RAIDEN V – Directors Cut Hits PS4

The iconic Vertical Shoot Em Up Raiden franchise is finally coming to the PS4.

Raiden V was originally released last year on the Xbox One and i must admit that it somewhat went under my radar and it looks like i wasn’t the only one.

As many of our readers know – I love vertical shooters and Raiden is one of the major ones next to Sky Force, Banshee, 1942, Gunbird and so on so i naturally had to do a small preview on this one.  A review might happen at one point although it all depends on time and other releases at the same time.

I wrote about Raiden IV back in 2014, that was one of two Raiden games on the PS3, a good game although it somewhat got forgotten in the myriad of other games on the platform. 

This time around they have not only gone for the usual HD OMG looks but they have also added a story with (oh no!) full narrative, yes i kid you not, this time around you get cheesy dialogue and cheesy voices (see trailer below…).

Other changes this time around is that they have added a health bar which means that the whole “hit a bullet and you’re dead” tension is gone, but they’ve also made it into one life too.  It does sound like a strange move and a bit too much of a casual move for my liking, that said i am willing to give it a chance.

There’s loads of new stuff in the game, like three new ships and for the first time ever in the series comes actual real-life locations like Paris, New York and so on.

There is also a 2 player option back in the game now, couch play.

One of the first punchlines in the intro is “Every Bullet In HD”, does that mean that the Xbox One version only had half of them in HD?

Not sure how this will look in vertical mode, i see no reason for all this screen filler at all and these kinds of games is best played in vertical mode with the monitor in 9:16 mode.  

I will update the article when i know more.

The game looks like it could be a winner and while it might not be as good as Sky Force Anniversary it will still fill a very much needed gap on the PlayStation 4.

Raiden V: Directors Cut is out next week in Asia and early next month in Europe and USA and maybe best of all is that there will be both digital and retail versions available.