Taito Milestones – Trial Arcade Action

1981 to 1987

Taito is really old. As the Taito Trading Corporation, the company was a vodka producer in the 1950s, later they refurbished used US jukeboxes and gained a foothold in the arcade industry with pinball machines and other electronic-mechanical gaming devices in the 1960s. The first Taito video games appeared in arcades as early as 1973 – primarily pong-style sports games – and by 1978 at the latest, the Tokyo company’s name was on everyone’s lips. Because this year Space Invaders was released. By the way, since 2005 Taito, which not only develops games itself, but also operates many arcade branches in Japan, belongs to Square Enix. But let’s stay with Space Invaders, arguably Taito’s biggest hit, which also made its way into pop culture with its iconic characters.

So wouldn’t you think that Space Invaders should be part of a collection called Taito Milestones? Well, you can wish for a lot, but the title is missing. Just like Bubble Bobble. Or Arkanoid. Or Darius. Those great moments when Taito rose from the gray area and stepped into the light of video game history, where Nintendo, Capcom, Atari, Sega or Konami often bask in the sun. All of these, even milestones, are missing from the Milestones collection. A conceivably bad start, almost a miss of the topic. But what about the existing titles? What ten Taito legends made it onto the Switch Module?

They are: Qix (1981), Space Seeker (1981), Alpine Ski (1982), Front Line (1982), Wild Western (1982), Chack’n Pop (1983), Elevator Action (1983), The FairyLand Story ( 1985), Haley’s Comet (1986) and The Ninja Warriors (1987). And honestly, with a lot of goodwill, there are two things that are known to a wider audience, namely Elevator Action and The Ninja Warriors. You may have seen Qix before, possibly as a grubby little sex game, because they copied Qix’s puzzle principle many times over. But the rest? There are undoubtedly titles that are interesting in terms of game history, but I have to put on two rose-colored retro glasses on top of each other to discover the big milestones that I still enjoy playing today.

Is that still fun?

And that brings us to an even more crucial point: How much are these ol’ bunnies still bucking today? Consider: These are titles from the 1981 to 1987 era, titles from that time look pretty rough, brittle or even ugly today. Don’t Qix, that has style. And the Ninja Warriors are also an exception, they are eye-catchers simply because of their super-wide format. But the witch bouncer The FairyLand Story, the elevator shooting Elevator Action or the war shooter Front Line. Phew, these aren’t 16-bit treats that make you think: 2D graphics ages so much better than polygons! And the playful content or the smoothness of the controls weren’t that polished back then either: the horse-gun action Wild Western never feels really round, despite a nice idea (in the middle of the picture there’s a train that acts as cover). In alpine skiing, at high speed, you often rattle into trees or other obstacles. And the hearty Chack’n Pop, as a one-screen puzzler a precursor to Bubble-Bobble, didn’t motivate me for more than ten minutes.

On the other hand, I still find Qix appealing, thanks to its minimalist look and the distinctive sound, I even feel very slight Rez bonds. The vertical shooter Haley’s Comet also has a couple of nice playful ideas and The Ninja Warriors is always good for a round of sidescrolling, despite the monotonous level design. But none of the titles can tie me to my switch for really long in 2022. I had a similar feeling with the SNK 40th Anniversary Collection, but other than that, I found all of the retro collections from the last few years more appealing, whether they served me Neo Geo Pocket titles, Capcom’s arcade hits, or Psikyo’s shooters.

Tech & Bonuses

So the technology and the trappings have to fix it, they could still lift the Taito Milestones into a satisfactory to good rating region. Even in the start screen, connoisseurs will notice a small logo: “Powered by Arcade Archives”. This is a download-only series that’s been around for years on Switch, PlayStation and Xbox: an old game each, superbly emulated by the Japanese company Hamster and offered for a reasonable price (6.99 euros).

Unfortunately, in the case of the Taito Milestones, this means that just such hamster titles were bundled there. And almost all ten games are already available individually in the Switch Store. The collection presented here serves me a disdainful main menu, from which I jump into the emulations. They even have the same menu that you know from the Arcade Archives. I should know, I’ve bought quite a few of them. That would be okay in principle: Because the (graphic) options are right, because it purrs technically and a small guide simply explains the respective title. But that’s not the format for a retro collection! Here I want a bit of sugar for the old gambler soul: A nice menu with virtual machines, a gallery with artwork or arcade flyers, something to unlock, some information about the history of the Taito classics.

Of course, it would be even better: rewind function, different portings of the games and superplays, where I can start at a certain point. Hardly any collection has managed all this perfectly, but apart from the Taito Milestones, none has so consistently disregarded what fans wish for.