RayStorm

RayStorm is a vertical shooter from Taito and spiritual successor to the earlier-released Layer Section, whose Saturn version arrived in 1997 as a port of the arcade original. The player controls one of the fighters equipped with both direct fire and homing lock-on lasers capable of hitting multiple targets at once, including enemies on the ground beneath the aircraft — combining both types of attack is key to efficient progress as well as to a high score, since properly splitting fire between direct targets and locked laser targets can significantly cut down the time needed to clear the screen. Levels alternate classic vertical scrolling with passages in 3D perspective, where the player flies into the depth of the screen among industrial structures and giant enemy vessels.

The Saturn port had to contend, in technical terms, with demanding 3D sequences that pushed the hardware of the time to its limits, and the result is solid, if not flawless — in more hectic moments there's a noticeable slight drop in frame rate. Visually the game combines a stark, futuristic aesthetic with dense, electronic music that nicely underscores the pace of the action and lends the battles with giant bosses appropriate drama. It was released only in Japan, and among genre fans RayStorm is prized as one of the important milestones in the history of modern shmups, since it was here that the lock-on laser system, later widely copied by other titles, showed itself in its refined and balanced form. Even today it's considered one of the most technically and design-wise ambitious shooters of the 32-bit console generation, comparable to the parallel-released PlayStation version, and its influence can be seen both in the studio's later Taito titles that continued experimenting with the lock-on mechanic and in a whole range of other vertical shooters that later adopted a similar homing-fire system as a standard part of the genre's repertoire.

Why play it: For fans of genre history, RayStorm is an important milestone thanks to its refined lock-on laser system, even though its technically demanding 3D passages come with occasional slight slowdown.