I really enjoyed the grab bag that was Taito Milestones 2. It featured some predictable hits but then flanked them with some hilariously dreadful games, or, as I put it in that review, “bad in an almost impressive way.” So, I’ve been looking forward to Taito Milestones 3 for another injection of titles.
This collection is dominated by a coalition of the Bubble Bobble and Rastan series. But, like before, there is also a smattering of more obscure titles. However, this time around, I wouldn’t say any of them are “impressively bad.” But rather than just t𝓰alk about them vaguely in the preamble, I’m go♏ing to take the approach I’ve started doing with arcade collections, and I’m just going to do a short review of every game in the collection. There are 10, so brace yourself.
Taito Milestones 3 ()
Developer: Hamster
Publisher: Inin Games
Released: December 10, 2024
MSRP: $39.99
Bubble Bobble
Bubble Bobble is the best game that lets you play as a bubble-blowing dragon that can turn people into corndogs. It’s the most known quantity in this Taito roundup, one of their longest-lived properties. I have a certain affinity for the game, having owned the Game Boy version (where the hell did it go?) and encountered it in arcades a few times, once at the hockey ☂arena in Bobcaygeon of Tragically Hip fame. Another time was at the Toronto Union Station, where it beckﷺoned me from across the arcade with its chirpy music.
The only problem with Bubble Bobble being on Taito Milestones 3 is that it’s one of those games where you might already own multiple versions of it. Few Taito-related collections drop without its inclusion. That’s not an issue for anyone who doesn’t own it already. If you’ve somehow avoided it, you should totally have it in some form. If you already own it, it’s a bummer that it’s taking up room here. If you’ve never played it, wow, guy, get on that.
It’s great with two players (in fact, if you want the best ending, you have to beat it with another person). However, if you’re used to the console versions, you might find the lack of continues to be a bit jarring. There’s actually a secret to avoid starting over. To continue, you need to cram more credits into the machine, then hold the start button a❀s you’re losing your last life.
Rainbow Islands
Rainbow Islands is technically the sequel to Bubble Bobble, but they’re rather dissimilar. Following the events of the first game, Bub and Bob have been transformed from radical corndog-conjuring dragons into diminutive Fatty Arbuckles who piss rainbows. And rather than 💦try and process every monster on the map into food, the rotund twins have to climb to the top of a series of platformꦓs.
You can use your rainbows to walk across, and stacking them up is the key to climbing. However, if you jump on them, they shatter, but this can take out enemies below you. Directly hitting enemies with rainbows will also just remove enemies; they’re deadly. Throwing rainbows at certain spots w💟ill spawn food. I haven’t seen a corndog appear, which is unfortunate.
It’s a pretty solid game, except for the bosses. The bosses just suck, barely putting up a fight and following patterns that are typically easy to exploit. The two-player mode is also alternating instead of Bubble Bobble’s simultaneous cooperative, which is extremely lame but not the collection’s fault.
Rastan Saga
Rastan does not feel like a real game. I’ve described a couple of games like this previously, but pretty much every cartoon in existence had an episode where the protagonists get sucked into a video game, and it’s always way off when it comes to video game logic. Like, it’s obvious that the writers and animators know nothing about video games aside from vague concepts. That’s Rastan, except it’s a real game.
Which isn’t to say it’s bad. It’s just the fact that the protagonist is a generic, muscled, Conan-like barbarian who walks w🥀ith a stiff upper body and swats at enemies with various classic weapons. The music is good, but it’s crunchy and meanders about.
But for something that is so generic it’s almost surreal, Rastan is a pretty fun gam꧋e. Its usage of pester enemies, especially during platforming and climbing sections, can get pretty vexing, but it has good 𝄹flow and pacing. The bosses are surprisingly entertaining, as well. It’s not the best game, but in terms of the shirtless barbarian genre, I can dig it.
