sylvie is the creator of a number of light and entertaining Itch games, but this deathless playthrough of the first loop of classic arcade shooter Raiden (36 minutes) has little to do with them. Usually playthroughs with commentary aren’t appealing to me, but this one discusses lots of interesting tricks and hidden details of how it operates, and how to lessen its high difficulty. It’s worth watching if you’re at all interested in Raiden.
Among lots of other things:
- it’s mentioned that in one player mode in the original Japanese version dying causes you to reset back to a checkpoint, Gradius-style,
- that the game is known to increase the health of boss enemies if you have the blue Laser weapon,
- that the game is generally easier if you play in the Player Two position,
- that to begin the game with the lowest difficulty rank, it’s best to start the game when attract mode is showing Stage 7 (a space level),
- and that the Player One position increases the game rank faster if you have the blue Laser weapon, while the Player Two position increases rank faster if you have the red Vulcan weapon.
A lot of sylvie’s strategy comes from rank management, and manipulating aspects of the game to make it more manageable, which is much more interesting to learn about than to just be told to “git gud.”
Have a look if you like, and if you don’t care about the commentary and just want to watch her deathless Raiden run without any of those pitiful human words, watch this video instead.
