4

5 /5

Raiden II New is a re-release of the original 1993 Raiden II, developed by Seibu Kaihatsu for the Southeast Asian market. Its overall quality makes it feel closer to an officially licensed bootleg than a proper revision. In order to lower production costs and sell the board at a much cheaper price, very low-quality PCBs were used.

The most obvious downgrade in this reissued PCB is the sound hardware, which replaces the iconic music of the original release with short, poorly sampled audio loops.

The well-known intro sequence has been removed, levels 1 and 5 have been swapped, and several in-game transition sequences between stages are also missing.

The PCB itself is a 2-in-1 board, featuring a hidden method that allows switching to a revised version of Raiden DX, which suffers from equally poor sound quality.