TAITO Milestones 2 – Arcade glory on a handheld

In June this year, we brought you the news that TAITO Milestones 2 was heading to Switch and we have now had a chance to review the collection. ININ Games has published the collection using Arcade Archives emulator tech and it’s available as a digital download or as a physical cart.

Just as with the first collection, there are ten arcade games from Taito’s rich history to delve into. Each one is faithfully emulated from the original arcade including the need to add coins to the cab by tapping the left shoulder button. This feeds virtual currency into the machine and you can just keep adding them as you lose continues.

For each game, some simple options are available and range from the amount of starting lives to difficulty and background settings. The biggest boon is a save state option that allows you to exit the game and come right back into it where you left off. A neat feature that adds some longevity to the collection is the use of online leaderboards so you can take on others from around the world.

For those who want to customise the games further, you can change a few display settings. Some of them help recreate the original feel of the arcade with scanlines but also more advanced settings that allow for tate modes and screen position. The only other feature beyond the games is a manual for each one that describes the controls and how to play the game itself.

But what about the actual games? There is a great mix of genres from platformers to action titles and of course a few shooters. In regards to the quality of the titles in the collection, there is a mixed bag of bonafide TAITO classics, intriguing curios and some more questionable choices.

Titles such as Darius II, which is the legendary three-screen version, and New Zealand Story will get the old arcade blood pumping while Dino Rex and Legend of Kage may have been best left in the memory. That said, it’s interesting to compare how some titles have stood the test of time more than others.

There aren’t any awful games though, each one has its place in the history of TAITO and there are a couple, such as Ben Bero Beh and Kiki Kaikai that will be unfamiliar to many retro gamers. Just getting to try some of these more unique and obscure titles makes TAITO Milestones 2 a worthy purchase.

If being hypercritical, five titles stand out and will appeal to most arcade gamers. The other five are more interesting to try rather than outright classics that you will want to see through to the end. There is also a mix of cartoony titles and more hardcore titles which means not all of them will appeal to everyone.

Overall, TAITO Milestones 2 has ten games that will take you back to the glory days of arcades when games were tough and you had your skills pushed to the limit. All the games play fine with no noticeable input lag and the customisation options are a nice touch.

It would have been good to see some extra features, such as galleries of the original cabs or snippets of history about each game’s development or impact but that would most likely have put the overall cost up. It works out at £3.50 per game which is great value and is a recommended purchase for arcade fans.