Taito Milestones 3 Coming Winter 2024, First Batch Of Games Revealed

Well I’ve always wanted to try the sequel to Bubble Bobble. Might have to pick this up.

Well... I'm mad I already have Rainbow Islands. Almost got Rastan, glad I waited. I may go ahead and double dip for what I see on offer. I feel like it's better than the previous collections, at least to me.

Will there be anything exclusive to the collection that isn't already available through Arcade Archives?

Unfortunately, Atari 50 has ruined most of these game collections for me lol. This will be, what, $40? Not worth it until it drops below 10

Finally! These are the Taito “milestones” I’ve been waiting for!

I loved playing Rastan in the arcades when I was a kid. Put a fair few coins into it from my pocket money. The 80's were indeed an awesome era.

Wow. The stingiest collection yet. Taito are convinced that two Bubble Bobble games will be enough to move units... and sadly, they’d be right.

@NeonPizza : Considering that these collections are simply repackaged compilations of the Arcade Archives versions, probably not.

I wish other publishers would follow suit with their own collections though.

Even Nintendo has enough games to justify a physical release.

"Bubby and Bobby?" 😐

The issue with the Taito Milestones compilations is that the games removed the language selection option from the standalone releases, and defaults to the Japanese version. It's less of a problem with shmups, but more of an issue for text heavy games like Cadash.

My Taito Super Pocket scratches all my Taito-flavored itches for now

Watched the stream where this was announced for a little bit yesterday since Sakurai made a guest appearance. I'm a big fan of Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands but I already have Bubble Bobble in many formats and I can just buy Rainbow Islands separately. Though it served as a good reminder that the latter got a re-release earlier this year.

Nice set of games! SOLD!

I already had Champion Wrestler. Oh well, not too much trouble for me.

Just deleted from my wishlist:

• Rainbow Islands
• Rastan Saga
• Cadash
• Growl

Too late... ever since they released the first game pretty much everyone has asked "where's Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands?". I'm already playing the very good Amiga 500 versions of the games.

Why on earth did Taito wait until 2024 to release this? It would have done so much better 3 or 4 years ago.

Not to mention that Rainbow Islands arcade archives released just a few months ago. Taito completely missed the boat.

Now it begs the question... Will the sales of the 3 Taito collections be anywhere near as high as if they just released all of it on one game? 🤔

If that's their official press release copy you are using... did Taito really just get the names wrong? It's Bub and Bob. Bubby and Bobby may be from later entries - I've no idea...!

Of the 7 listed, only Thunder Fox is yet to be released through Arcade Archives.

"Over 7 classic Taito games"
So 8? Always baffles me when companies do this

@MontyCircus Runark is in Arcade Archives, under its overseas name Growl.

Good collection but I’m personally over software emulation now that I have an fpga set up. I’m glad more people can play these though.

@PKDuckman

Thanks for clarifying!

@MontyCircus I'd personally keep Cadash and Rainbow Islands around, depending on whether the compilation includes the English versions.

Cadash has some rudimentary quest system that is quite annoying to complete in the Japanese version if you don't know the language.

The standalone version of Rainbow Islands also includes the updated Rainbow Islands Extra.

Get the Arcade Archives versions instead.

They realized after Taito Legends that they packed in too many classic games, too much variety and the value was too great. These days, a single arcade port (according to Inin) to switch is worth $30.00..

@Mz3player Came here to make that exact comment!

Will somebody, please for the love of God put me out of my misery and finally bring Knuckle Joe home!!!

Rainbow Islands was always a favourite

Stick all of the games in a single game with QOL features for £40 and be done with it. These collections are garbage. Other than dedicated collectors, who is buying this? Official releases should be better than whats available via piracy, not significantly worse.

Isn't it supposed to be Bub and Bob? Did they misspell the names of their own characters?

Taito has an especially close relationship with Hamster and have thrown their full support behind the Arcade Archive series. I love that! But as an owner of Taito’s Egret II Mini hardware, sometimes I have mixed feelings!

As usual with these Taito Legends releases, there’s just 1-2 games that aren’t already on the Egret II - this time it’s Thunder Fox. The Egret will stay as my Taito machine of choice, especially considering how much it cost! Switch Ake-Aka releases will fill in the gaps, or get me to double-dip on my favorite Taito games (like Rastan), and I’ll continue to stay away from these Taito Legends physical releases unless there’s a deal I can’t refuse.

But please, PLEASE, someone please bring back Taito’s Zoo Keeper! I recently preordered a Quarter Arcade replica mini-cabinet just so I could play it again. I would love to play this classic on my Switch or Egret, though!

