan on November 22, 1991, via Hudson Soft. NEC Technologies brought it to North America’s TurboGrafx-16 a few months later. This conversion sticks close to the arcade original. The Atari Jaguar version, developed by Imagitec Design, arrived in North America in November 1993. Atari Corporation handled distribution in North America and Europe, while Mumin Corporation took care of Japan in 1994. This port changes up both the look and the gameplay compared to the arcade.

The MS-DOS version was coded by Nigel “Freddy” Conroy, Steve Cullen, and Martin Randall, with Martin Hooley leading the project at Imagitec. It uses the same visuals as the Jaguar port but adds a full-screen display. Unlike the Jaguar version, it only supports FM sound. This port came out exclusively in North America in 1994. For the Atari Lynx, BlueSky Software developed a handheld version, released by Telegames in North America and Europe in 1997. By then, the Lynx was long past its commercial prime, and the game was only sold through direct orders and a handful of stores.

In Japan, the FM Towns release was called Raiden Densetsu. The Mega Drive/Genesis and Super Nintendo ports were both named Raiden Trad everywhere (“Trad” short for “tradition,” a different reading of the Japanese word densetsu). Different teams handled each version of Trad, and Toei Animation published the SNES version even though they didn’t provide any animation. A European Mega Drive release was planned by Ubi Soft as part of a multi-game deal with Bignet, but it never officially came out in that region.

Reception

The initial arcade release of Raiden struggled financially, a result Komazawa blamed on the machine's weak hardware and a lack of eye-catching visuals. However, after a few months, revenue picked up, leading more arcades to place orders for the hardware. Over the course of a year, Seibu Kaihatsu sold roughly 17,000 units through consistent sales. In Japan, Game Machine's July 1, 1990 issue ranked Raiden as the top-performing table arcade unit of the time, beating out games like Lightning Fighters and Columns. It later became Japan's sixth-highest-grossing arcade game of 1990 and fifth-highest in 1991. In North America, Fabtek found it to be a hit, with Raiden topping arcade charts. During November and December 1990, each arcade unit earned an average of $194.25 per week in coin drops. The game was later included in the 2010 book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die.

The Atari Jaguar port received a mixed reception. Electronic Gaming Monthly gave it an average score of 6 out of 10, with all four reviewers noting it was nearly identical to the arcade original, though they disagreed on its quality. Two called it above average, while two found it mediocre, citing a slow-moving ship, enemy fire that blended into the background, and graphics that fell short of the Jaguar's capabilities. GamePro also criticized the outdated gameplay, sluggish ship speed, and underwhelming visuals, concluding that such a snoozer felt out of place on a powerful system like the Jaguar. As of April 1, 1995, the Jaguar version had sold over 22,000 copies, though its total lifetime sales remain unknown.