Taito Legends II
My earliest memory of a computer game – or what I thought it was supposed to be – was Lotus 1-2-3. After the colorful startup screen I was of course heavily disappointed. Not long after I found out someone in my street owned a NES and as of that moment he received a lot more company than before. Around that same time I got hooked on Operation Wolf, a side-scrolling shooter and little later Red Alert got released which has disastrous consequences for my results at school
Thinking back to those good old days that consisted out of sprites and 640*480 resolutions is fun, but publishers are taking a huge gamble if that decide to rerelease some of those “golden oldies”. All nostalgia surrounding these titles after all disappears and the games are literally naked, waiting for you to judge them fair but square. Will you leave these games in their dignite for old times’ sake, or are you going to judge them to modern standards?
That’s a bit the problem I had with this Taito Legends 2. That re-releasing old classics is fun – and economically a good move – is for sure, otherwise there wouldn’t be a Taito Legends 2, but the “youngsters amongst us” don’t have nostalgic feelings to Space Invaders DS and the Fairyland Story (WTF?).
Gamers that have spent hours with Alpine Ski, Kuri Kinton, Arabian Magic, Legend of Kage, Bonze Adventure, Liquid Kids, Cameltry, Lunar Rescue, Chack’n Pop, Majestic 12, Cleopatra Fortune, Metal Black, Crazy Balloon, Puchi Carat, Darius Gaiden, Puzzle Bobble 2, Don Doko Don, Qix, Dungeon Magic, Raimais, Elevator Action Returns, Rastan 2, The Fairyland Story, Space Invaders 95, Football Champ, Space Invaders DX, Front Line, Violence Fight, Gekirindan, Wild Western, Grid Seeker: Project Storm Hammer, Insector X, Growl, KiKi KaiKai, Gun Frontier and love to bring up childhood memories certainly have to get this DVD. In less than no time you’ll think you’re back in the previous millennium, in an arcade hall wearing a Ninja Turtles T-shirt while hearing “bliep bliep” in stereo.
Next to this selection of games, the PS2 version of Taito Legends 2 also has 4 exclusive titles available: Balloon Bomber, Ray Storm, G Darius, Syvalion.
On the graphics and sound I can be short: It’s just how you remember them, just a bit worse. Nostalgia, you know?
Except for the fact that a justified claim on the honorary title “Legend” for some of this games is very doubtful, you can’t ignore that there was quite a lot of originality in these old titles. This collection offers a nice passing of time as well as nostalgia, but don’t forget that sometimes memories are often more fun than reliving “the real thing”.
Only for the die-hard fans or collectors who can’t afford arcade machines
6.0