{"id":23781,"date":"2023-09-22T00:01:56","date_gmt":"2023-09-22T00:01:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=23781"},"modified":"2023-09-18T14:12:06","modified_gmt":"2023-09-18T14:12:06","slug":"taito-milestones-2-switch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2023\/09\/22\/taito-milestones-2-switch\/","title":{"rendered":"Taito Milestones 2 (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 second collection of classic Taito games on the Switch, so let\u2019s take a look at what\u2019s on there!\u00a0 Click here to check out the first Taito Milestones<\/strong><\/a>!<\/p>\n

But before we get started, I just wanted to note that like in the first game, these are from Hamster\u2019s Arcade Archives series, which sells arcade games separately digitally on home consoles.\u00a0 You can also press pause to bring up a menu to toggle various settings, like the difficulty and lives you get in each game, and if you want rapid fire or not.\u00a0 On the shooters in this collection that have that option, I recommend doing that.\u00a0 OK let\u2019s begin!<\/p>\n

Ben Bero Beh<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is one I\u2019ve never heard of although I think I\u2019ve seen videos of it on YouTube.\u00a0 It\u2019s like a reverse Donkey Kong.\u00a0 You are a guy dressed in a superhero outfit.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think you really are a superhero because in the game, the guy is fat and slow and his only power is to use a fire extinguisher.\u00a0 You can aim it up or down at an angle and jump.\u00a0 Your goal is to make it down four stories of a burning building to save your girlfriend.\u00a0 How she ends up in all these burning buildings is pretty suspicious to me.\u00a0 You have to avoid obstacles like fire, swinging lights, collapsing floors, and people running out of doors.\u00a0 One hit kills you.\u00a0 There are some Taito game cameos like one time I saw Chack\u2019n from Chack\u2019n Pop run out from a door.\u00a0 And I\u2019ve read the enemy spies from Elevator Action show up as well.\u00a0 Because of how slow your guy moves, I had a hard time getting into it.\u00a0 Has anyone else actually seen this one in arcades?\u00a0 Let me know if you have.<\/p>\n

The Legend of Kage<\/strong><\/p>\n

This one is pretty infamous, and most people probably remember the NES version.\u00a0 I think they were trying to imitate the action from martial arts movies with this one.\u00a0 You are a ninja who must save a princess by swinging your sword and throwing stars as you run and jump through four repeating stages.\u00a0 And you can jump super high.\u00a0 One hit kills you and most of the time I never saw what got me, so I\u2019ve never liked this one. Although it has a charm to it despite that.\u00a0 It got a spin off game on the NES called Demon Sword and a remake on the PSP Taito collection and an actual sequel on the DS much later.<\/p>\n

Kiki KaiKai<\/strong><\/p>\n

You are a Japanese priestess who throws cards and swings her wand to defeat mythical Japanese monsters in this 2D overhead shooter action game.\u00a0 Most people in the US know the sequels as Pocky and Rocky, and the series even got a new game last year<\/strong><\/a>!\u00a0 The first game is a bit plain in comparison, though.\u00a0 Did you know the last boss in the first game is player two in the sequels?<\/p>\n

The New Zealand Story<\/strong><\/p>\n

You are a cute Kiwi bird who must save his friends from a leopard seal in this 2D plaforming action game.\u00a0 You can run, jump, ride on vehicles to fly, and shoot arrows.\u00a0 One hit kills you, and the game is super hard despite its cutesy look.\u00a0 I love it when you get hit and you dance around while the projectile is still stuck on you!\u00a0 The music is catchy and the graphics are cute.\u00a0 US gamers might know this game on the NES as Kiwi Kraze.\u00a0 On one of the earlier Taito collections that had this on it, my brother Jeff was bound and determined to beat this game when he was younger.\u00a0 He got way farther than I ever had the patience to get, and even got an ending where you went to Heaven!\u00a0 He got a Game Over and couldn\u2019t continue, which made him mad, but we both laughed anyway because it was still funny!<\/p>\n

Darius II<\/strong><\/p>\n

I really like the Darius games.\u00a0 I only remember seeing the first one in arcades but it was pretty memorable because it was three screens long, like Ninja Warriors.\u00a0 The first stage music in the original Darius game is also one of my top favorite video game songs of all time.\u00a0 It\u2019s called \u201cCaptain NEO.\u201d\u00a0 The second game is pretty good, too, but super hard.<\/p>\n

