Overview
Viper Phase-1 is a vertical-scrolling sci-fi shoot-'em-up developed and released by Seibu Kaihatsu (along with Fabtek in the North America release) for arcades (using their Seibu SPI hardware) on May 1995.
Based on the studio's earlier shoot-'em-ups Raiden and Raiden II, Viper Phase-1 puts players in control of the starfighter "VP1" in the year 2050, as they must combat a large army of rebelling space colonists making their way to Earth.
While the game includes many elements from the Raiden series, it features some gameplay differences in addition to its new space setting. Among these changes are a new weapon system where players have only one main weapon (a rapid-fire vulcan cannon) and can collect one of four limited-use weapon augmentations (sub-weapons). The main vulcan cannon, along with the ship's sub-weapons, can be upgraded three times by collecting weapon power-ups (designated with a yellow "P").
An updated version of the game was released in August 1995, known as Viper Phase-1: New Version. Believe to be made in a short timeframe to adjust the original game's difficulty, New Version adjusts the weapon system so that sub-weapons are no longer limited-use (although they are weaker as a result). Due to the short timeframe between versions, copies of the original game are more rare to find.
Unlike the games in the Raiden series, Viper Phase-1 has received no home ports, re-releases, or inclusions in compilations. The VP1 was later included as a ship in the Raiden Fighters series, and the PS1 version of Raiden DX includes the soundtrack as an alternate soundtrack.
Gameplay
Sub-Weapons
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