Raizing has stopped doing shmups in 2000. However, one of their programmers, the shmup guru Shinobu Yagawa, has recently got back to the shmup world with their ex-colleagues from Toaplan, namely Kenichi Takano, Tsuneki Ikeda and Akira Wakabayashi, at Cave. Beside Yagawa from the Toaplan side, Raizing was mainly a spin-off of Compile, which decided to become a Puyo Puyo-only company, after their first title (smart move!). The ex-Compile programmers are responsible for the Mahou trilogy and Sokyugurentai, whereas The Bat- trilogy (Battle Garegga, Armed Police Batrider, Battle Bakraid) have Shinobu Yagawa as the main programmer. The last of the three titles also has another Toaplan member, Tetsuya Uemura, who worked on this title and on Dimahoo, before probably going to Capcom (where, i suppose, Masahiro Yuge already worked, maybe by switching from Takumi to Capcom by the time of the first Giga Wing). Their last product, Brave Blade, appears to have been programmed by relative newbies to shmups, as none of their names seem to be related to other shmups.

Raizing, on one side, can be defined as the most modern old skool company of their time: Mahou Daisakusen plays like a mix of Tatsujin and the Aleste titles, but has an extremely fast pace, compared to true old skoolers. Shippu Mahou is a peculiar hybrid, and then there are all the other shmups…let’s go to the in-detail analisys:

MAHOU DAISAKUSEN(1993):

This title, from a technical point of view, is no more and no less than a fast-paced Tatsujin with elements from Aleste and Shappire. What has made the game successful and famous is its extremely original ( for the time and genre) setting: basically the game is set in a sort of post-nuclear world with Dragons, magic, technology and…the mighty Gobligan empire. Also, even if the overall quality of the 2D graphics wasn’t incredible, the amount of detail and animation was quite impressive for the time.It also features a loop, which is basically just more difficult, and the fifth stage has been homaged/ripped-off by 19XX (the factory level). Beside that, it has kamikaze goblins, and this grants the titol eternaly glory forever and ever!

SHIPPU MAHOU DAISAKUSEN (1994):

This sequel introduces four new characters and an interesting twist in gameplay: the basic premise is that in the war between golbins and Kobolds, an issue to solve the fight in a less violent way has been proposed by humans: a race during the various battle fields for all th various contendants. This is mirrored in the game mechanics by holding down the shot button to gain speed, which can be further increased by staying in the upper third of the screen. This and the very fast stages makes the game pretty hectic, even if basically straightforward. As the first chapter, it has a loop, it can be reached by arriving first after the competition has ended.It also features a few songs by the now famous Hitoshi Sakimoto, of RSG (and many other stuff) fame…

BATTLE GAREGGA(1996):

One of the most complex shmups ever, this game has received the honour of being featured in the first volume of a series of dedicated monographies on shmups, with art, super play videos and other goodies. The game itself is an unofficial sequel to Gun Frontier, an old but famous Taito game which was the first example of Steampunk in games. It also features the first and maybe the best masterpiece by Manabu Namiki, also known as Santaruru, the genius behind some of the last Cave soundtracks.Finally, its engine, as been programmed by Shinobu Yagawa, is one of the most complex shmups engines ever. Without dwelling into detail, the core aspect of the game is how to manipulate rank and the other mechanics in order to squeeze all the possible points off the various levels: Part of the core ideas come from various other shmups…destroying scenery for points or to reveal bonus: various Taito or Capcom titles, points per hit landed on enemy: Batsugun, bombing and dying in key spots: Batsugun; the medal system from Raiden Fighters, but in part also from Rayforce and Batsugun;customizable ships (depending on what button you use for selection). The power-up system and the realistic (invisible for the first two months of play) bullets come from GunFrontier, as well as the flamingoes and the related trick. So peculiar that is infact unique in its overall approach, it marks with DDP and Raiden Fighters 2 the peak of shmups’ popularity and complexity.

SOKYUGURENTAI (1996)

The second title produced by Raizing in 1996, made by the ex-Compile team (well, most of them were testers and grunt programmers…). The Raizing unofficial sequel to Rayforce, itruns on ST-V hardware and is probably the only game with a full 3D mechanic: by holding down the shot button, you activate the Web, a 3D device (as it works on your plane and on all level below and above you) that locks on enemies and releases a volley of lasers or “fire-balls”. The more enemies you lock-on, the higher the multiplier. The game has also one interesting characteristic: basically the plot is the usual “alien invasion, let’s fight them back!”, but the overall design is so well-done that the game itself is a sort of standard, in this regard.Memorable is the third stage, which is probably the only example of stage completely done with the scale up effect (i.e. you basically move in depth for most of the stage). Other memorable thing is the pretty unbalanced rank system, which basically goes up at key levels, stage by stage, regardless of your actions.Interesting fact: Raystorm was published a couple of months earlier, but the titles have been developed “in parallel”, so to speak: in some sense, it’s like Taito and Raizing proposed a different approach to the idea of a Rayforce sequel.

