(Actual final playtime is 27:32). Good news, everyone. You no longer need to pay an arm and a leg AND own a PS2 or PS3 to play Raidou, because this game exists now. A series that's normally turn based RPGs suddenly having an action game isn't the rarest thing ever, but it's a bit surprising that Atlas jumped on that proverbial bandwagon back when this game originally released. The original version of Raidou 1 is apparently very stiff and slow, so from what I've heard, this game borrows stuff that was added in Raidou 2, which is still locked to old system purgatory for the forseeable future. Anyway, we're not here to talk about old PS2 games. We're here to talk about a remaster of an old PS2 game. I never played the original Raidou 1, so this was my first real experience to Raidou in general, even as a character since I didn't play Nocturne's HD Remaster or the bonus dungeon of Soul Hackers. Honestly, I don't really have any strong opinions about Raidou as a character. He's a silent protagonist who talks a tiny bit at the very end of the game. I guess he has a strong sense of justice, considering all the nonsense he gets put up to. Beyond that, I don't have much to say about him as a character. He exists, he is the vessel we use to beat up demons with a sword and the power of gun...and demons, mainly. So gameplay wise, I do think it makes sense that Raidou's damage on it's own is like slapping someone with a wet noodle while your demons are the real damage dealers. The offset about his low damage is that his attacks are fast, which is nice. Additional things like the combat skills and Devil's Bane do help add onto Raidou's individual contributions to fights, and he needs to get in there and slap things around to build up MAG so demons can use their skills. The Sword Alchemy was pretty cool, even if the weapons only affect your strong attacks. I personally stuck to only using swords the entire game after trying out spears and axes a little, but I did make some spears and axes for the skills they give Raidou to play around with. I do wish there was a bit more elemental variety, though, as the Sign skills you get through story progression are the only real form of Fire, Ice, Wind, and Elec damage Raidou gets on his own without needing demons to back him up. If I had to put it simply, Raidou is mainly a support who sometimes has to get down and dirty in the battlefield. The demons, however, are the real MVPs. I do feel, though, that the Loyalty system is pretty worthless aside from getting some new passives to pass down. At the very least, it's miles better than Soul Hackers because it doesn't negatively affect you at all. Books can teach demons new skills if you want to amp up something you want to keep long term. For example, Idun was my mainstay demon once I made her. She could heal, she could buff, and I slapped some new magic skills on her to keep her viable the rest of the game. The one thing is that demons do have hard caps on their stats, even if you have max magic. The vitality passive can offset a demon having a low-ish max Vitality stat, though, or slap Life Gain/Surge on them to boost their HP up. The other main draw about demons are their investigation skills. While I do think Inspect gets a lot more usage overall than most others while many of the other ones only really see uses a couple of niche times, I liked how demons were used for more than just fusion fodder or combat partners. I did end up keeping around several earlygame demons in my stock all the way to endgame just in case I needed a certain investigation skill for something. There's also something very funny about just walking around The Capitol with Mara following me around. I don't know if Aril Rifts were a Raidou 2 addition or something from Raidou 1, but they are pretty grindable once you hit Episode 8, and if you're willing to run around and do all 20 over and over, you can pile up on grimoires to spike Raidou's level and get access to high level fusions. Sadly for me, the demon I wanted to make was Level 80 and I only had enough grimoires to reach Level 74 before I took care of the remaining Case Files (except the NG+ one). As for the story, it was...passable. I will admit all the "time travelers from the future" and "android Dark Summoners" and multiple parallel worlds thing did go a bit over my head in the second half. Something about the entire plot being because of a Raidou from the future felt...weird, in my opinion. The final boss was pretty interesting, though. I do hope that one day, we get a Raidou 2 Remastered...or hell, even Digital Devil Saga, but I'm not getting my hopes up about that second one as much as I'd love to see it.

For a long time, I heard good things about this game. Seeing as we're unlikely to ever see this game remade ever or likely even released outside of Japan, I played with a fan translation and also decided to do RetroAchievements at the same time. Being an older Fire Emblem game, naturally, there are features that took getting used to. Doubling required the Pursuit skill, critical hits were locked behind the Critical skill, Canto let you move and even change weapons after attacking, and this game is known as Horse Emblem for good reason, but also for a bad reason. The big red flag in the room is the map sizes. There's a good reason this game only has 12 chapters, and it's because the maps are huge. A bit too huge, in my opinion. You need to get around quickly, and mounted units can do that. The problem is the size of these maps point you away from using foot units since they can't keep up with your horses and (very few) fliers. Even then, beyond Ayra in Generation 1, many of the foot units viability varies heavily on certain factors. Skills being one of them. The fact that basic mechanics like doubling or critical hits being locked behind skills did bother me a bit, especially early on. More often than not, skills are locked to classes, of which each unit only has a straight line towards promotion at Level 20. You have no control over what class they end up in, meaning some classes that get certain skills are better than others. Tie this in with units who have personal skills (yes, these existed before Fates, surprisingly enough) like Pursuit or Critical. This segways into talking about one single unit who has a reputation for being stupidly good, so good in fact they had to send him to Jugdral's worst BBQ at the end of Chapter 5, Sigurd. He's a prepremote with high stats, good movement because he's on a horse, you get a free Silver Sword in the Prologue that can carry you through the entirety of Generation 1, and on top of everything else, he has Pursuit, allowing him to double if his speed is enough...which it will be more often than not. Sigurd's insane potential passes onto his son, Seliph. This is where the romance system comes into play, where the units you get in Generation 2 depend on if you paired up your Generation 1 units. Not only does this have an effect on stats, but also skills, making some children better than others...if you got them at all. The game is luckily generous enough to give you backups for any kids you didn't get. but they're inferior stat wise...and the single Berserk staff in the game is locked behind NOT getting one of the biological children. Sure, it adds replay value, but.... One of the achievements I had to do was beat the game with all units surviving to the end of their story. At the end of my playthrough, I had 103 resets. One thing I will appreciate about this game is that, even if a scenario seems unwinnable, if you try different ways of breaking out of the seemingly unbreakable situation, you can prevail if RNG decides to cooperate. Several times I ended up pushed into a corner and came close to giving up and doing the whole map over, but once the stars aligned and I broke free, I felt very accomplished even though I knew it also had to do with RNG saving me. Now, story wise, I did very much enjoy the game. It's not every day you are put into a deathtrap where your entire army is obliterated as part of the enemy's plan and it sticks. Sigurd was so good they had to kill him in a cutscene where the player can't save him, even though he lacked understanding of the bigger picture. In a way, I liked how Manfroy's scheming was happening in the shadows and then jumps Sigurd and his army at the infamous Battle of Belhalla, throwing them to their doom and almost winning overall until Seliph happened. In a way, I now understand the hype behind this game. I'm still not really big on some of the jank in this game like no trading, lack of healing items, the massive maps, and the hordes of enemies clumped together in groups, but narratively, it's a good game for an SNES title, which was a time where story usually wasn't a huge thing in games. One day, however, I will end up playing Thracia 776, which is infinitely more jank than this game.