Rastan Saga 2
I think Taito Milestones 3 heard me making fun of Rastan Saga’s appearance, so it came at me hard with Rastan Saga 2. By that, I mean that Rastan Saga 2 is magnitudes worse than the first game. I’m not sure what happened. They made the sprites bigger, which was how 2D arcade games tried to flex back in the day, but they’re all low-detail and dopey looking, and there are only a few frames of animation to most actions. The bosses are all ridiculous slapfights, and the hit 𒀰detection is just cruel.
But the level design is horrendous. Unlike the various scrolling methods of the first game, these are all flat and cut out of big blocks. What really ground my 🤡goat was some of the jumps they expect you to make. There are places with a ceiling directly above your head, and you’🌠re expected to jump up and over a pit. This means that, to not hit your head and stop all upward motion, you need to scooch out until you’re hanging on the ledge by a pixel, then jump up and over.
After making one such jump on the second level, I realized I had to play through to the end of the game in that sitting because I wasn’t will🌱ing to suffe♍r it a second time. Unfortunately, that’s not the only instance of those shenanigans getting pulled in this game.
Champion Wrestler
I left Rastan Saga 2 in a frustrated daze, so if I’m a little too positive on Champion Wrestler, that’s why. It’s great! Well, kind of. It’s a pretty typical setup of shortening your opponent’s health bar before going in for t🍎he pin. What I like best about it is that it’s really mashy. When you get pinned, you mash the two buttons to try and get free, and when you pin, it’s the same thing. I think that’s what makes a good arcade wrestler: enthusiastic mashing.
It also has Rastan as one of the characters, so I got to beat him up a whole bunch. It turns out I’m actually really good at Champion Wrestler (at least on its default settings). After getting a feel for the contr💝ols, I didn’t lose again until after winning the title. 🦩Maybe it’s just easy, but if that’s the case, don’t tell me. Let me have this.
Each round is capped off by a detailed portrait of the winner and loser. The winner always gets to do things like drive around in a sportscar with a bikini-clad woman and rub themselves with money, while the loser often finds themselves picking thr𓂃ough the trash. It’s, uh, sometimes kind of depressing.
Cadash
This is another one that I had prior experience with because Cadash is rad. Well, okay, Cadash is kind of basic and clunky, but it ties in RPG systems like stat building. In a way, it feels more like Dungeons and Dragons than the actual Dungeons and Dragons game that Capcom put out. That’s partially because the levels have some 🌠degree of exploration to them and there are NPCs to talk to. It satisfies arcade operators by keeping you on a timer you can replenish using items and spells.
The original version supported four players, but only by linking two cabinetওs. Pulling off in this version would have been impressive, but the extra mile wasn’t taken here. However, the two-player mode can still be fun if both players understand that there may be a bit of grinding required to stay ahead of the game.
I like Cadash. It has that classic tabletop RPG feel. It’s extraordinarily clunky and has a habit of screwing you over, but its inclusion of stat progression makes it a welcome change from straightforward action games. The timer system, as much as it’s there to make you empty your pockets, is lenient enough to not feel rushed. It’s not the most intricate game, but it has it where it counts.
Thunder Fox
It’s easy to get some real Rush’n Attack/Green Beret vibes from Thunder Fox. It’s a run-and-stab shooter, mostly, but there are a lot of little side vignettes where you fly dopey-looking vehicles or ride them across the water. It’s, uh, not qu🃏ite as good as, like, any number of games I co🃏uld compare it to, but it’s also not awful.
It’s so unremarkable I’m having trouble thinking of anything else to say about it. Yeah, I guess we’ll leave it at that. It’s a pretty generic cross between Contra and Rush’n Attack.
Runark (Growl)
Weirdly, the title screen presents this game as Runark (the Japanese title), but when you launch it, it’s Growl (the international title). I guess it doesn’t matter since I don’t think there are any major differences beyond the title, but it s𝄹truck me as a bit awkward.
In any case, Growl is a wild game. It’s a beat-’em-up where you play as a ranger trying to violently stop poachers. Up to four players can rip their shirts and join in, and it is chaos. Growl throws heaps of bad guys your way, and the rangers aren’t afraid to pick up guns to use them in the service of protecting animals. Just hordes of dudes and these women who are dressed like they’re using th♊eir bare legs to climb the corporate ladder.
