Raiden II (1997)

Raiden II  is a 1997 vertical scrolling shooter arcade game that was developed by Seibu Kaihatsu. It was the second game in the Raiden series of vertical scrolling shooter arcade games that started with Raiden.

Raiden II was ported to Windows by Kinesoft and Microsoft Corporation. The Windows version uses Red Book audio for music. This game and the original Raiden were released for the PlayStation as The Raiden Project.

This game expands on the first Raiden's mechanics, introducing two weapons: the Bend Plasma, a lock-on weapon that deals constant low damage to enemies, and the Cluster Bomb, a fast-deploying bomb that does less damage than regular bombs but strikes a larger area.

Raiden II has three primary weapons and two missile weapons, upgraded by collecting power-ups. Primary weapons and missiles are fired simultaneously. Bombs are special weapons that deal damage over a wide area and cancel out enemy fire. Players can carry a maximum of seven of any combination of the two types of bombs in the game.

The player fights enemies through eight stages of increasing difficulty. In a two-player game, when one player shoots the other's craft with the red or blue primary weapon, the other player's craft generates special projectiles that deal a lot of damage to enemies.