YMMV / ESP Ra.De.

• Anti-Climax Boss: In Psi, the new Final Boss Alice Master is not terribly difficult, at least relative to Ms. Garra, and like Ms. Garra she is not immune to bombs either. Of course, this only applies if you lost at least one life before facing her. Complete a No-Damage Run up to her, and prepare for hell.
• Angst? What Angst?: Irori seems to be pretty cheerful compared to the others, even though she has a very tragic backstory.
• Awesome Moments: All three protagonist have some pretty badass intros:
  • Yusuke: The game opens on the rooftop of a school building, where a group of Yaksa slit his friend's throat. On-screen. This is what awakens his psychic powers.
  • J-B 5th: He infiltrates a shopping mall, killing a politician making a speech (who is secretly connected to Ms. Garra), quickly establishing that just because he's a protagonist doesn't mean he won't resort to morally cloudy means.
  • Irori: A volley of missiles lands on the roof of an orphanage, and just when it looks like an innocent bystander is about to be hit, Irori comes in at the last second to block the missile with a psychic barrier.
• Awesome Music: One of the best soundtracks in a CAVE game ever ("Raging Decide" is a very rousing example of a boss theme), and the whole OST is a contender for some of the best arcade game BGMs of all time.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • This game was published by Atlus, along with the first two games in the DonPachi series, which is also by CAVE. CAVE would later develop Shin Megami Tensei IMAGINE, which is part of Atlus's Shin Megami Tensei series.
  • Atlus would later be bought out by Sega. M2 would then go on to release ports of SEGA games aplenty (most notably their SEGA AGES line), along with ports of CAVE games, and ESP Ra.De. technically qualifies as both (the updated title screen for Psi mentions SEGA).
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!:
  • Some fans of M2's ports are a little displeased that Psi doesn't add as much content compared to the other M2 ShotTriggers releases, featuring only one new soundtrack^note To be fair, before this release there were no other remixes of the soundtrack. The previous M2STG release, Ketsui Deathtiny, had as many soudntracks as it had because two of those remix soundtracks were originally made for a previous port of Ketsui and for the DoDonPachi Resurrection BLACK LABEL crossover Arrange Mode., a rebalanced "Arcade Plus" version of the original game, and relegating Arrange Modes to mini-missions in Irori's Room.
  • The Arcade Plus mode itself suffers this criticism for not changing that much at a gameplay level. While it features a new Final Boss, who takes on a tougher True Final Boss form if certain conditions are met, said final boss as an unlockable playable character, and redone voice acting, the only mechanical changes are nerfing Power Shot milking in a way that doesn't entirely eliminate it, and shortening the boss timers, which are still long enough to enable what players consider a way-too-Boring, but Practical method of gaining score.
• Moe: Irori again! Girl has quite the Real Life fan club in Japan.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • The Alice clones in the second half of Stage 5 let out ear-piercing shrieks when they die. And since there’s a whole army of them, expect to hear those screams a lot.
  • Human bosses (Satoru, Ms. Garra, and Alice Master) let out buckets of blood when they die.
  • If you choose Yusuke as your character, the very first scene of the game is of Yaksa goons killing his classmate on-screen by way of Neck Snap.
  • Ms. Garra looks like she’s in her seventies, but she’s actually only 41, due to her psychic powers taking such a horrible strain on her body.
  • J-B 5th is a trained and brainwashed assassin despite being only 15 years old, which really can't be good for his mental development.
  • The music for the first two phases of Alice Master aren't too bad; the first phase theme, "Rage", just features an oddly calming theme and the second phase theme, "Wing", has the music kicking into high gear, with both themes featuring an ethereal choir. But the final phase theme, "Madness"^note this link is part of a replay, as no upload of the song by itself (that isn't the Drive Waves 2019 remix) currently exists, has the choir turning into hellish cacaphony.
• Polished Port: Despite receiving some criticism for not bringing as much to the table as past M2 ShotTriggers ports, Psi is still a very finely-crafted port with useful M2 Gadgets, multiple practice modes, savestates, and a rebalanced Arcade Plus mode that fixes some of the more problematic mechanics of the original game.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • Irori's Room in Psi forces horizontal orientation if you are using vertical orientation, forcing players in handheld or docked mode on Switch to play on a very small screen, and those with other vertical setups to have to turn their monitors back to horizontal. Oh, and when you go back into the other modes, your screen options are reset, forcing you to change them back to what they were before.
  • A lot of points are awarded for hitting enemies with your Power Shot, which includes bosses, and the damage it inflicts to bosses is relatively low. This leads to a very boring scoring metagame that consists of hitting the boss with powershots for minutes at a time. Psi thankfully nixes this in Arcade Plus mode, which shortens boss timers and makes powershot give out less points.
  • This game's take on Hitbox Dissonance isn't well-liked; your character's sprite tends to shift around your hitbox which can result in some deaths coming out of nowhere. Thankfully Psi has an option to make it visible, which is available in all modes (even the ones based on the original 1998 version) and does not disqualify scores.
• Tear Jerker:
  • J-B 5th gets a pretty badass intro of him killing a politician, while Irori jumps to the aid of an innocent bystander who was about to be killed. Meanwhile, Yusuke's intro is rather heartbreaking, opening with the Yaksa killing his best friend on screen, and that's what awakens Yusuke's psychic powers.
  • During Irori's ending, pressing a certain button causes the bystander who would otherwise save her to ignore her, causing her to die.
• That One Attack:
  • Peller Boy, the boss of the Bay Area stage, has a particularly nasty attack if the stage is the last of the first three stages to be played. In its second phase, it may fire a dense, grid-like spread of blue bullets, while already firing a pink spread of bullets as well.
  • Ms. Garra's fourth phase fires very fast and very large "shotgun" blasts at you that can easily corner you. You're well advised to just try to bomb it.
• That One Boss:
  • Unless you're going for score, you are generally advised to play the School stage as your last stage. Each of the first three stages' bosses has three variants depending on the order you fight them, getting more difficult the later you encounter them. But Satoru Oumi, the School boss, undergoes the most drastic changes with this mechanic: He gains two extra lifebars, and on his last lifebar he summons an Attack Drone of himself that fires alongside him, forcing you to keep up with two rhythms of bullet patterns. Furthermore, as he is a human-sized boss, he has a much smaller hitbox than most other bosses (which are usually giant mechs), which can easily put you at a disadvantage if you're playing as J-B 5th or Alice, as they have wide shots that force them to get up close to Satoru to inflict the full damage, with the obvious risk of taking his bullets to the face. Yusuke gets the benefit of never having to face this version of Satoru, as he has the School as his first stage and thus Satoru is a weak starter boss with only 3 lifebars, and Alice can also choose the School as her first stage.
  • The midboss of Stage 5 consists of a psionic barrier you have to break down, the casters of which also fire dense patterns at you including a very difficult-to-avoid "shotgun" attack, while backed by two side turrets and an endless convoy of foot soldiers and assault vehicles that can pelt you even from close range. Don't try to milk those lesser enemies for points, as they don't give out any.
• Underused Game Mechanic: Some of the M2 Gadgets, such as the ones that show stage information, score breakdown, and route are unavailable if you are playing in vertical mode. (This is the same problem that other M2STG ports have as well.)