Raiden V: Director's Cut (PS4) - 1CC on Normal - Ace Pilot

I love you, Raiden V. I do.

Opening movie/Ship and weapon selection/Opening narration: 0:27
Stage 1: 5:10
Stage 2: 10:29
Stage 3: 16:32
Bonus stage 1: 24:11
Stage 4: 28:03
Stage 5: 35:47
Stage 6: 43:44
Bonus Stage 2 (with freeze glitch): 51:41
Stage 7: 55:55
Stage 8: 1:05:51
Ending (bad) 1:16:51
Credits: 1:21:23

Raiden V is the best game that I've played in countless years. When I discovered that it had a release on the XBox One, downloaded it in February 2017, and I spent from late February to late April playing it nearly every day until I could 1cc it. After that? I still play it, because it's fun, and because I wanted to keep my skills sharp. According to xbox.com, as of October 14th, 2017, my total play time is listed as 6 days, 12 hours, and 56 minutes - 356 Fairies collected, and 865 bosses defeated. That's insane.

When the game re-released on Steam and PS4, I bought both. I practiced a couple of times on the Steam version so I could know what was coming when I recorded. I 1cc'd the Steam version the first two times I played it (not bragging - I'd been playing for months, remember?), and the second time I finished it, my score on Normal was 82,990,350. Granted, there's more slowdown on my PC than the console versions, and that made it a little easier. My name on the Steam version is doctornusakan (one of my old emails).

The Director's Cut is the definitive version of this game, in my opinion, and stages 7 and 8 are just excellent - especially stage 7. I had hoped that you wouldn't have to jump through hoops to get a good ending, so I was a little disappointed that the requirements are the same. I had also hoped for some different stages (kind of like Caladrius Blaze), but I can live with it. This has been 30$ (times three) well spent.

Ahem - in my first recording from the XBox version in April 2017, I fought the stage 8 boss with the Homing Plasma - that was a mistake, as I always use the Vulcan now. I power it up twice in stage 4, once in stage 6, and one more time right before the boss in stage 8.

When I got the 80 million points achievement on the XBox version, I had to play twice (ouch). The first time, I used the lock on plasma in Practice Mode (strictly for scoring), and the stage 8 boss took too long to kill. My first attempt left me with about 79.6 million, hahaha. The second time I played, I used the Vulcan at the end, and it was much faster. My score the second time on Practice Mode was 82,873,050. I got that achievement on August 5th, 2017 on the XBox. The plasma weapon doesn't deal damage to the stage 8 boss fast enough, so I reworked my strategy on Normal into what you see me doing, and I pick a few safe areas to power up the Vulcan.

Last - the Cheers I got from players while the game is new! Haha, I was lucky to get 20 Cheers on the XBox One version. Cheer your fellow players! I position my finger so that I can do it too, even under a hail of bullets! And thanks to everybody who cheered with the Azuma, because that's my favorite Cheer attack! =)

Update - after having the game crash and bring me to the error screen every time I played off of the disk (between my original PS4 purchased in September 2014 and a new PS4 Pro that I bought in October 2017), I went ahead and downloaded the digital version of the game about a week after release. It doesn't crash from the digital version, and while it pisses me off that I had to buy the game twice for the PS4, at least it was only 35$. As of late October I was second on the leader boards for Normal difficulty with scoring - most currently I'm just above 82 million. =)

Further update (from January 2018) - the digital version of this game still freezes for me. I don't know why. I bought a brand new PS4 Pro in October 2017 and the game freezes randomly - usually in stage 8, but sometimes as early as bonus stage number 2. Very disheartening.

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