{"id":22211,"date":"2022-04-15T00:01:42","date_gmt":"2022-04-15T00:01:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=22211"},"modified":"2022-04-05T13:08:51","modified_gmt":"2022-04-05T13:08:51","slug":"taito-milestones-switch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2022\/04\/15\/taito-milestones-switch\/","title":{"rendered":"Taito Milestones (Switch)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Video game maker Taito has a lot of history behind it.\u00a0 Just as much as other long-time developers such as Namco and even Nintendo!\u00a0 Some of the games they\u2019ve made you\u2019ve surely heard of, like Space Invaders, Bubble Bobble, Bust-A-Move, and many, many more.\u00a0 And now there\u2019s a collection of classic Taito games on the Switch, so let\u2019s take a look at what\u2019s on there!<\/p>\n

But before we get started, these games on this collection are provided by the Arcade Archives series.\u00a0 Hamster has been releasing single arcade games you can download for years, and some of these releases have been pretty significant.\u00a0 Like they released the arcade version of Donkey Kong since Nintendo can\u2019t legally release it themselves (they had another company program it for them so there\u2019s been some legal issues with that).\u00a0 Another game they released on the Arcade Archives collection is Libble Rabble, a Namco game made by Toru Iwatani, who also made another game you might\u2019ve heard of called Pac-Man.\u00a0 But enough of that, here are the games on Taito Milestones!<\/p>\n

Alpine Ski<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is a pretty generic scrolling skiing game.\u00a0 It reminds me of the skiing game you used to could play on Windows.\u00a0 Back when I was a kid, I remember seeing this game EVERYWHERE in arcades for some reason.<\/p>\n

Wild Western<\/strong><\/p>\n

This vertically scrolling shooter has a Wild West theme.\u00a0 You must shoot the bad guys on their horses, but you must also watch out for obstacles that can trip up your own horse.\u00a0 You can shoot in any direction, and there\u2019s a train that runs in the middle of the screen that will reflect your shots.\u00a0 I don\u2019t remember seeing this in arcades, but I do remember it being featured a lot in the Starcade game show.<\/p>\n

Front Line<\/strong><\/p>\n

Like Wild Western, this vertically scrolling shooter allows you to fire in any direction, but it has more of an army theme as you can shoot both bullets and throw hand grenades.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure this game inspired future titles from other companies like Ikari Warriors.\u00a0 I\u2019ve read that a lot of people remember playing this game in arcades, but I don\u2019t remember seeing it as a kid at all.<\/p>\n

Qix<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is one of the more popular games on this collection, as I remember seeing it in arcades a lot back then.\u00a0 It\u2019s pretty abstract.\u00a0 You have to draw squares to fill in a certain percentage of the screen, all the while avoiding a waving line and sparks that travel your path.\u00a0 I never really got into this game as a kid, because it was pretty hard and that roving line always made me nervous.\u00a0 But my little brother Jeff loved this game when he was a kid!<\/p>\n

Space Seeker<\/strong><\/p>\n

I had never even heard of this one before this collection came out!\u00a0 You first view a circle map of a planet and cane move little squares around.\u00a0 And when you hit a spaceship icon, the game changes to a horizontally scrolling shooter that\u2019s super hard and it\u2019s one hit and you die!\u00a0 Graphics are pretty garish, too.<\/p>\n

Elevator Action<\/strong><\/p>\n

In this spy game, you play as secret agent Otto as you travel down a building, collecting secret documents behind red doors and shooting enemies.\u00a0 You go down the buildings by taking elevators and escalators to reach the bottom.\u00a0 I was never very good at this game, but it was relatively popular back then.\u00a0 I wish Elevator Action Returns was on this collection.\u00a0 That one was really fun!\u00a0 I also recently got to play a new game in the series called Elevator Action: Death Parade.\u00a0 This was a light gun game but you had a button to control real life elevator doors that would even block the screen and you could use them as shields!<\/p>\n

Chack\u2019n Pop<\/strong><\/p>\n

This single screen maze chase game is a bit hard to describe.\u00a0 You control a critter who can walk on floors and ceilings and can toss bombs at monsters, but don\u2019t get caught in the explosions yourself.\u00a0 You must gather all the hearts and make it to the top of the level.\u00a0 This is considered a kind of prototype to Bubble Bobble, as many of the enemies are the same and the character Chack\u2019n has been in other Taito games, too.\u00a0 I don\u2019t remember seeing this one in arcades though.<\/p>\n

The Fairyland Story<\/strong><\/p>\n

Speaking of Bubble Bobble prototypes, in this one you control a fairy as you dispatch all the monsters in single screen mazes.\u00a0 You do this by zapping them with magic, which turns them into cakes.\u00a0 Then you must push the cakes off ledges to finish the job.\u00a0 It\u2019s harder than Bubble Bobble, though, because if you die you must start the stage over instead of right where you left off.<\/p>\n

Halley\u2019s Comet<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is a pretty generic vertically scrolling space shooter except sometimes comets rain down and you can shoot them.\u00a0 It\u2019s pretty hard, too.<\/p>\n

The Ninja Warriors<\/strong><\/p>\n

And last is the most modern game on this collection.\u00a0 I remember seeing this one a lot back then, and it was in arcades many years after it came out.\u00a0 It\u2019s a pretty generic side scrolling beat \u2018em up with robot ninjas, but you had double screens so you could see far ahead of you to prepare.\u00a0 Other games did this too, like Taito\u2019s own Darius or Tecmo Bowl.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And those are all the games on this collection.\u00a0 I\u2019d have to say this compilation is pretty disappointing.\u00a0 Most of the games on here aren\u2019t that great, and they could\u2019ve used some real Taito milestones like Space Invaders or Bubble Bobble.\u00a0 Could\u2019ve used more games, too. I remember back in the PS2 and PSP days, Taito collections would have more than double or triple the amount of games on this collection.\u00a0 And they were cheaper, too.\u00a0 I miss those days.<\/p>\n

Kid Factor:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Taito Milestones is rate T for Teen with ESRB descriptors of Blood and Fantasy Violence. \u00a0Most of the games just have exploding spaceships for violence, but I think it\u2019s The Ninja Warriors that earns this collection the T rating.\u00a0 I remember the blood in the graphics being pretty shocking back then (this was before Mortal Kombat).\u00a0 But I grew up playing these arcade games and I turned out OK.\u00a0 Reading skill is helpful for some of the menu text, but not necessary just to play.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Video game maker Taito has a lot of history behind it.\u00a0 Just as much as other long-time developers such as Namco and even Nintendo!\u00a0 Some of the games they\u2019ve made you\u2019ve surely heard of, like Space Invaders, Bubble Bobble, Bust-A-Move, and many, many more.\u00a0 And now there\u2019s a collection of classic Taito games on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":22209,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22211"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22213,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22211\/revisions\/22213"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}