Raiden II - high score #2 - 1,222,470

Whew. This shit is serious. I have probably played 50 credits or so on this over the last few weeks and I feel like this score is huge, but it's just the beginning. 

I find myself hating getting snipped so much more when playing this over Raiden 1, mostly because it's so gratifying to blast through enemies fully powered up that losing that sucks hard.

I don't know if I am going to step away from this for a while as I kind feel like I need a change, but that feeling keeps dissipating and I want to play a few more credits before I get the itch to swap PCB's again. 

There is a Colorado Shmup meet happening next month, and I'm totally stoked for it. Hopefully I'll have one more score posting before that happens.

I'm also considering selling off a bunch of PCB's to fund some LP purchases as I have been trying to finish off my run of Strata East and Black Jazz records but man, I'm waffling big time. There's a bunch of stuff I own that I could play in mame an make some cash my selling off PCB's, but the collector market is driving up prices of so many PCB's that I would probably never get them back - especially titles like Big Bang, Armed Police Batrider and Battle Garegga.

New PCB - Raiden II (Seibu Kaihatsu, 1990)

After playing this for about a month solid, I feel it's fair to say it might be my favorite old school Toaplan-style shmup. There's so much it does right - game play and pacing, soundtrack, sound effects, simple scoring - and so very little it does wrong! It can be hard and getting sniped in the later stages is brutal, but when you get in the zone, it's super satisfying in a way very few Shmups can be.

I picked up the pcb after deciding to let go of Ghosts and Goblins, because even the thought of trying to get the 1 loop clear is unappealing, two years after I stopped playing it. 

Raiden II is just so enjoyable, so fulfilling when you get it right, that i just don't want to take it out of the cab for any reason. 

I'm shooting for the 1cc and my skills with old school games is such that I can see it happening, but really, only time will tell. High score right now is a paltry 871,630, but progress is coming swiftly.