Raiden

Raiden is a vertical‑scroll shoot‑em‑up arcade game developed by Seibu Kaihatsu and released in 1990, kicking off the classic Raiden franchise. In the year 2090, alien forces invade Earth, and players pilot the special‑purpose Raiden fighter to repel the extraterrestrial threat. Two main weapons are available: red spread shot and blue laser, paired with M storm missiles and H homing missiles. Screen‑clearing bombs erase enemy bullets and hostiles. A unique combined beam attack activates when two‑player fire overlaps. The campaign consists of 8 stages. It established the series’ signature pixel effects, memorable chiptune soundtrack and bullet patterns, balancing accessibility for beginners and high‑score depth for experts. Later compiled into PlayStation anthology *The Raiden Project*. The original arcade ROM is fully playable via MAME emulators and was one of the most popular vertical shooters in 1990s arcades.

These are the default keys. Every arcade board has a different number of buttons and means different things by them. The rows above are buttons 1–6 on the board: on Neo Geo boards (The King of Fighters and friends) A/B/C/D are buttons 1–4, Metal Slug uses only 1, 2 and 4 (shoot / jump / grenade), and Pac-Man uses none at all. Six-button fighters with three punches and three kicks (Street Fighter II and the like) get a different layout from the core: light punch U, medium punch I, heavy punch Q, light kick J, medium kick K, heavy kick E. Click the gamepad icon 🎮 in the player toolbar, then “Remap keys” to open the emulator’s own control settings (keyboard and gamepad, saved automatically). Gamepads are detected automatically. On phones you get on-screen buttons.