Friday, March 18, 2011

The Great Gaymathon Review #14: Taito Legends (PlayStation 2)


Game: Taito Legends
Genre: Arcade
Developer: Taito
Publisher: Sega
System: PlayStation 2
Release date: 2005

Taito Legends may contain 29 of Taito Corporation's arcade classics, but let's be clear about one thing right off the bat: Only a handful of them will matter (or be recognizable) to most folks. Those few titles are more than worth the package's price of admission, though, so don't take that to be too much of a negative. For me, the main attractions here are Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands, with Elevator Action, New Zealand Story and Space Invaders following closely behind. (Honestly, if this compilation included Don Doko Don and Liquid Kids/Mizubaku Diabouken, I'd have little need for Taito Legends 2.) Each of those games, along with their 24 counterparts, seem to be emulated perfectly--hey, it's been a long time since I've played any of them in an actual arcade--although I guess that's to be expected. What isn't so expected: The inability to configure the controls for each of the included titles. It isn't exactly a monumental worry, but it may be a big enough one to put off some players.


6 comments:

Marcus said...

Ah, I recently played this one too! Compilation games are always good fun :).

Now I'm curious how many or how little of our games will intersect as we both do our blog gaming challenges.

Bryan Ochalla said...

Hey there, Marcus! Yeah, I like this compilations, too. Sure, some of the games on them absolutely suck, but some are great, so in the end the whole thing is well worth the cost.

As for how much our game reviews will intersect, well, I can tell you for sure that you have many more PS2 games than I have! I have just 20 or so at this point :)

Viewtiful_Justin said...

I still look for these whenever I'm at GameStop. No dice quite yet.

Bryan Ochalla said...

Other gamers must be holding onto them for dear life :) Hopefully one of them will give them up soon. I think you'd love them, since I know you're a retro-game fan.

Marcus said...

Viewtiful_Justin: I found both Taito Legends games at GameStop stores, so don't lose hope! However, for the first game I found it in their horrible section of gutted PS2 games (so, just the disc and a flimsy paper case).

I bet those 20 PS2 games you do have are all pretty golden though! For me, I decided to start off with the biggest section of games and that is PS2. For some wild reason one day I decided to collect all US released PS2 games and so maybe I'm 1/4th of the way there lol. There are SO MANY games!

Bryan Ochalla said...

Hey there, Marcus! Yeah, I would imagine most of the 20 or so PS2 games I have are good ones, although I can't say that for sure as I haven't actually played all of them! That's what the 'Great Gaymathon' is for, of course :)

So, you're actually trying to collect all of the released, US PS2 games? I can't imagine... I can't imagine collecting all of the games of any system, though, so there you go. Anyway, I look forward to seeing more of and reading more about your collection!