ARMED POLICE BATRIDER (1998)

The second title of the Bat- series (i.e. the games programmed by Yagawa while at Raizing), Batrider takes “1997 – escape from New York” as the basic plot and throws in a shitload of secrets. Let’s go in order: like many other games, you can charge your shot for increased power; you have 18 possible characters, 9 of them guest stars from other Raizing games, and you can select them in various combinations; there are tens of secrets, like extra bosses, items, bonuses, etc; It features the joint of work of Namiki and Sakimoto on the OST (!) which also has a nice fusion/Zuntata-ish style; there’s the possibility of choosing three different courses (Easy, Normal and Advance), in order to meet different skills levels. Basically the game is Battle Garegga with a plethora of tricks and secrets: the curious thing is that extra bosses, special characters and stuff like that is typical of the period, but comes from other genres!In this regard, Batrider is also a bit of “modern old skool”, as many games of the past had this kind of features.

BATTLE BAKRAID (1999)

If the MAME credits are right, this is a work of three people, two of them being Ex-Toaplan members: Yagawa and Uemura. At any case, the game is focused principally on one specific mechanic of Gain in Battle Garegga, namely the bombing in key spots in order to score a lot of points.By hitting more enemies in a row, you trigger a chain and thus a multiplier, which is attributed to every enemy destroyed while the timer is on, and thus bombing again is the key to obtain points with a maxed out multiplier (x64). Also, when chaining, if the medal value is already at 10k, all medals dropped will be worth 100k instead.Another interesting consequence of such an approach is that rank, an omnipresent mechanic in Raizing games, becomes a relatively unimportant issue, given the huge amount of deaths implied in an high score play ( just to give you an idea: the highest score should be about 122M and with 61 deaths!).The game also has a Raiden fighters-like mechanic for planes’ roster, in the sense that the more the machine stays active, the more planes appear in the rooster.

DIMAHOO (2000)

Done on the CPS-2 board and published by Capcom, the third chapter in the series is probably the most complex bonus-based game ever.Let’s see why : you have a charge shot that goes in power from one to eight. Once released, a special attack will destroy or damage the hit enemies, and this will release various special items. Those items vary on the type of enemy damaged, and range in value from one to eight, i.e. they’re based on the power level of the charge shot. Once you take all levels of a given item type, you will permanently have a multiplier to all bonuses you take. If this is not enough, there are benefits to completing the series, like for instance a smaller hitbox if you complete the armour series, and so on: however, this will also increase rank, as usual an important element (note: rank will increase if you take items, regardless of series’ completion.This basically means that it’s better to complete a few series than taking items at random). If this is still not enough, there are 10 normal series and 4 secret items series, for a final possible multiplier of x16: the secret items usually have pretty hardcore conditions to be triggered. Finally (!), some enemies are elemental-based, in the sense that they can be based on fire or ice: depending on your elemental value (fire or ice), you can do double or half damage. As you can see, the game has some of the most complex mechanics ever, representing in some sense the peak of the complexity era, along with other “late bloomers” like DOJ and Dragon Blaze.It also features one of the most hilarious intros ever…ARE YOU GREAT?

1944: THE LOOP MASTER (2000)

Little is known on the people behind this game (and it was said that it was a joint venture between Psikyo and Raizing), but the game is basically a remake in Yoko of 1943 (more or less) with a charge shot and an old-skool flavour. Not bad, but easily forgettable.

BRAVE BLADE (2000)

Raizing’s last shmup( officially), it has been made, apparently, but newbies or people that never worked on other Raizing shmups. Basically it’s a pseudo-3D shmup with a close range attack and a shield for defense. The close range attack is used to destroy enemies and hit medals to increase their value. It runs on a ZN-1 (or Zn-2, can’t check now) board, early Capcom 3D hardware. This is also officially the last shmup by Raizing, which seems to have been officially absorbed by Eighting (technically Eighting alone is the publisher of Battle Bakraid, too).

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

Raizing, from a technical point of view, represent the sum of two different approaches to shmups: Compile and Toaplan. Their shmups, also, encompass more or less all the various phases of shmupping, except maybe for the New Minimalism era (maybe, because Brave Blade can be labelled as a NM shmup, for most of its aspects). It can be said that, in their titles, they have proposed a unique approach to the various styles of shmupping: Mahou is a very fast-paced version of Tatsujin; Shippu Mahou a unique hybrid shmup (a thing typical of early ‘90s); Garegga is a very complex and “absolute” exercise in rank manipulation and a counterintuive attitude to the classical issues of shmupping; Sokyugurentai is a brilliant variant on the lock-on/3D gameplay in shmupping;Batrider a clever tour de force into secret bosses, items and possible options; Bakraid is a tour-de-force on some of theGaregga’s aspects and also a pretty original approach to chaining; Dimahoo is easily the ultimate and definitive (redoundancy to stress the concept!) medals-and-secrets game (not even shmup, as maybe only Rainbow Islands is that complex). Their last two titles, sadly, are not peaks of creativity and quality, but still good games. However, and this is a big however, Shinobu Yagawa has joined Cave and reunited with his old Toaplan colleagues.In this sense, The incoming “Ibara” title can be thought more as a new Raizing title. Also, considering that Ibara seems to be focused on specific bombing tecniques, among other things, it will dwell again on mechanics first introduced in Batsugun by Yagawa’s colleague Tsuneki Ikeda. Talking about full circle!