By Joseph Walter
Well, I still stand by all of that... even the weird bits.
Like I said back then, I'm hoping to one day gain enough mental and physical strength to tackle the gargantuan task of reviewing Raiden V's magnificent musical experience, but before that happens (if ever), I wanted to talk a little bit about the Raiden series and its significance to me.
... and by "Raiden series," I mean Raiden II, specifically.
We were mesmerized by the detailed graphics, gigantic bosses, colossal bomb-induced explosions, somber music and the almighty power of the giant purple homing laser.
We got our butts kicked again and again, but after enough deaths, a floating "P" icon would bounce around the screen. Getting it fully upgrades your plane, and you're given access to the full power of your weapon systems. We would cheer!
The moments we spent playing Raiden II together are some of my favorite memories, so it was no surprise that the "jet game with the purple laser and the giant bombs" quickly made itself a comfy little nest of nostalgia early on.
Wanting to relive the experience, we hoped to find a home release of the game, but that was easier said than done.
For years, tracking down Raiden II is was practically an impossibility. Despite its legendary status, an arcade accurate port had basically only been re-released once: the Raiden Project on PS1.
Naturally, after having become aware of its existence fairly recently, I had to have it and... oh yes... this was the real deal. Not some sloppy emulation, janky Windows port or an altered "DX" version, but the pure, arcade-accurate Raiden II that we had tirelessly searched for.
The excitement and satisfaction of finally owning Raiden II was overwhelming, so much so that when I popped the disc into my PlayStation, I would have been totally fine if every other aspect of The Raiden Project was painfully awful.
I legitimately expected a barebones menu with Engrish text and wonky options... but, much to my surprise, I was instead treated with an almost outrageously overdone title screen that featured awesome music and exciting 3D sequences.
Why the developers went out of their way and put so much effort into this title screen is beyond my understanding, but I'm glad they did. Here's a look at this awesome Title Screen in action!
I love the boldness of the start: that lone, driving piano melody over the logos then the BOOM! of additional instruments as the title blasts onto the screen.
We then bear witness to a 3D-modelled Raiden fighter taking off from its iconic carrier, and soaring towards battle. The sweeping camera angles, quick cuts and aerial acrobatics are way more exciting than they should be, and are made even more so by how they're deftly accompanied by the increasingly energetic (yet seemingly perilous) music.
Soon, the infamous walking tank boss from Raiden II rears its ugly, mechanical head and, a few evasive maneuvers, the Raiden fighter converts into its hovering VTOL mode and quickly delivers a killing blow to the destructive menace.
The music chills out just enough as the Raiden fighter transforms back into flight mode, only to go into some fast and heavy shredding as the fighter rockets into the atmosphere.
The sequence then repeats, but with different elements and alterations. There's different times of day, different angles, the red fighter or blue fighter, and even some alternate action scenes. You never know exactly what you're going to get, but you can be certain it'll be fantastically exciting.
The combination of the camera work, music and general direction make for a title screen that is just... genuinely, earnestly cool.
The developers knew it was cool, too, since they allow you to banish the text at the touch of a button, granting you the ability to witness the full glory of the sequence unobscured.
Perhaps the most interesting element of this whole spectacle is that it... just didn't have to be this way.
There aren't any 3D elements in Raiden I, nor are there any in Raiden II, and yet here they, center stage. I kind of love how the developers must have felt that they needed to spice things up by using 3D models at least somewhere in the game (you know, with the PlayStation being the next generation of gaming and all), so they picked the title screen.
Good on them, though, because no matter how cheesy it may seem today or how primitive it looks now, this entire sequence is pretty damn cool, and you can tell that they wanted to do something special.
And they most certainly did.