Uploaded October 2022 | Updated September 2026, 40 minutes ago

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0:00 Intro
0:12 Stage 1-1
3:12 Stage 1-2
7:11 Stage 1-3
10:53 Stage 1-4
15:05 Stage 1-5
19:12 Stage 1-6
24:10 Stage 1-7
28:19 Stage 1-8
32:12 Stage 1-8 Boss Safe Spot
35:23 Stage 2-1

The Sega Saturn may have been the shmup king of Generation 5, but one thing the Playstation had that the Saturn did not was excellent ports of the Raiden series like The Raiden Project. The Raiden Project features Raiden I and II in nearly arcade perfect ports and was also a launch title for the PS1 in the states. For each of the two games featured, there are four difficulties, including a General mode which is the highest one and harder than the arcade originals, which is the difficulty this run of Raiden was played.

The original Raiden is one of the most successful shmups of all time. While it was derivative of Toaplan in a lot of ways, its level of polish and presentation, as well as punishing difficulty, blew gamers away back in 1990 and was even a big hit in North America.

The key is playing Raiden well comes down to routing. Not only do you need to lead the fast, aimed bullets properly while avoiding the occasional static patterns, you also need to time your item pickups well at the same time. If you move around without a purpose, you will die quickly. While you're on top of the world since you're very strong you're fully powered up, one small mistake can kill an entire run because it's extremely difficult to recover from getting hit in most cases, especially in later stages.

This run was not a No-Miss of the first loop, as I had a couple of dumb deaths near the end of Stage 1-4 as well as the beginning of the final boss in 1-8. However, I got lucky in Stage 4 because I had a max power up and missiles waiting for me to pick up without much resistance. The bullets get faster the further you go into the game, even faster than the original arcade game which is saying something. The scroll offset, which prevent the entire stage from being on screen at one time, is actually your biggest friend for survival because if an enemy is not on screen, it cannot fire at you.

The best main weapon is by far the wide shot in this game. While there are parts where the blue laser is decent, it is very clear that the wide shot (red powerups) is the most useful in most situations. Also, while a lot of people prefer the homing missiles, I prefer the nuclear missiles in many situations because it does a lot more damage per shot, making them incredible when point-blanking. This is ideal for speed-killing bosses.