It had been a while since I last played a Raiden game and Raiden V: Director’s Cut was pretty enjoyable after reacquainting myself with the series, my eyesight issues aside. The fact you can beat the game on any difficulty can seem a tad off putting, but this is actually a good concept for newer players so they can experience the story then increase the difficulty when they start to improve so they can get a better ending. That combined with the boss challenges give quite a bit of replayability to the game and being able to take things a stage at a time makes it great to play in short bursts. Overall a pretty good entry for the series.

Story aside, Raiden V: Director’s Cut is a solid vertical scrolling shmup.

This is a great version of Raiden V, and since we now have the Director’s Cut that means you can buy it once and never worry about a newer version! Well, probably. Along with a 1080p facelift and revisions like a narrated story, there’s enough here to call this a sweet definitive edition of a fun SHMUP.

Raiden V: Director’s Cut ends up being a shooter worthy of its history and does a good job of keeping alive gaming’s longest-running Japanese arcade shooter series.