Raiden Fighters - 1CC - Normal - XBOX 360 - 25.6million (w/ Commentary)

LINK TO THE RUN WITHOUT COMMENTARY: • Raiden Fighters - Norm...
I have problems with it, but I will say that no shmup I've yet played has pumped me with adrenaline quite as much as Raiden Fighters. Mission 3 goes in my top STG levels of all time, with a glorious synth anthem giving way to absolutely manic 200+ BPM techno music as you careen over a massive battleship, taking out barrage after barrage of popout guns and helper-ships and planes divebombing the screen in a kickass sequence that epitomizes the david/goliath appeal of the genre.
Not all of the levels are so epic, and some are fraught with annoyances: a shifting camera that brings you into the view of guns and tanks you could not possibly anticipate; yellow bullets set against bright or sheer white backdrops, nearly impossible to see; and bullets so fast you have no choice but to memorize their behavior, and even then your odds are slim. These are not gamebreaking by any means, but they do wear on the soul when they cause the hundred-and-seventy-eighth reboot for a 1CC.
The game's level order is random unless a certain lever action is taken at the player select screen in the AC version. I played on the (fucking fantastic) Xbox 360 compilation, so I set my order to 1-2-3-4-5-6-7, as that's the ideal way to play for score.
The scoring system is, on its surface, great fun, with 3 sets of collectible medals that turn into giant 10,000pt gold ones if you collect 9 of each (and that can even increase from there!)... But getting anywhere halfway decent requires you to find secret monsters, or Micluses(sp?) hidden throughout the stages, and doing so without many, many hours of agonizing detective-work involves, simply, looking it up and memorizing. Relying on external sources is not my favorite thing in the first place (though if you want one, you can't get better than rf-emporium.gh.... and then when you add what a finicky fucking pain it is to optimize the first couple levels for score, you get a system that I'd call middling at best.
The game borders on brutal, so it's hard to recommend wholeheartedly for survival or score. It does play extremely well, though, and has a load of different ships to experiment with, so I'd still highly suggest that fans of the genre check it out and at least get through that third battleship level. If you like it, push through to the airship to see just how simultaneously fucked-up-hard and insanely cool it can get.