RayStorm

About RayStorm

RayStorm (1996) is Taito's polygon follow-up to RayForce, a vertical shooter built around a multi-target lock-on laser, praised for its cutting-edge effects and the first game Working Designs released on the PlayStation.

RayStorm in Depth

Players choose one of two ships, with a third secret ship in home versions, and view them from a distance as they blast through vertically scrolling stages. The main weapon is a vulcan-like laser, and a missile weapon locks onto multiple targets, building a combo multiplier for points. Each ship has two special moves: a screen-wide Special Attack, unleashed once a bar fills through repeated lock-ons and followed by a moment of invincibility, and a Hyper Laser Assault unique to each ship, triggered by placing every available lock-on on a single target. Its plot, of the R-Gray's mission to destroy the Secilia Federation before it destroys Earth, is revealed mostly through the manual and Extra Mode and is unconnected to the Con-Human story of RayForce and RayCrisis.

Home versions add an "Extra Mode" with enhanced graphics, extra enemies, modified bosses, a tougher challenge, a different ending and scores kept on continuing. Clearing a mode unlocks a stage select, and clearing both unlocks "13 Players", in which the game must be completed with 13 ships from five groups, R-Gray 1 and 2 in manual and auto control and a single R-Gray 0 prototype, revealing an extra epilogue in Extra Mode.

Making RayStorm

Producer and director Yukio Abe, director Tatsuo Nakamura and Zuntata's Tamayo Kawamoto and Munehiro Nakanishi on music and sound returned from RayForce, and it is distinguished from its predecessor mainly by its polygon ships. Game Machine reported it among Japan's most popular arcade games of September 1996. The PlayStation version came out in Japan in January 1997, and Working Designs licensed it immediately on hearing it was available, making it their first PlayStation release; a playable demo was bundled with American PlayStations the month it came out. GameSpot called it "easily the best shooter currently available on the PlayStation", praising its lighting and explosions though finding it easier than RayForce, and Next Generation noted its debt to Xevious but said its design proved itself, with "powerful Macross-like mech bosses". Critics such as EGM and GamePro found the graphics cutting edge but the gameplay dated. EGM named it runner-up for Shooter of the Year behind Star Fox 64, and RayStorm HD followed in 2010.