Development
Staff involved in the development of RayStorm include producer and director Yukio Abe, director Tatsuo Nakamura, music composer Tamayo Kawamoto, and sound effect composer Munehiro Nakanishi, who all had the same roles developing RayForce beforehand. Kawamoto and Nakanishi composed as members of Taito "house band" Zuntata, who trace their first work under that name to June 1987. A soundtrack to the game, including both its original music and some arrangements, was released on October 11, 1996.
The game was ported to the PlayStation in Japan in January 1997, and in March John Ricciardi of videogames.com, then the video gaming website of GameSpot, reported that "several companies interested in porting" it for a North American release; no specific companies were named. Working Designs, which had already translated and published Popful Mail, some Lunar titles, and other Japanese games in America, previously contacted Taito to license RayForce, but publisher Acclaim had done so a few days before; when they heard about RayStorm, they quickly asked Taito if that game was available, licensed it immediately, and met with Taito to discuss converting the game for American release in April. Working Designs' version was their first release for the PlayStation and the first game released under their "SPAZ" label dedicated to shooter games; the last under that label was the next "Ray" game, RayCrisis. On the same month it was released, an "Interactive CD Sampler" containing a playable demo of the game was bundled with American PlayStation consoles.
After Square Enix acquired Taito in 2005, it made its PlayStation Network debut in Japan on June 25, 2008 to make the release their new subsidiary's RayStorm and five other previously-published PlayStation titles as downloadable games for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable (PSP) systems. The company announced that RayStorm HD will be released as a downloadable game in Japan for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2010. It has been rated "Everyone 10+" by the United States's Entertainment Software Rating Board.
The arcade game runs on a Sony ZN-1 Jamma board (PlayStation Hardware for Arcade Usage). A hacked version of Raystorm also runs on the Taito G-NET system using the Taito G-NET Modbios 2009.
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