MOSS, the ex-Seibu Kaihatsu studio responsible for every mainline Raiden game since Raiden III, just announced RAIDEN NOVA, a 360° twin-stick Raiden spinoff that'll feature all the aircraft from previous Raiden games, a levelling/customisation system for speccing main shot, options (up to 6 equipped at once) and buffs/perks and both a traditional six-stage arcade-style mode with end-of-stage bosses and an unlimited mode that'll let you play endless versions of each stage.
They've scheduled a big reveal/talk show stream for July 14, 17:00 Japan time @ Mikado that'll include MOSS president and OG Raiden veteran Toshinobu Komazawa, classic Raiden series composer & Nova soundtrack supervisor Go Sato and others.
MOSS proper has not produced a new STG since Raiden V back in 2016/7, and MOSS' business has largely been taken over by subsidiary/sister studio Kaminari Games, but Kaminari's own STG have not been especially good (a game and revision based on Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid and the recent Macross: Shooting Insight, both produced for the openly stingy publisher Bushiroad), so I hope there is some significance to this explicitly being a new MOSS game... I can't say I'm particularly excited to see Raiden go vansaba, but part of me is glad to see at least one veteran STG studio at least try, however ineffectually, to bridge the gap between classic STG and modern fads.
Click through for price/package info:
¥4800 for the digital & standard physical versions, ¥8300 for the physical LE, which includes a box with original illustration by mecha designer Hidetaka Tenjin (known primarily for their work across various Macross projects), an OST CD, an alternate game sleeve and an acrylic block based on one of three classic Raiden games (Switch gets OG Raiden, PS4 gets Raiden II, PS5 gets Raiden DX). The sticker and jacket pictured on the right are first-print bonus items that'll also come with the standard physical version, and there are other retailer-specific bonus items that I don't feel like listing, but they are listed on the website.
