RayStorm NEO-HD (PS4) - R-GRAY2 1CC - 16,223,700 Pts

RayStorm is an arcade shoot 'em up from Taito, originally released in 1996. This is the second game in the "Ray" series, being the sequel to RayForce (aka Layer Section), and being followed by RayCrisis - which I believe is Taito's final shooting game. So in 2023, Taito has released complete remasters of the entire series for the PS4 and Switch. The development was handled by M2, who are the absolute best in the business at this stuff, so you know they did it justice.

It can be a little confusing figuring out which games to buy though. I'm playing the RayStorm x RayCrisis HD Collection, which is available for $39.99. But there's also the Ray'z Arcade Chronology, which includes RayForce in addition to these two games. That one is available for $49.99. I'd recommend getting the Chronology over this collection, because you're just paying $10 more for a super high quality port of RayForce, which is arguably the best game in the series. And as far as I know, there's nothing in this RayStorm x RayCrisis collection that lets you purchase RayForce as DLC afterward, so it's a hard sell in comparison to the Chronology. But they're all great games anyway, so the only wrong choice is to not buy either of them!

I've been playing this a lot over the last week or two. ININ has just released the game in North America and Europe, so they're running a contest/raffle for content creators. Of course I love shmups, so I had to jump on that. To quickly summarize it for those who aren't aware, the contest is raffle where the further you get in RayStorm and RayCrisis, the more chances you have to win. Score doesn't matter, but since scoring is the most fun thing about shmups to me, I still tried to get as much as I could anyway. I missed a good chunk of points in this run, but overall I think it went pretty well.

This game is long and difficult. I actually didn't like it at first, but as you learn the level layouts and start putting together strategies, and learn how to deal with each boss, it gets more and more fun. Normally I'd keep playing for a while longer, so I can clean up my strategies and improve my score, but I gotta start playing RayCrisis. This is a fun game if you stick with it though! It's just going to take some effort.

PS. I'm playing the Neo HD mode here, which increases the game's internal resolution, and I maximized the game window, so the scaling isn't perfect. I figured it would just look better on YouTube this way. Personally I might prefer playing with the low-res PS1 era graphics (which is an option in this port), but I'm probably in the minority there.

Huge thanks to ININ Games for providing me with a key!

Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:54 Stage 1
3:10 Stage 2
6:27 Stage 3
9:52 Stage 4
14:04 Stage 5
18:32 Stage 6
21:41 Stage 7
26:16 Stage 8
29:50 Ending & Credits
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Beat 'em Ups (e.g. Final Fight):    • Beat 'em Ups  
2D Action (e.g. Metal Slug):    • 2D Action  
STG/Shmups (e.g. Dodonpachi):    • STG Replays