Publisher: ININ Games
Developer: Taito, Hamster Corporation
Medium: Digital/Cart
Players: 1-2
Online: Leaderboards
ESRB: T
The Taito classics have returned once again for Taito Milestones 3. A brand new collection of some of the best (and not best) Taito classic arcade games. Once again, ININ Games takes the helm for this great collection showcasing 10 games, with 3 exclusive titles that are not available separately on the eShop.
As with the first 2 collections, I’ll be checking out each game offered with short reviews, personal thoughts and wrap everything up at the end.
Bubble Bobble (Available on eShop)
The classic arcade and NES game where you control 2 cute bubble dragons as they make their way through the cave of monsters to rescue their girlfriends. This is the original Single Screen Arcade game where your objective is to shoot bubbles at the monsters and collect the bonuses left behind to enter the next screen. Fun for one or two players. Great addition to this collection.
Rainbow Islands (Available on eShop)
It’s the sequel to Bubble Bobble! This time, Bub and Bob have been transformed back into their human forms and given the power of rainbows. You have to climb the monster towers, defeating enemies with your rainbows and collecting all of the dropped items. You can also use your rainbows as platforms to reach out of reach areas and make bridges across large gaps. After a few levels, you’ll encounter a boss to defeat. Later levels offer quite a challenge and some of the bosses will really test your patience. Good game, but not good as the original.
Rastan Saga (Available on eShop)
You are Rastan the Barbarian, tasked with stopping the evil warlord from taking control of the world. Using your strength and multitude of weapons, you make your way through monster filled areas to eliminate one of the warlords generals. This is a fantastic action platformer that is easy to understand but will take a while to master. You can take some damage in your journey, but health power ups are very scarce, so you need to sharpen your skills if you want to make it through each area. A challenging game that will test your skill. It only ever saw a home release on the Sega Master System back in 1985.
Rastan Saga II (Available on eShop)
Rastan returns in another action platformer. This one is, not as great as the original, in fact it’s downright bad in comparison. The game is now more linear with huge sprites that BARELY animate. The animations that are here, however, are extremely laughable and just look terrible. While the sprite art looks ok in still pictures, it will make you cringe when you see it in motion. This game is also not fun to play or very challenging. Not a good addition, but it’s worth a play or two for a few unintended laughs.
Champion Wrestler (Available on eShop)
An ’80s arcade wrestling game with no connection to todays big wrestling companies. You select a wrestler and you are on your way to becoming the champion. Control is a little stiff at first, but you can easily pull off some decent moves to defeat your opponent. Fast-paced action and a really good challenge makes you want to keep coming back. I surprisingly had a lot of fun with this one, as I usually don’t like the early wrestling games from the arcade. This was released on the TurboGrafx-16 in the USA around the early ’90s, but was one of those forgotten gems that has began to make a comeback thanks to collections like this.
Cadash (Available on eShop)
Believe it or not, this game is actually an Action RPG in the ARCADE. You pick one of 4 characters and venture off through 5 stages of action combat. You will level up your character as you progress and can buy new weapons and armor in shops scattered throughout. This is a relatively short RPG with only 5 areas to get through, and there is no saving your character to come back later. It’s a rather short adventure that seems it should be longer, but since it was designed for the arcade originally, the length is just about right. There were home ports on the TurboGrafx-16 and the Sega Genesis with a few minor changes. I had some fun with this one, but it was over too quickly.
Thunder Fox (Taito Milestones 3 Exclusive)
You are part of the anti-terrorist team known as Thunder Fox. In this horizontal scrolling shooter, You have to make your way though dozens of terrorists armed with your trusty combat knife and some scattered weapons you can pick up throughout each level. The close combat and limited weapons feels a lot like the classic game “Rush N’ Attack” for the NES, except with way more action and harder enemies to get through. It’s actually very funny when you have no other weapons and are forced to attack a TANK with only a combat knife, but somehow you cause enough damage to destroy the entire thing! This was a fun one, and only available on this collection. I do believe this was released on the Sega Genesis as well.
Runark / Growl (Available on eShop)
This is a super fun scrolling fighter where you have to stop a group of poachers from capturing and injuring all kinds of endangered animals. Using one of 4 fighters, you go after evil poachers and their henchmen using your fists or a variety of surprisingly deadly weapons. It’s strangely satisfying to taking on large groups of bad guys that surround you with guns, whips, bazookas and hand grenades. As you save the trapped animals, they become your allies and try to help you with the ever increasing number of enemies on the screen at one time. This is one game you will play through again and again and is super fun for 1 to 4 players! This only saw release to the home on the Sega Genesis and is quite rare to find these days. Fantastic addition to this collection!
Warrior Blade – Rastan Saga III (Taito Milestones 3 Exclusive)
After the horror that was Rastan Saga II, Taito stepped things up with the next installment with Warrior Blade. Now the game is a classic belt scroller like Final Fight and you have more characters joining Rastan in the fight against evil. Up to two players can battle a wacky assortment of monsters and warriors to make their way through dangerous areas. In the arcades, this game was presented on a large machine sporting a wide Double monitor setup. In order to recreate this, the play area has borders on the top and bottom of the screen, giving a pretty close authentic arcade experience. This never got a home port, in fact, the game never officially left Japan until appearing on this collection!
Dead Connection (Taito Milestones 3 Exclusive)
Finally, we have one of the more stranger games in this collection. In Dead Connection, you play one of 4 gangsters and are placed in a room full of targets in the form of other gangsters. Your objective is to mow down everyone and everything in large areas like a Hotel Lobby, a street at midnight, and the docks. It took a little while to know what was an enemy and was not, until I realized that there are no friendly targets, and that includes other players. It’s just a shooting fest to out live the opponents and the enemies. This was my first time ever playing this game, as I’ve never heard of it before. I enjoyed my time with it, but it does get a little monotonous as it goes on. It’s a cool addition, but not a game you’ll come back to often.
ININ has has done it again with Taito Milestones 3. The emulation is top notch and the selection of games is one of the best so far. I love that the finally added Runark/Growl and Warrior Blade, along with fun and interesting additions like Cadash and Champion Wrestler. I also like that they are still adding exclusive games not available in the eShop separately, but they do, however, need to bring the number of exclusive games up to say, 4 or 5, for the next volume if there will be one. All in all, a great collection of games with less disappointing additions over the previous volumes. Recommended for anyone looking to play some great classic arcade games without spending a ton of cash.
Note: ININ Games provided us with a Taito Milestones 3 code for review purposes.
