Generous compilation and a solid value
Battle Shark: This is a very good submarine shooter; it plays like your typical light-gun game. The visuals and atmosphere are pretty stylized and the fun-factor is reasonably high: 7.5/10
Bubble Bobble: One of Taito’s trademark franchises, a clever action/puzzle hybrid with plenty of levels to keep the player busy. Innovative for its’ time: 7/10
Colony 7: Very unremarkable, even for when it was released, this target shooter gets old promptly: 3/10
Continental Circus: The only racing game present on the collection, it is similar in look and play-control to Sega’s Outrun, but is not quite as fluid looking or playing as that game: 7/10
Electric Yo-Yo: Just a weird concept all-around, it could be of interest for some but I have not found it to be especially captivating: 5.5/10
Elevator Action: Very cool for the time-period, a vertically scrolling 2D platform game that uses elevators as the primary game-play mechanism, good frenetic action here and always a personable game: 7.5/10
Exzisus: With a title like that, you just know that it has to be a 2D shooter, one of my favorite genres, and unfortunately badly under-represented on this collection, but this game in particular is quite decent, and a side-scroller that I had not previously had a chance to play: 8/10
Gladiator: The game-play is pretty clunky for this side-scrolling battle game, the oversized characters look pretty nice but they are also less than functional. This game could have been pretty cool but the game-play simply fails to execute competently: 5.5/10
Great Swordsman: One on one fighting-arts discipline game, featuring fencing, kendo, and Roman style fighting. Similar to Karate Champ but not quite as polished: 5.5/10
Jungle Hunt: One of the pioneers of the side-scrolling 2D platformer, still very fun and playable to this day, albeit stripped-down and straight-forward compared to the heyday of the 2D action/adventure game: 7/10
The New Zealand Story: A competent side-scrolling adventure/platformer with very wide open levels to explore, not quite as compelling as the long-standing heavyweights of the genre: 7.5/10
The Ninja Kids: A side-scrolling beat-em-up, a little on the stiff side with the game-play but decent visuals and action. The storyline will make you let out a disillusioned sigh but it doesn’t take itself too seriously either: 7.5/10
Operation Thunderbolt: The sequel to Operation Wolf and not quite as good, some 3D scrolling levels were thrown in for variety, decent but not anything special, and the game-play just isn’t as tight as the original: 6.5/10
Operation Wolf: Obviously no light-gun support for these games but the cursor-aiming works out pretty well, this was the most popular light-gun shooter of its’ time and still holds up very well today, actually I like it better than most modern offerings from the genre: 8/10
Phoenix: Very much in the style of Galaga, this very old shooter has a few extra elements compared to the aforementioned game; pretty challenging also, but some incredibly annoying sound effects: 6/10
Plotting: Just a weird puzzler, kind of like a methodical thinker’s game, hard to really get into but it is unique enough; the games’ pacing is a bit on the slow and tedious side of things: 5.5/10
Plump Plop: This game feels like a typical mini-game for a full-blown action-platformer of the 16-bit era. It entails bouncing a character off of a trampoline into breakable objects above, and also features some boss battles, not bad but a bit repetitive: 6.5/10
Rainbow Islands: Kind of a sequel/spin-off of Bubble Bobble, featuring totally different and unrelated game-play but a similar action/puzzle feel. The game-play is a different experience to this day: 7.5/10
Rastan: I’ve always wanted to play more of this game, back in 1987-1990 when I would occasionally get a chance to play the game in an arcade. Cool hack and slash, side-scrolling action-adventure game featuring some nice color schemes and cool-looking enemies, and I also really enjoy the quality level-design. Much better than the disappointing sequel and finally a chance to play a perfect arcade version: 8.5/10
Return of the Invaders: This game didn’t get much notice when it was released in the arcades; it probably came out two years to late however it is the best and most polished version of the three on this compilation, as it implements a few new enemy styles and more variety and fluidity with the patterns: 7/10
Space Gun: The fourth first-person perspective blast-a-thon, this time with an outer-space and aliens theme, like most in the genre, good but not spectacular; it does have a nice consistently intense pace about it, and the ability to choose from multiple paths at certain junctures: 7.5/10
Space Invaders: Okay I am old enough to remember when this game was on the cutting edge, but even then I wasn’t ever really enamored with it, always preferring Pac-Man, Centipede, Donkey Kong, Zaxxon, and Tempest. It is a very important game, but I never liked it all that much: 6/10
Space Invaders Part 2: Very similar to the original game, but with more of a robust color palate, it would take a total purist to identify any other real differences between the two games: 6/10
Super Qix: A very innovative concept, a puzzler-type where the object is to use your character to draw lines across a picture while avoiding contact (Character or line) with the adversaries, hard to fully explain but it’s one of those game that can keep a player returning for more: 7.5/10
Thunderfox: This must be Taito’s answer to Sega’s Shinobi, since it has a very similar game-play style. Kind of like a hybrid of Shinobi and Strider, with just a tad of Contra thrown in there. Overall a quality side-scroller and a good addition to this collection: 8/10
Tokio: Vertical-scrolling shooter, it feels a little under-developed but it is good for a gaming session every now and then The game does feature a nice hand-drawn look for the visuals: 7/10
Tube It: The most recent game included in this collection (1993) is a unique tile-puzzler that I don’t find to be all that engaging, the flow isn’t where it needs to be, but this game isn’t bad either: 6.5/10
Volfied: A sequel to Qix/Super Qix, although with a totally different theme and many new game-play additions, very addicting game-play and excellent replay-value, definitely among my favorite games on the collection: 8.5/10
Zoo Keeper: For something created way back in the early-eighties, this game has aged incredibly well, a person could care less about the primitive visuals when playing this simple yet totally involving game: 8/10
So there you have it, 29 games, mostly decent or better, but nothing really that represents the very best of the respective time-periods, which is what Taito was always pretty much known for. This collection is an outstanding value for the asking price and can be a nice perspective for younger gamers or a nostalgic trip for older gamers so it is recommended for people who like video-game compilations.