Regardless it's a neat feature and certainly worth a shot if you've mastered everything else the game has to offer. While there are advantages to having more firepower it can become quite an ardous task keeping both ships out of trouble. Essentially a single player controls two ships. If you owned Raiden III on the PS2 and/or saw VTF-Ino's Ikaruga double-play modes you'll know exactly how this works.
It's nothing shooter fans haven't already seen but R4 does it just as well as any other title.Īlong with standard features like additional ships(DLC though) and a Boss Rush, R4 also has the double-play mode. Sometimes all it takes to dodge them is by being in the right spot but others can have the player all over the place. The bosses on the other hand are very rough as their spreads are fast and ferocious. Once the player understands the basic enemy attacks it can be a pretty smooth ride. Some ships fly in, fire a couple shots, and then attempt to strike the player from the side, others just float lazily around the screen firing waves of bullets, and so on. All of the ships in this game are unique in what kind of attacks they do.
Some just want to know the basics and then rely on their reflexes to carry them through the game. I understand there are gamers out there who couldn't care less about amassing some ridiculous score via memorizing everything. This change of direction might be more appealing to some fans of the genre. It's definitely harder than any o the RFs thanks to increased rate of fire, longer stages, tougher bosses, and a second loop that drastically speeds up enemy bullets(that is if you can even get there the honest way). This is important because this game is very difficult. It also helps if you don't die or use bombs because both of your stocks can be worth quite a few points at the end of each stage(along with medals collected by destroying lots of stuff). Aside from a secret or two in each of the seven stages there's not much else to worry about in terms of scoring. This volley of missiles is great for when enemies first appear and it gives out bonus points for every missile that hits. There's a special missile attack performed by letting go of the fire button for a couple seconds and then pressing it again. Obviously this requires a bit of memorization to know where to be when the next ship spawns as well as the reflexes to dodge the seemingly endless parade of enemy fire. From the swarms of little ships to large battlecruisers all of these foes can give up to five times their point value if destroyed quickly enough. Scoring is mainly based around how quickly the player destroys an enemy. While RF provided numerous tricks, techniques, and secrets for achieving the highest possible scores, R4 keeps it fairly simple. While some may scoff at the $40 pricetag -especially since they got Raiden Fighters for $20 earlier this year- it's still a good value and a worthwhile pick-up for 2D shooter fans.įorget everything you know about Raiden Fighters because it doesn't really apply here. Thankfully UFO interactive decided to throw away a bunch of money so gamers like us can get a copy of R4 in America. Thing is though you're probably wanting more and if so I don't blame you.
I've already talked about the Raiden Fighters series which is absolutely fantastic. If you've pulled them off successfully at the "Press the Start Button" screen, a yellow "!" will appear at the top-left hand corner as well as a sound.To put it bluntly if you're reading this you're not playing Raiden 4.
Maximum Stats for all characters in Free Mode, Challenge Mode, Multiplayer Mode