Taito are one of the big names associated with 80s arcades, making plenty of classic games that were played around the world and ported to home consoles.
This collection takes a handful of titles from different eras to show off some of the changes that occurred over the early years of their arcade business. It forms a sort of history lesson of gaming.
The earliest games are crude by today’s standards with very basic graphics and sound but remain playable. They do, though, help to show just how things have changed over the years from the early 80s. It does raise the question of just who this set is for, though. They are most certainly interesting games historically, but I wouldn’t call them Taito’s best.
While many of the company’s games have appeared in remastered form or different collections in the past, it would have been nice to have a more packed set that showed their diverse range of titles, highlighting games such as Renegade, Arkanoid, Operation Wolf, Tiger Heli etc. New Zealand Story and Rainbow Islands are well worth mentioning as two of the standout games of the last 80s, too, but I’m guessing those franchises are possibly up for remaster or Arcade Archives release themselves.
So what we’re left with here is a few classics and some other titles that haven’t really aged that well. Presentation is good, if a little simplistic, but the biggest issue is that the games aren’t really eye catching enough to warrant buying a whole collection for, particularly when the Arcade Archives label has many of these 10 games available on the eShop separately and some of Taito’s best games have their own collections.
I don’t want to end this review on a negative as it’s always good to see a set of retro titles being given a new lease of life and, potentially, a new audience, but some extra thoughts could have been given to the history, presentation and extra content (of which there is absolutely none). As it stands, the Taito Milestone Collection is average and mostly superflous, especially if Qix ever comes to the Archives collection.
Taito Milestones Collection
Pros
- A solid set of classic games
- Access to some of the early arcade years
- Easy to use menu and good emulation
Cons
- Early games are very basic
- Most of these titles are available in the Arcade Archives range
- These are not exactly Taito's best games
