Raiden III

Overview

Raiden III is a 2.5D sci-fi vertical-scrolling shoot-'em-up developed by MOSS (under license from Seibu Kaihatsu) and released by Taito for arcades (using PC-based Taito Type X hardware) on March 31, 2005. It was later digitally re-released for the Japanese NESiCAxLive service on March 29, 2012.

The third installment (and a 10-year revival) of the mainline Raiden series, Raiden III brings the series into 3D (but still in the traditional 2D perspective) while introducing the Flash Shot system (in which score from defeating enemies is multiplied based on how long they've appeared on the screen) and revamping the weaponry (adding a new Radar Missile sub-weapon while replacing the purple Plasma weapon with a green Proton Laser weapon). In addition, the game allows players to control both ships at once (using a cheat code).

The game later received home ports for both the PlayStation 2 and PC in 2005-2007, with the PS2 version released by Taito in Japan, 505 Games in Europe, and UFO in North America, and the PC version released by CyberFront in Japan and Soft-World in Taiwan. The PS2 version was later digitally released for the PlayStation 3 (as a PS2 Classics title) in North America on November 1, 2011, while the PC version was digitally re-released worldwide on Steam by H2 Interactive on September 25, 2014. Both of these ports include new game modes, including Score Attack and Boss Rush.