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Woodsprained
By PaulEMoz
Retro games packages are huge business these days, and with the enormous success of Taito Legends, it was inevitable that Taito would release a sequel. After all, they've got one of the largest back catalogues of any arcade game publisher. But there's a problem. They used up all of their "Legends" in the first pack.
There were some duffers on the first Taito Legends, too, but genuine legendary names such as Space Invaders, Phoenix and Bubble Bobble meant that you'd consider the chaff as bonus extras. What "Legendary" names do we have this time around? Erm... The Legend of Kage? Violence Fight? Or how about Cleopatra Fortune?
Now THIS would be a Violence Fight worth playing!
Now, to be fair, there are a couple of legendary names here, too (Qix, for example), but the bigger ones are simply recyclings of original legends. Games such as Puzzle Bobble 2, Space Invaders DX and Elevator Action Returns are all reasonably enjoyable, but to class those games themselves as legends is merely to trade on the originals' names for cash.
Elsewhere, the aforementioned Violence Fight threatens to make Pitfighter look good, Camel Try will irritate the piss out of you in no time flat, Rastan 2 is pure shit, and the range of oddly-named or identikit Japanese shoot 'em ups will take your breath away, but not a lot of your spare time.
Haha! I'm playing KiKi KaiKai! Not that other thing to my left, honest!
There are some good games in this set, though. Liquid Kids is simple, cute fun, Super Space Invaders '91 is still well worth a blast, and there are a couple of decent other shoot 'em ups to be found, but generally Taito Legends 2 is a collection of games you'll play once to see what each game is, before never loading again.
A lot of the appeal with retro packs lies in the memories they bring back. It's far more fun to play a game when you can remember the times you queued for it, and finally got to plonk your 10p in the coin slot. When you've never played the game before, as will be the case with many of these "Legends", that appeal simply isn't there, and you're simply left with mediocre arcade games that you'd have been embarrassed to have your three-letter initials displayed on in your local arcade. So what makes you think you'd bother with them now?
Old games are more fun this way.
You'd only buy this if you must have anything retro, simply because it helps you recapture your youth and you still think that all old games are better than new games. Or, if you're one of those people that picks up the box and sees nothing but the fact you get forty games for relatively little outlay, regardless of what those forty games actually are. Nostalgia is blinding, and rose-tinted glasses are almost as bad as beer goggles: unlike with the beer goggles, there's no possibility of catching gonorrhea after a few hours with this pack, but you'll still be embarrassed to tell your mates you've got it.
June 2006
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