RayStorm

A one-player game in progress

RayStorm is a shoot 'em up. The player views their ship from a distanced perspective while gunning down enemies in the game's vertically scrolling stages. At the beginning of the game, the player must choose one of two ships; a third secret ship is available in ported versions.

The player uses a vulcan-like laser weapon as their primary offense, and a missile weapon which can lock onto multiple targets and gain a combo multiplier, accumulating into a point total. Additionally, each ship has two special maneuvers. The Special Attack is initiated when the player fills a bar to the maximum by engaging in multiple lock-ons. When full the player can unleash a massive screen wide attack with a brief period of invincibility afterwards. The second, the Hyper Laser Assault, executes a special attack unique to each ship, and is performed by setting all available lock-on attacks on a single target and firing.

The ships have slightly differing methods of destroying enemies and attaining a big point total:

• The R-Gray 1 uses a basic single laser cannon with shots that spread out. By moving the reticule over various enemies, it can lock on and fire multiple missiles. This ship is best suited for beginners.
• The R-Gray 2 uses twin lasers, and its attack power is considered superior to the R-Gray 1, but the width and range of its fire is decreased. However, its lock on maximum is 16 targets, meaning its point accumulation is much higher.

RayStorm consists of eight stages taking place between August 4 and August 7, 2219 AD; the first three stages take place on Earth, the last three at the fictional planet Secilia, and two between them in the orbits of Earth and Secilia, respectively.[6] Whereas RayForce players must head toward Earth to destroy it, RayStorm players start at and move away from the planet. The plot of the game is exposed minimally during play, with only dates and place names given at the start of each of its first seven stages. An "Extra Mode" included with home versions of the game displays maps before the first seven stages and a closing crawl after completing the game, which further illustrate the plot; the map for the fifth stage, for example, shows that a "gravity catapult" at the Moon is used to travel from Earth orbit to Secilia orbit.

The game manual for the North American RayStorm release describes the plot even further, depicting a future where space travel has existed since 2119. Humans explored space, and within 100 years Earth established a twenty-colony Star Federation extending to Orion, with each colony kept under martial law. The colonies then mutinied against the Federation: they took control of the major colony Secilia, formed the Secilia Federation and defeated Earth's forces after many battles. After Earth's surrender, all of its inhabitants had been transferred to the colonies. The Secilia Federation suppressed colonial opposition and sent out a force to destroy the planet completely. However, by then the R-Gray, a craft made with parts salvaged from 13 different Secilia ships, is completed and deployed to carry out "OPERATION RAYSTORM", a desperate attempt to defend Earth from the Federation.[7]

After the R-Gray(s) destroy the final boss, the ships try to escape the exploding "Juda Central System" (as the seventh stage is called) through a tunnel. What occurs afterwards differs between the game modes. The original arcade ending shows several R-Grays flying away from Secilia, through a fleet of destroyed enemy ships, towards Earth. The Extra Mode ending shows the player ship(s) enveloped in the tunnel explosion, then a view of the "Juda Satellite colony" exploding, and a view of a heavily damaged R-Gray using its remaining engines to drift from the Moon towards a large debris cloud; the crawl shown as Juda explodes explains that the colony is pushed from its orbit toward the nearby gas giant Seraphim by the explosion, at least "70% of the seven billion inhabitants" of the colony die from the explosion, the "Secilian empire" is no longer a danger, and the mission is complete.

If the game was completed in 13 Ships Mode on Extra Mode, the ending reveals that both the Earth and Secilia were destroyed. After Secilia was destroyed, there was still enough forces left for the remaining Secilian forces to destroy the Earth in retaliation for their lost homeworld. The Earth has been left defenseless against their last ditch effort assault. As a result, both the planets were destroyed in the conclusion of this planetary war, and with them, all traces of R-Gray and the LAY technology have been left non-existent. No records were found of the R-Gray ever returning.

Staff involved in the development of RayStorm include producer and director Yukio Abe, director Tatsuo Nakamura, music composer Tamayo Kawamoto, and sound effect composer Munehiro Nakanishi,[8] who all had the same roles developing RayForce.[9] Kawamoto and Nakanishi composed as members of Taito "house band" Zuntata, who trace their first work under that name to June 1987.[10] A soundtrack to the game, including both its original music and some arrangements, was released on October 11, 1996.[11]

The demonstration of the PlayStation version at the August 1996 Tokyo Game Show was reportedly on a massive screen that dwarfed all of Taito's other demos at the show.[12] The game was ported to the PlayStation in Japan in January 1997,[2] and in March videogames.com, then the video gaming website of GameSpot, reported that "several companies are interested in porting" it for a North American release; no specific companies were named.[13] Publisher/localization team Working Designs previously attempted to license RayForce, but publisher Acclaim had acquired exclusive rights to publish Taito's games in the Western Hemisphere just a few days before.[14][15] When they heard about RayStorm, they asked Taito if that game was available, licensed it immediately, and met with Taito to discuss converting the game for American release in April.[16] Working Designs' version was both their first release for the PlayStation and the first game released under their "SPAZ" label dedicated to shooter games;[16][17] the last under that label was the next "Ray" game, RayCrisis.[18] Working Designs had reconsidered their decision to not publish games for the PlayStation in light of Sony's changing attitude towards RPGs.[15] On the same month it was released, an "Interactive CD Sampler" containing a playable demo of the game was bundled with American PlayStation consoles.[19]

After Square Enix acquired Taito in 2005, it made its PlayStation Network debut in Japan on June 25, 2008 to make the release their new subsidiary's RayStorm and five other previously-published PlayStation titles as downloadable games for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable (PSP) systems.[20] The company announced that RayStorm HD will be released as a downloadable game in Japan for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2010[5] with the latter version was also released in North America and Europe. It has been rated "Everyone 10+" by the United States's Entertainment Software Rating Board.[21]

A Japanese flyer touts the game's 3D graphics and the return of lock-on weapons from the previous RayForce.

The arcade game runs on a Sony ZN-1 Jamma board (PlayStation Hardware for Arcade Usage). A hacked version of Raystorm also runs on the Taito G-NET system using the Taito G-NET Modbios 2009.

• Taito page
• Cyberfront Raystorm page: Mega hit Vol.10, Platina Selection
• D3 Publisher page
• A list of Ray games, soundtracks, and other media
• Raystorm at The Killer List of Videogames
• RayStorm HD preview and promotional video at 4Gamer.net