Raiden 4

Simple economics was also on the mind of Komazawa Toshinobu, the CEO of Moss Ltd and producer of Raiden IV. Released in Japan in 2007, Raiden IV uses the powerful Taito Type X board, which precluded a PlayStation 2 version. Toshinobu’s insights are particularly interesting, because he left Seibu Kaihatsu (the original developer of Raiden and still the licence holder) when it began to decline as a maker of arcade games, and established Moss Ltd simply to continue the series under licence. This is a man who has literally set up a company to keep a shooter series he loves alive, but that doesn’t mean he’s unrealistic.

The choice to develop the game for Xbox 360, a conversion in which extra modes and bonuses would be expected as standard, necessitated several home truths as a starting point: the potential market for the game would be very small, and the game would therefore have to appeal to as many people as possible within its niche, and it would not be cheap for consumers. This is even the case for games made for the likes of a Naomi board – they simply couldn’t retail for less than ¥5,000 (£26). The fact that it’s slightly more labour – and time – intensive to port to PS3 means that the only realistic option is Xbox 360.

When the game in question is neither a port nor a remake, however, the hardware issues are clearer. The choice to develop Thunder Force VI for PS2 was motivated by a number of factors: the number of units in Japan, its technical capabilities, and the simple fact that it’s impossible to invest a lot of money in a new shooting game. The list of technical, labour and time considerations means PS2 is seen by these developers as the most affordable ‘package’ platform.

The option of digital distribution with WiiWare and Xbox Live Arcade exists, but this sector has its problems – most of all, the prevalent notion that ‘download means cheap’ which, as the developers point out, could only be true if the scale of the undertaking was reduced. Given that these projects are labours of love, compromising the original vision would be out of the question, so companies have to deliver something that is worth buying in stores at a standard price, and tempting the small but hungry audience of shooting game fans with bonuses and quality production values on all aspects, from the packaging to the visuals.


Thunder Force VI

The gathered audience sat politely through such a realistic series of talks, but there was a real glimpse of how deep their passion runs when, at the conclusion of the Thunder Force VI talk, Sega revealed that if all goes well this will be the first step of the STG Project, aimed at reviving some of the famous franchises in the genre. STG got its name because this was the standard designation for shooting games in what is generally considered to be the golden age of 8-and 16-bit systems – and it’s hoped the name will imply revival rather than simply retro fan-service.

The event ended on a high with a slideshow from Toshiaki Fujino of Triangle Service, talking about some of the games that have influenced the Raiden and Thunder Force series, and being a little humorously reverential, given the presence of several of the teams responsible for the Mega Drive Thunder Force games. The talk ranged into the fundamentals of shooter design, how to create pacing through enemy movement and the placement of power-ups and other objects.

This rather charmingly segued into a promotional spot for Triangle’s Exzeal (a ‘regular’ shooter) and Shooting Love 200X for Xbox 360, which is a collection of minigames based around the core principles of the shooting genre. This is intended as a parody of what Fujino called the ‘maniac trend’ in some modern shooters, and he illustrated the point by saying that where a previous Shooting Love game had a minigame with 15 tanks to shoot, the 360 version will offer up to ten times more. He ended by applauding Sega for its central role in the modern shooter scene, thanks to the simple fact that its network sells and operates most of the games.

Though it was on a much smaller scale than your average gaming event, it was easy to forget just how difficult survival is in the marketplace for these games. Surrounded by like-minded shooter fans, freeplay arcade machines and passionate developers, the most weighty discussions afterwards concerned hitboxes and the obligatory ‘best ever’ lists. After his good-natured spot of preaching to the converted, however, Fujino was a little more circumspect when asked if the genre was undergoing some kind of revival: “It’s very risky to release an original shooter, so companies use series that have had some past success. I see that as looking backward and not really as a revival.”