Raiden Fighters Aces flies in March

I so hope Atlus picks this up for a North America release. I already plan on buying their release of Operation Darkness.

Oh god I hope so. If UFO saw fit to release the (relatively) mediocre Raiden 3 in the States, someone should realize that these superior games definitely deserve a release here.

A compilation of the Raiden Fighters series is well overdue indeed, with the earliest attempt being in 1997 of Raiden Fighters for the Sega Saturn by Victor EA of Japan ending up getting canceled, unfortunately. It was a hard pill to shallow when Raiden Fighters Evolution, a compilation of Raiden Fighters and Raiden Fighters 2, turned out to be scrapped as well, especially after I had built up such high anticipation for that collection.

Thankfully, Raiden Fighters Aces is drawing nearer and nearer to release in Japan, and with any luck, I’m hoping some company picks this up for localization in North America too. The only downside is that we’ll have to wait and see if this gets picked up by any United States publisher, which unfortunately means the waiting process is far from over just yet for us.

However, if a company such as Atlus did decide to release Raiden Fighters Aces in North America, they really wouldn’t have any other choice than to release the compilation at the modest price of $29.99, as anything higher would essentially doom the collection, as we’ve seen witnessed with Ubisoft’s localization on Senko no Ronde. As a matter of fact, just like the aforementioned shmup/fighter hybrid, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the compilation drop in price rather quickly and end up in bargain bins across retail stores in the United States if that were the case.

@ Kurt: Raiden 3 was a different story because it was a PS2 game. So it was relatively cheap to port and release into stores.

@ Veilknight: If the game does indeed get released on in the Us by Atlus, I’d expect an MSRP of $39.99. If you remember, last year MS Games Studio released two relatively obscure games (Project Sylpheed and Vampire’s Rain) at $39.99. In this generation, $39.99 seems to be the “budget price” for games that publishers know won’t be in high demand due to lack of interest. The $29.99 price point to seems to be for “greatest hit” next gen titles. MS Games Studio had that price with Kameo, PGR3, and several other 1st gen Xbox 360 titles.

For example, it seems that Capcom is releasing the Lost Planet for the PS3 at $39.99 (according to Gamestop.com)

@ Veilknight: One last comment, having Wartech: Senko no Ronde end up in bargin bins may be good for us consumers, but it send publishers the message that releasing “niche” japanese titles (that are on the PS3 & ‘360) in the US is a bad business decision. Then we won’t see more of those “niche” titles cross over. That would/will suck

I hope this comes to the states, it a game that my dad can get into!!

Also, I thought this was supposed to be a XBLA release.

I want everyone to keep in mind that even if the game isn’t localized, there is a chance that the game may be region-free. Many games that come out on the 360 in Japan still work on US systems, with some notable exceptions (i.e. Senko no Ronde before it was localized). Let’s hope that if the game isn’t brought here that at least we’ll still be able to import it easily.

@ vusethebold: That is very unlikly. Most Japanese 360 games are region locked. That was what upset me so much about Shikigami no Shiro 3 only coming out on the Wii in the US as I knew from experience that so few games from Japan are region free. While I am on that topic, does anybody know why so many US titles are region free while so few from Japan are not? It seems rather odd when a major US title comes out here first and the US version is region free while the Japanese one that comes out months later and costs more is not. Oh well if the 360 version don’t come out here we can still hope for a PS3 port. Then we know we won’t have a problem.

it is a strange pattern that i haven’t been able to make any sense of. there really is no reason to region lock some of these titles. when i learned that the US blue dragon was region free, i was completely shocked. i think, in light of sony’s move and microsoft’s soft stance on lockouts, region coding should be done away with for 360 games. no more of this “up to the publisher” business. just make games region free. keep all the region locks you want for movies and all, but games should be region free.

I’ve notived that most “Asia” region Xbox 360 games that are region free come from Ubisoft. I’ve noticed a few others from MS Games Studios and other publishers. But there really aren’t too many region free ‘360 games.

I get your point Angelous, but seeing as Raiden Fighters Aces is a compilation of old arcade shmup titles from the later years of the ’90s which don’t really incorporate 3D graphics in the slightest, not even against the game’s impressive boss fights, I thought it would only make sense to release the collection at a sweet $30 to make up for the fact it’s a 2D retail release on a next-gen system like the 360. Despite your previous examples with Project Sylpheed and Vampire’s Rain, Raiden Fighters Aces would essentially be the exception to that rule you mentioned, simply because of its use of 2D sprites.

Nonetheless, if Raiden Fighters Aces were to indeed get picked up by a company like Atlus, whether they decided to go for the $29.99 or $39.99 price point, I would still pick this compilation up in a instant as soon as I get confirmation that it has been released in the United States. After all, I was one of the few people who bothered to pick up WarTech: Senko no Ronde for $59.99 when the title launched during May 24, 2007 courtesy of Ubisoft.

Although in hindsight I’m not quite sure whether that’s something to be proud or boastful about, considering last time I checked anyone should be able to pick up WarTech: Senko no Ronde for $9.99 in North America if they really wanted the title at this point in time. After playing it though, I definitely thought it was worth the $60 I spent on it, and this game certainly is worth the $10 it takes to track it down right now if anyone was really cautious about the title’s quality simply because of the mixed review scores from various big name websites who just couldn’t get into the game or didn’t really understand WarTech: Senko no Ronde’s premise to be even reviewing it in the first place. :p