Taito may be little more than a sub-brand owned by Square Enix these days, but once upon a time, this prolific Japanese company was one of the most active and influential in arcade gaming.
Everybody knows Space Invaders, of course, the 1978 hit that not only birthed the shmup genre but also boosted the popularity of coin-op gaming worldwide. However, Taito's history is peppered with smash hits, including Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Islands, Rastan, Elevator Action, Arkanoid, Operation Wolf and many, many more.
Evercade maker Blaze is paying tribute to this legacy with not one but two new cartridges. The topic of this review is the first collection, Taito Arcade 1, which includes Bubble Bobble, Chack'n Pop, Colony 7, Don Doko Don, Growl, Pirate Pete, Raimais, Space Invaders and The Legend of Kage.
The highlights here, at least for me personally, are Bubble Bobble, Don Doko Don, Growl, Space Invaders and The Legend of Kage. Those five games make this cartridge a solid purchase.
Bubble Bobble is the iconic single-screen action platformer which inspired a flood of clones (one of which is Don Doko Don, in fact). Growl is a belt-scrolling brawler with an amusing eco-friendly premise and wonderful music, while Space Invaders needs no introduction. Finally, The Legend of Kage is a neat side-scrolling action-adventure full of ninjas.
The other titles are perhaps less well-known, but are still interesting. 1984's Chack'n Pop is considered to be a spiritual ancestor to Bubble Bobble, and also adopts a single-screen approach. 1982's Pirate Pete, on the other hand, was originally released as Jungle Hunt (and contained some racial stereotypes which were troubling even in the '80s, never mind today). It's entertaining enough, and perhaps more notable from a historic perspective as being one of the first games to feature parallax scrolling.
The 1981 shooter Colony 7 is even more primitive, playing like a variation on Atari's Missile Command, while Raimais, released in 1988, plays a bit like Pac-Man, although in Taito's game, you can collect power-ups that increase your speed or even give you weapons to fight back. It's more fun than it looks, and has some nice music.
All in all, Taito Arcade 1 is a great collection of solid-gold coin-op hits mixed with some less-famous forgotten gems. The only problem staunch Evercade supporters will have with this package is that several of the games were included on the Taito edition of the Super Pocket handheld and the Evercade Alpha bartop arcade, so you'll be double-dipping here if you already own one of those (the Taito Super Pocket has Space Invaders, Bubble Bobble, Chack'n Pop, Don Doko Don, Growl and The Legend of Kage, while the Evercade Alpha Taito edition has Bubble Bobble, Growl, The Legend of Kage and Space Invaders).
Comments 15
Another great cart from Blaze. I'm really looking forward to getting into Don Doko Don as I haven't experienced it before.
@RossoftheRobots It's a great game - I have many fond memories of playing it on the PC Engine back in the day!
@Damo Leaving out The Fairyland Story which predated Bubble Bobble.
Also, the real reason Jungle Hunt got changed wasn't the racial stereotypes (that yes, were far culturally accepted in the '80s) but that they used the Tarzen yell without permission for which Taito was sued and they lost so they had to change it.
Also, I watch the LordBBH channel who absolutely praises the Japanese version of Raimais. I forgot the extent to which he said regional changes affected it but I just know it was significant. Enough that some of its content (including the best ending which apparently was bugged even in the original release and only the ACA fixed it) became inaccessible in the process. Sadly, I'm guessing this collection will only include the Overseas version.
I kind of regret picking up the Taito Super Pocket and should have known something like these collections would come to the Evercade. The Super Pocket is neat, but the screen is a bit too small for some of these arcade titles.
It's a shame that they left Jungle Hunt out as I grew up with the game. If they can change the music in Rainbow Islands they could change the Tarzan yell.
I'm probably more a fan of their unusual choices like Codemasters, Gremlin and the Bitmap Brothers. While I certainly like a few of these games, I've got them on Arcade Achives on Switch.
Would love to see a 3rd cart with Mr Do on it. It was on the Egret II expansion pack (whatever they called that). I agree the Super Pocket screen is WAY too tiny.
Is Return of the Invaders not owned by Taito or something? I wouldn't necessarily expect it here, but it is conspicuous by its absence in the multitude of SI collections that have been released.
Where in the heck is Qix? It's not on any of these Evercade Taito collections. Volfied just isn't the same...
On space invaders: wasn't the original black and white with stickers providing the coloring? what version are looking at..
Got both versions and now having bubble bobble on my (sf2) alpha feels really nice, natural fit... and some of the others on my discount exp i bought now the model is announced
@Boopero I thought that too, the otjer taito colection does contain the yoyo game which feels a bit qixi
I'm not going to buy it because that would diminish the "value" of my Egret II Mini in terms of comparisons with the Alpha, but I'm happy that Taito has come to the Evercade family.
Anyway, it's a bit strange that they release these 2 carts yet the upcoming Taito bartop's built-in games are all in them, except from Puzzle Bobble. That is a strange move by Blaze definitely. I know the greatness of the Alphas are the cartridge slots, but built-in games make us decide for one model or another, don't they? If you want Taito cartridges AND the new bartop, it will be as if you bought the console with no games inside.
As a huge Taito fan I have to say these evercade game choices are a bit of a letdown for me. Even the alpha bartop.
No shmups? Really?
RayForce, Darius Gaiden, Gekirindan, Metal Black, Gun Frontier... anything really from their shmup output would perfect (especially for a device with built in TATE mode!)
Can't wait to see this go out of print in a few years. 🙄
When are Taito going to include Chase HQ to one of these collections?!?!?!
No show on everything for the past 20 years, even the Egret Mini.
@Guru_Larry Chase HQ would work especially well as I remember there being a dip switch setting for digital controls in MAME. So the game would be perfectly playable with a digital dpad.
It could be down to licensing when you consider all the unofficial sports cars in the game.
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