Being the sequel to the excellent Raiden IV, I had expected it to be more of the same. Great levels, weapons and music. While Raiden V is a great game in its own right, it does fail in some areas that make it pail in comparison to its predecessor. To get the positives out of the way, the levels are all great, they have great set pieces and enemies are also toned down while also still feeling like they put up a challenge. The weapon selection this time around is actually amazing. Tripling the amount of weapons that the player has access at the start of the game, is great. I had tried at least 5 of 9 different weapons across my two playthroughs of the game. There is also health for the ships shields in this game, as oppose to being one-hit in the previous games. Along with the bombs, to help do major damage and destroy bullets, there is also the cheer system (which is a meter that fills up over time, and allows the player to call in a partner ship for a limited time to boost fire power). As for the two major flaws that this game suffers, one is the way to progress through the stages and the second is the dialogue. To progress through the stages, the player has to have to have a high enough accuracy to get high enough ranks to progress to the right stages. While that doesn't really seem all that bad, it really forces the use of the lock-on laser so the accuracy doesn't go down all that much during stages (unless players get good with another weapon). Now for the bigger problem, the dialogue that happens in between each stage. As I mentioned at the beginning, music is usually a big plus for the games in the series, and I am fairly certain that of the small bits that I had heard from the breaks between dialogue that the praise for its would have been carried over from the other games as well. Unfortunately, due to the constant talking between characters they completely talk over the music and make it hard to hear it. On top of that the dialogue itself is extremely hard to hear due to how it is mixed with the rest of the audio. The obvious solution would be to go into the audio options and turn down the voices either really low or just turn them off but there is no option to do that, so players are just meant to play with the dialogue on. Having an option to have minimal dialogue option or just have the ability to turn them off, would go a long way, as it is really hindering of the experience. Overall though, the game is more Raiden action, and has the best gameplay of the series. If only there was an easier or more understandable way to know how to progress to specific stages and have the ability to shorten or be rid of the dialogue.

Excellent, stylish shump that lacks content

The Raiden series has been known for delivering a enjoyable shmup experience and Raiden V: Directors cut does not buck that trend.

Excellent presentation, fantastic soundtrack and solid gameplay, with a surprisingly fleshed out story, caters to not just bullet hell experts but also those who want to dip into the genre and get use to it. All this makes a very good package for all types of shmup skill levels.

The only knocks on Raiden V is that it is very barebones, there isn't much replay value and it can be distracting trying to listen/read the story while trying to not get hit but it is highly recommended nevertheless.

Rating: 8/10

This made me miss "Raiden Fighters Aces" on the Xbox 360. Which was a much more successful genre entry than this cobbled together mess. I applaud some good ideas here, like menu switching with virtually every stat bar you could want mid-game, but when that's also burdened by a tedious and consistent dialog stream on the side as well as the constant power ups and scores that come part and parcel with this genre then you have an incomprehensible mess of a HUD. It was often a headache trying to take this game in. The constant dialog also consistently keeps playing and badly mixed over the bullet hell onslaught that I couldn't decipher anything going on. As a shmup it unfortunately doesn't succeed there either. Most of these enemies are boring affair and you've seen all the excitement from the game by the first stage. This game was a real bummer.

I bounced off this hard as fuck when I first grabbed it, but giving it some extra time has been pretty rewarding. The weapons are unique and fun, especially when the genre usually provides "do you want a 90 degree arc or just all forward?", but once the novelty wears off on a massive pink snaking lock on laser, you end up just going for 90 degree arc and an all forward laser.

Weird that they've got people constantly mumbling story stuff in your ear, don't need that. Patterns can be a bit samey at points, but the difficulty ramp up is nice. Solid, but wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it unless you're just trying to hoover up bullet hells like I seem to be.