Play Raiden Online

Raiden, released in 1990 by Seibu Kaihatsu for MS-DOS, was one of those early PC shoot 'em ups that felt like a direct port from the arcade. It arrived at a time when home computers were just starting to handle fast-paced action games with detailed sprites and smooth scrolling. The game didn't try to reinvent the genre; it just delivered a solid, straightforward vertical shooting experience.

You pilot a fighter jet, scrolling upward through waves of enemy crafts and ground installations, dodging intricate bullet patterns while collecting colored power-up icons to upgrade your main shot and secondary missiles. Your main objective is simply to survive each stage and defeat the large boss waiting at the end. Signature mechanics include a two-weapon system (a vulcan shot or laser for your main weapon, and homing or napalm missiles for your secondary) and the punishing consequence of death: losing all your collected power-ups and reverting to a weak default state. The pacing is relentless, and the difficulty is unforgiving, especially in the second loop where enemy speed increases dramatically. It feels like a constant test of reflexes and memorization, where one mistake can undo minutes of careful progress.

Each game uses different controls, most DOS games use the keyboard arrows. Some will use the mouse , "Alt" ,"Enter" and "Space bar".