Absolutely hilarious. You walk through a series of same-y backgrounds, freeing wild animals who will then assis﷽t you. Enemy limbs can be liberated from their bodies with a well-placed explosion. There are some incredibly funny digitized voice samples. It’s really not the best beat-’em-up, but it🥂 makes up for a lot of its deficiencies with its ludicrous premise.
Warrior Blade: Rastan Sage Episode 3
Taito really went all-out for the third game in the Rastan series. It was originally available as a double-monitor arcade cabinet, like Taito’s own Darius 2. The characters are huge, which, as I’ve already said, is the🍌 way arcade developers like to flex their graphical horsepower. And the sound and music were clea💧rly mixed around the idea that you’d be sitting on a subwoofer.
Surprisingly (especially after playing the l𒈔ast game), it’s also quite decent. Rather than being an action platformer, it’s a straight belt-scrolling brawler. There are three characters to choose from, and you get to pick from four levels to decide your route through the game🎃. The combat itself isn’t varied, so instead, you’re put through a lot of different set-piece levels where you ride on a dragon or fight while sliding down a hill. The hit detection is a lot more fair, and the bosses are huge.
Even more surprisingly, it isn’t all that difficult. That might be because the cabinets it would come in would often charge more than a dollar to play, but that didn’t stop Darius from being tough. Warrior Blade might not be the best beat-’em-up I’ve ever experienced, but it’s enjoyable in its own right and a welcome apology for Rastan Saga 2.
Dead Connection
Here’s an interesting one. Its inclusion is a special treat since, if I’m not mistaken, this is the first time that it’s been port𒉰ed or re-released. It’s also a somewhat unique game, as it’s a single-screen shoot-’em-up where you run around movie set-like dioramas gunning down thugs. Apparently some FBI agents have had enough of crime and have decided to just take down Mar𝓀lon Brando’s lackeys using whatever force necessary.
If I saw Dead Connection in an arcade or laundromat (and I never did), 💯I’d definitely slot a quarter. There’s something captivating about the way it’s zoomed way back from the action. Your bullets tear through the scenery as enemies pop up behind cover. You’re free to roam as necessary to flank your foes or just explore.
The main downside is that aiming sucks. It’s eight-direction, and you need to rely on its auto-targeting since there’s no nuance between those directions. It’s also hard to tell when your shots are going to collide with obstacles, and sometimes, it feels like your bullets are lodging themselves into thin air. Enemies don’t have that issue, so you just hav🎐e to keep diving to avoid incoming shots while trying your best to find good vectors. It can be a bit frustrating, but it’s something you get used to with repeated playthroughs.
I almost forgot to mention, the version here is the Japanese release. I don’t know why, but it means the text isn’t in English. This doesn’t matter when you’re in-game, but it does mean that the cutscenes are still in Japan🌳ese. That’s lame. It’s possible they’ll patch it on launch day, but I’m not certain.
The Collection
As it was last time, Taito Milestones 3 is actually just a collection of games in Hamster’s Arcade Archives series, some of which aren’t yet available individually. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. I don’t have much to complain about with Arcade Archives. Except maybe the price, and Taito Milestones 3 relieves that a bit by allowing y🧸ou to buy in bulk.
But what I’m trying to stress is that the collection is a launcher for individual games with the Arcade Archives wrapper. It’s a bit awkward, especially since the emulator itself has gone through a few iterations, and that’s reflected here. They’re consistent enough, but some of them have a softening filter by default that you need to turn off if you want crisp pixels. Unlike an individual Arcade Archives release, you don’t get all the regional versions. This is the strangest when it comes to Growl, which is called Runark on the title screen, and Dead Connection, which, for some 🦹reason, uses t♈he Japanese version. Weird stuff.
Despite that, I’m happy with this iteration of Taito Milestones. It’s nowhere near Capcom Arcade Stadium in terms of features and content, nor is it as robust as past collections like Taito Memories. But I’ve played enough sub-par collections recentl🅷y that I’ve come to appreciate this level of care.
Published: Nov 28, 2024 12:00 pm