Raiden

Raiden is the vertical shooter that defined the genre's mid-era, and it did it with two weapons rather than twenty. Seibu Kaihatsu's game gives you a Vulcan and a Laser, and everything else is about how you pick them up.

The Vulcan spreads and hits wide, the Laser pierces straight and concentrated, and each has its own colour-coded pickup - so the choice of which one to carry is a real decision that changes how you play every stage. Power-ups upgrade whichever weapon you collect, which means switching weapons costs you a level. Around that sits a full bullet-hell experience: dense enemy waves, mid-bosses that sweep the screen, and a bomb that clears the screen but does not protect you from the next wave. The setting is a straightforward alien invasion over a recognisable Earth, and the art direction is unusually detailed for a 1990 vertical shooter. It spawned a long series of sequels, and it is still the reference point for what a no-nonsense vertical shooter looks like.

• ▸Two distinct weapons - wide Vulcan and piercing Laser - with separate levels
• ▸Switching weapons costs you a power level
• ▸Dense bullet patterns and mid-bosses that sweep the screen
• ▸Two-player simultaneous play across the whole campaign