@Mz3player this one actually makes sense though, because 7 were announced "with more games to be revealed later this summer" so we don't really know how many will be in this collection, but its definitely more than 7

All of these should have just been one collection. Compilations use to be a way better value, like the Capcom ones for PS2, Mega Man X Collection, etc.

Lots of good Taito games, but the ones that I want most are the two original Lufia games. Certain I'll never see them in these collections, but a man can dream.

IIRC Bubby and Bobby were the names given to the human versions in Rainbow Islands, I guess someone wanted to keep consistency between the two game descriptions.

I'm assuming this is going to have the same non-original music as the Arcade Archives release of Rainbow Islands, so "it's a no from me".

Rastan and Cadash are two of my very favorite Taito titles from the era

@seankwondo Okay FINE, I guess that makes sense. That wording just feels like they're only announcing like three more tops

Just gotta say, paying (again) for games I bought previously, and have been emulating for years, just seems to be encouraging publishers to keep pushing out old crap for $$$$$$ rather than developing new and fresh gameplay.

I so badly want to pay money for one of these collections with Bubbly Symphony and or Bubble Memories 😥

@Lone_Beagle Have you been under a rock recently, with lay offs, closures etc? This is the sort of thing that makes gaming sustainable for companies. You can't have 'new' or 'AAA' all the time lol. And if you can't see why not, then you need to become a developer!

You need to call out the Taito Milestones collections for what the are cut down versions of the arcade archives. with most of the settings removed.

@Fallingshadow What do you mean?

Where art thou my sweet Chase Hq? Xxx

Rainbow Islands.... I have such fond memories of watching my brother and Dad playing this game. Alongside Flimbo's Quest and Creatures 2 this is one of the reasons I got into games.

@MontyCircus
Excellentay!
It's just a matter of time though before Thunder Fox to get smacked with a stand alone Arcade Archives release months after MileStones 3 drops.

I've already got Bubble Bobble (AA), Yet this still may be worth getting if the sticker price is creeping well below compared to what you'd pay for each stand alone ArcadeArchives title that happen to be in this very collection.

Then again, this collection is quite the ways off. My sliver of excitement just transformed into a wet carrot. lol

Cool.

I would LOVE a Flintstones/Jetsons collection covering NES/GB/SNES

but more than anything a collection of both Power Blades, Little Samson and Panic Restaurant

@Mr_Wolf12000 I've always wondered if part of the reason that Little Samson and Panic Restaurant were never re-released is that the companies who developed them held the respective IPs, and with both of those companies now gone, the rights to those games are just kind of lost in limbo. That's just my speculation.

...That, or Taito just refuses to re-release them out of spite at this point

@BHPM i had not considered that; hopefully its not spite, those are excellent games and why would any company see the price paid online for 30 year old carts and not want some of that cheese.

But then again The Disney Afternoon Collection is STILL not on the Switch, so Im not holding my breath regardless of the reason, but it sure would be nice

In the meantime we have alternate means to play such things

@MirrorFate2 if you buy an arcade archive title on it's own you get to pick the version of the rom you want to use eg Europe, Japan, USA. You can also play a hi-score mode and a caravan mode all of this is removed from the Taito milestone releases.

So for instance when they release 3 I bet you will only get the standard rainbow islands and won't be able choose between the standard and extra version of the game.

Definitely picking this up just for Rastan Saga. It was one of my go to arcade games (along with Robocop and Strider) that I could complete on a single credit. Of course it took many credits previously to get to that point of memorization and I'd probably struggle to get past the first level now, but the nostalgia is strong.

While many could argue that the amount of games per for each of Taito’s 3 collections is very limited AT LEAST they’re putting them out physically unlike Sega for instance and Warner Bros who’s not doing a damn thing with the wealth of Midway and Atari Games arcade classics they own!! 😡

Where are the sprite scalers, racing games, chase hq's, etc. They've got lots of excellent arcade racers and they never ever get released. t

@joey302 Sure, but nearly all of, if not all are already available of arcade archives. TAITO have such a rich catalogue and it's always the usual suspects that get released.

@nocdaes Bubby and Bobby are Bub and Bob's names, respectively, in human form. Those forms do appear at the end of the original Bubble Bobble, as well as Rainbow Islands of course.

@YANDMAN Last releases of those were, I think, on the two volumes of Taito Memories II that were released on PS2 in Japan. So, a couple of decades ago now.

@Diablo ahh OK! Thanks for that!

Will definitely purchase this set on release day for Rastan Saga and Thunder Fox. Now I’m curious about the unannounced game in this collection. A few classics come to mind Operation Wolf, Elevator Action Returns or Chase H.Q. Well one can dream right?