Raiden III x MIKADO MANIAX review

thesixthaxis.com:

A lot of iconic shoot-em-up games have been getting convenient remasters and re-releases in the last few years, but the Raiden franchise in particular has been taking a slightly confusing path. While other games get all-in-one port collections of content-stuffed extended editions, the Raiden games have slowly been working backwards through their chronology in a series of modern-console ports – starting with Raiden V: Director’s Cut which was then followed up by Raiden IV x MIKADO remix. Now, the middle entry in the series has come to modern consoles with Raiden III x MIKADO MANIAX, and while it may not be the most engaging entry in the series, this is arguably the best modern re-release treatment any of the titles have gotten yet.

Raiden III x MIKADO MANIAX is astoundingly simple. There’s no animated open cutscene of scrolling paragraphs of lore – you are a big red spaceship, and you need to shoot all the other spaceships. It’s a pure, unfiltered, and unhindered experience – almost to a fault. With no opening systems explanation, no How To Play section, and not even a whiff of a tutorial, you’re thrown into the thick of it and forced to pick up what they’re putting down or die trying. It’s not as if the game is overwhelming or convoluted by any means, but it’ll likely take you a couple runs to realize that the floating gems are your weapon options, the floating letters are your missile options, and the hidden fairy gives you bonus power-ups when you die and isn’t just, like, a weird gag.

Once you get the base mechanics down, there isn’t a lot to the game – and that simplicity helps make it even easier to plot out an ideal strategy for your runs. There are only three weapon types, being the spreadshot canon, the