ESP Ra.De. coming to Switch & PS4

Hattori Hanzo

AEShole
1 Year Member
Joined
Sep 14, 2018
Posts
2,812
M2 is bringing ESP Ra.De. to the Nintendo Switch this year.


Nintendo Life said:
Emulation expert M2 has revealed that it is bringing Cave's 1998 vertical shooter ESP Ra.De. to the Nintendo Switch.

Never released outside of arcades, ESP Ra.De. sees you assuming the role of one of three humans blessed with extra-sensory abilities. Armed with the power of flight and the ability to fire frickin' lasers from your fingertips, you must take to the skies of 2018 Toyko (hey, that would have been the future back in 1998!) and attempt to thwart the sinister Mrs. Gara. It's a nice change of pace from the typical 'spaceships blasting aliens' theme that seems to be so common in the genre, and it doesn't hurt that the game is utterly fantastic.

It was previously assumed that the absence of a home port of the game was down to Atlus, which handled distribution of the coin-op. This would appear to have been solved now. There's no solid release date, but the game will be coming to Switch this year.

If you fancy learning more about ESP Ra.De., then you could do a heck of a lot worse than visit Hardcore Gaming 101, which has a really detailed write-up of why it's so special.

Source

Edit:
Also coming to PS4.
Official website: https://m2stg.com/esprade/
 
Last edited:

Yoshi

,
20 Year Member
Joined
Mar 9, 2001
Posts
1,444
I love the expansion to Switch. I'll keep my fingers crossed for eventual Steam/GOG versions, but at least I won't feel bad in the interim buying versions I can take on the go.
 

Gog

Krauser's Shoe Shiner
Joined
Jul 29, 2013
Posts
235
Excellent. I hope this means more Cave titles make it over to Switch. I’d like to see Deathsmiles released on it.
 

Gog

Krauser's Shoe Shiner
Joined
Jul 29, 2013
Posts
235
Yes! Akai Katana too, simply for the more suitable horizontal alignment.

Preach on! I enjoy vert shooters, but there’s something about hori I seem to prefer and I can’t quite explain why. Might have something to do with the fact Gradius V is possibly my most favourite shmup, so maybe it’s bias?
 

Kid Fenris

Quiz Detective
10 Year Member
Joined
Feb 12, 2012
Posts
89
Perfect. I tried to play just about every arcade shooter I saw when I went to Japan back in 1999, and ESP Ra.de was the one that kept me coming back the most. Hell, it was one of the first things I tried when I found out about MAME a few years later.

Easily my favorite Cave shooter. I'll probably buy both the PS4 and Switch versions.
 

roker

DOOM
20 Year Member
Joined
Apr 12, 2003
Posts
18,871
ARMED POLICE BATRIDER

who do I have to jack off at M2 to get this shit done?

That being said, this is the next release on my list. The Battle Garegga release was freakin' awesome and I can't wait to see what they'll do with this one.


another edit:

Found a website that says M2 wants to release Batider and Battle Bakraid but redtape and having to meet M2's standards has kept it back. I'll stop asking now. But APB is obviously what I consider the best shmup ever made (it's the 3rd Strike of shmups, imo).

Horii reveals that actual porting work for several games that ranked in the poll such as Truxton II/Tatsujin Oh and Armed Police Batrider has been completed, as part of research and development on emulation. However, they haven’t received fine-tuning for any sort of planned release. This is because they usually test games on the same arcade system board together. Sometimes, the emulation ports are completed but have to be shelved for a long time, such as Dangun Feveron / Fever SOS which originally was meant to be released for Xbox 360, but never saw a release until the recent PS4/Xbox One release.


One of the bottlenecks for a rerelease of Armed Police Batrider by M2 is that it runs even slower than Battle Garegga, as the game came out afterwards. Overall, games from the latter half of the 90s are barely able to run with the PS4’s specs in M2 rereleases.


M2 has received lots of requests to rerelease the full ‘Yagawa Trilogy’, meaning games that Shinobu Yagawa worked on. The three games referred to are Battle Garegga, Armed Police Batrider, and Battle Bakraid. Horii says that while this will be hard to do, it’s something he wants M2 to tackle someday.

Read more at https://www.siliconera.com/2018/08/...leased-on-steam-and-more/#goPIpGIQm3Yd31cy.99
 
Last edited:

mjmjr25

went home to be a family man
10 Year Member
Joined
Dec 18, 2010
Posts
2,865
Dimahoo and Pro Gear. My want list will be complete.
 

Bishamon

Azu Bla, ,
Joined
Aug 24, 2002
Posts
3,624
ARMED POLICE BATRIDER

YES! I have the PCB, but it would be a LOT easier to play on PS4, and I'm sure M2 would add a ton of options.


another edit:

Found a website that says M2 wants to release Batider and Battle Bakraid but redtape and having to meet M2's standards has kept it back. I'll stop asking now. But APB is obviously what I consider the best shmup ever made (it's the 3rd Strike of shmups, imo).

I have been wondering why they haven't announced either title; they would seem to be obvious choices.
 

shelcoof

New Challenger
Joined
Aug 16, 2019
Posts
56
pre-ordered on amazon
by far my favorite Cave shmup and probably my top 3 of all time
 

ReplicaX

Unholy Custom Rank.,
15 Year Member
Joined
Aug 23, 2008
Posts
2,420
I personally want them to finally get the rights to the Toaplan catalog.

Welcome to the forums #richboy
Careful with this one folks, shmup enthusiast while still wetting the bed here.

Just a hypocrite here to buy arcade shit, yet considers anyone who owns PCBs and Candy cabs a "richboy faggot" that doesn't play their "collection" :tickled:

Anyway, back to some Rayforce. Just gonna prop up the PCB and stare at it. :thevt:
 
Joined
Jul 18, 2019
Posts
916
Welcome to the forums #richboy
Careful with this one folks, shmup enthusiast while still wetting the bed here.

Just a hypocrite here to buy arcade shit, yet considers anyone who owns PCBs and Candy cabs a "richboy faggot" that doesn't play their "collection" :tickled:

Anyway, back to some Rayforce. Just gonna prop up the PCB and stare at it. :thevt:

Who hurt you?
 

-SD-

Camel Slug
Joined
May 10, 2016
Posts
510
New character...

vOH71IU.jpg
 

Heinz

Parteizeit
15 Year Member
Joined
Feb 13, 2005
Posts
22,333
Not sure it needed a new character but I guess that'll be the showcase of the Psi version with M2 lovingly also giving us the OG arcade release as well.
 
Top