Liquid Kids<\/strong><\/p>\n

I love how cartoony this game is, and how it combines aspects from Bubble Bobble and New Zealand Story.\u00a0 You are a hippo (I think) who can throw water bubbles that act like they do in Bubble Bobble when popped.\u00a0 You defeat mostly fire enemies as you hop through short 2D platforming levels to save your hippo girlfriend.\u00a0 I don\u2019t ever remember seeing this one in arcades but I sure do like it.<\/p>\n

Gun Frontier<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a pretty standard 2D vertically scrolling shooter.\u00a0 Only thing interesting about it is the premise.\u00a0 The story goes that in the future, people colonized a planet and their life there is like the old west.\u00a0 And you fight off space pirates trying to steal the gold found on the planet.\u00a0 But the game doesn\u2019t really do the Wild West theme well, except that your ship is a gun with wings.\u00a0 It plays a lot like Strikers 1945 but it\u2019s also one of those games where if you die, you start over at a checkpoint and I usually don\u2019t like that in shooters, so I wasn\u2019t impressed with this one.<\/p>\n

Metal Black<\/strong><\/p>\n

On the title screen it says \u201cProject Gun Frontier 2\u201d but it\u2019s really not a sequel.\u00a0 The story is different, and it\u2019s a horizontally scrolling shooter instead.\u00a0 When I first played this one on an earlier Taito collection, I was really impressed with it and still like it now!\u00a0 The story goes that in the future, Earth has been taken over by invaders and there is an alien molecule all over Earth.\u00a0 People made a spaceship that uses the molecule\u2019s power, but Earth signed a peace treaty surrender with the aliens so they never used it.\u00a0 Until one day a vigilante got a hold of it.\u00a0 You must collect the molecules to power up your ship, and you can fire a super powerful beam with it.\u00a0 It reminds me of the beam in G-Darius, and in fact, the same folks who worked on that also did this.\u00a0 Metal Black was even originally going to be a Darius game!\u00a0 I also like the music and stage premises to this one.\u00a0 In the first stage, you are on a desert on Earth but can see destroyed cities and submarines and battleships in the sand, kind of like the Star Blazers cartoon.\u00a0 You must also fight a giant crab that\u2019s using an aircraft carrier as a shell.\u00a0 In the second stage, you\u2019re following the moon in space, but it\u2019s not really the moon at all, but an egg that a boss alien hatches from!\u00a0 The ending is also super weird and I just really like this game for some reason.<\/p>\n

Solitary Fighter<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is a sequel to the infamous Violence Fight and is a one on one fighter except sometimes plays like a beat \u2018em up. It predates Street Fighter 2 so it\u2019s very basic and not very good.\u00a0 It\u2019s weird, though, and like in the first game it uses Batman-like word sound effects that make no sense like \u201cDogon!\u201d<\/p>\n

Dino Rex<\/strong><\/p>\n

I always thought I remembered seeing this in arcades, but I think I\u2019m just getting it mixed up with Primal Rage.\u00a0 It\u2019s a one on one fighter except you play as dinosaurs.\u00a0 The story goes that men fight with dinosaurs to compete for the hand of the amazon queen.\u00a0 The characters are super huge but choppy and grainy.\u00a0 It was made by the same team who did Gun Frontier and Metal Black, and was originally going to be a shooter until the popularity of Street Fighter 2 changed that.\u00a0 Unfortunately it\u2019s not very good.<\/p>\n

And those are all the games!\u00a0 My biggest problem with this collection is that it could\u2019ve used more games.\u00a0 I remember when Taito game collections would have over 30 games each on them!\u00a0 And this only has ten.\u00a0 And it would\u2019ve been nice to have some more familiar games, like Bubble Bobble or Space Invaders.\u00a0 But at least it has Metal Black.<\/p>\n

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

Taito Milestones 2 is rated T for Teen with ESRB descriptors of Fantasy Violence, Partial Nudity, and Mild Blood.\u00a0 There\u2019s exploding spaceships and fights, and sometimes you can see pixelated splats of blood in the dinosaur game.\u00a0 Also the cavewomen in the dinosaur game wear skimpy outfits.\u00a0 But I grew up playing arcade games like these 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 second collection of classic Taito games on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":23780,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23781","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\/23781","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=23781"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23828,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23781\/revisions\/23828"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}