Raiden II ARCADE

Raiden II is Seibu Kaihatsu’s 1993 sequel, keeping the original’s twin-fighter setup and vulcan-versus-laser weapon tradeoff while adding a new bomb-clear mechanic and a wider variety of ground and air targets across its eight stages. It refines the original’s already steep difficulty rather than reworking the core formula.

Its detailed, densely-packed enemy sprite work and layered explosion effects pushed further than the original Raiden had, at a time when vertically-scrolling shoot-’em-ups were a crowded, competitive arcade category. It’s often held up alongside the original as one of the strongest one-two sequel pairings in the genre’s early-1990s peak.