Game maker Taito has been around for more than half a century, and they have as much history behind them as Namco and Nintendo.  They’re probably most famous for creating the iconic Space Invaders, but they’re also responsible for other arcade greats like Operation Wolf, Bubble Bobble, Elevator Action, and many, many more.  In the 90s, they made a series of 2-D vertically scrolling shooters with similar gameplay in each, and they all had “Ray” in the title.  These games were RayForce, RayStorm, and RayCrisis, and now you can play all of them in this collection.  It’s available on PS4 and Switch, but reviewed on PS4 here.

All three games play the same, generally.  You move around with the left stick and hold down the fire button to shoot at enemies in front of you.  There is also an aiming reticule in front of you, similar to Xevious.  But when you hover it over ground targets, you can lock onto them.  You can lock onto several and then push another button to send out homing missiles to destroy them all.  If you lock onto several, you can earn big points.  The last two games also added a limited use screen clearing bomb as well.  You can get power-ups that upgrade your regular shot, give you additional lock-on slots, and more.  One hit and you die, but since these are arcade games, you get unlimited continues and start back right where you left off.  You can also view replays and galleries and play HD versions of the last two games.

The first game in the series, RayForce, may be the most primitive with sprite-based only graphics, but to me it’s the most impressive because it uses clever sprite and background scaling and rotation, as well as several levels of parallax scrolling, to create some neat 3-D effects.  RayStorm uses 3-D graphics and I think it was even on the original PlayStation.  The last game in the series, RayCrisis, is pretty much the same as RayStorm except it has a cyberspace theme, since this was the late 90s when the Internet was first becoming widespread.  I never really spent much time with these games before now (and I call myself a Taito fan), so I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the games on this collection.

Kid Factor:

Ray’z Arcade Chronology is rated E-10 with an ESRB descriptor of Fantasy Violence.  You shoot other spaceships that blow up, and that’s pretty much it.  Reading skill is helpful for some of the text, but not necessary just to play.  Because of the unlimited continues and two-player support, gamers of all ages and skill levels should be able to enjoy this.

Tags: Game Reviews