''Taito Legends 2'' a compilation of

Taito is a Japanese company that specializes in video games, Toy, toys, arcade cabinets, and game centers, based in Shinjuku, Tokyo. The company was founded by Michael Kogan in 1953 as the importing vodka, Vending machine, vending machines, and Juk ...

arcade video game An arcade video game is an arcade game that takes player input from its controls, processes it through electrical or computerized components, and displays output to an electronic monitor or similar display. All arcade video games are coin-oper ...

s and the follow-up to ''

Taito Legends ''Taito Legends'' is a compilation of 29 arcade games released for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Microsoft Windows. The games were originally developed by Taito. The European release was published by Empire Interactive, who had licensed the games ...

''. It was published for

Xbox Xbox is a video gaming brand that consists of four main home video game console lines, as well as application software, applications (games), the streaming media, streaming service Xbox Cloud Gaming, and online services such as the Xbox networ ...

PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October, in Europe on 24 Novembe ...

, and

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

. As with the former collection, it is derived from the

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

exclusive ''

Taito Memories ''Taito Memories'' is a series of video game compilations published by Taito in Japan. A total of five collections were released from 2005 to 2007 — four on the PlayStation 2, and one on the PlayStation Portable. The PlayStation 2 entries each ha ...

'' series. All three versions of the game were simultaneously released in March 2006 in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

and

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

and published by Empire Interactive. The

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

received the PlayStation 2 version on 16 May 2007 and the Windows version on 10 July 2007 with publishing by

Destineer Destineer, Inc. was an American umbrella company covering a holding company, a video game publisher, and video game developer based in Minnetonka, Minnesota. The company was founded by Peter Tamte, former executive vice-president of Bungie, in ...

. For unknown reasons, the Xbox version was never released in North America. However, the European PAL-region Xbox version is entirely compatible with the North American NTSC-based Xbox systems without any modifications. The PlayStation 2 version uses the same layout and engine as the ''

'' series, while the Xbox and Windows versions use the layout and engine of ''

'' with additional content on some games. Eight of the 43 games - ''

Balloon Bomber This is a list of games developed or published by Taito, a Japanese game developer and publisher. Electro-mechanical games The following titles were arcade electro-mechanical games (EM games) manufactured by Taito. Video games See also *Ta ...

'', ''

Bubble Symphony , also known as , is an Arcade game, arcade video game in the ''Bubble Bobble'' series developed by Taito in 1994. While being a new ''Bubble Bobble'' for a new generation, it takes place after ''Parasol Stars''. Story For this adventure, Bubbl ...

'', ''

Cadash is an arcade Action-RPG with elements of the platform game A platformer (also called a platform game, and sometimes a jump 'n' run game) is a subgenre of action game in which the core objective is to move the player character between point ...

'', ''

RayForce is a vertically scrolling shooter by Taito for the Taito F3 arcade hardware and released in 1994. It was ported to the Sega Saturn in 1995, Microsoft Windows in 1997, then rereleased for iOS in 2012 and Android in 2017. Due to trademark problem ...

'', '' RayStorm'', ''

G-Darius is a horizontally scrolling shooter arcade video game released by Taito in 1997. It is the fourth arcade installment of the '' Darius'' series and the first with three-dimensional polygonal graphics. A port to the PlayStation was published as ...

'', '' Pop'n Pop'', and '' Syvalion'' - were split across the platforms due to porting issues, requiring players to buy more than one version to get every game available.

Games

''Taito Legends 2'' consists of the following 43 arcade games when combined whilst each version contains 39 games. ''Balloon Bomber'', ''G-Darius'', ''RayStorm'' and ''Syvalion'' are exclusive to the PlayStation 2 version whilst ''Bubble Symphony'', ''Cadash'', ''Pop'n Pop'' and ''RayForce'' are exclusive to the PC and Xbox versions. The titles included in the Western release were taken directly from various volumes of the Japanese ''Taito Memories''-series: * * * * The only title included in ''Taito Legends 2'' that was not previously included in the Japanese ''Taito Memories'' series is ''Pop 'n Pop'', though an earlier standalone

PlayStation is a video gaming brand owned and produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), a division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. Its flagship products consists of a series of home video game consoles produced under the brand; it also consists ...

port of the game was released in Japan. In addition, the North American PS2 version replaces ''Puzzle Bobble 2'' (the original Japanese version) with ''Bust-a-Move Again'', the game's North American equivalent. It also has a loading times during ''RayStorm'' and ''G-Darius''. ''G-Darius'' uses full motion video on intro, ending and some of the cutscenes of the game.

Reception

The Windows and Xbox versions of ''Taito Legends 2'' received "favourable" reviews, while the PlayStation 2 version received "average" reviews, according to the

review aggregation A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...

website

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

. Major criticisms include the large amount of obscure and "filler" titles, all of which are from the Japanese ''

'' collections in which they are little known in the U.S. (with ''

GameSpot ''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady, and Jon Epstein. In addition ...

'' quoting: "There's really nothing legendary about most of the old arcade games found in ''Taito Legends 2''"), as well as unresponsive, "flipped", and clunky controls. Kristan Reed of ''

Eurogamer ''Eurogamer'' is a British video game journalism website launched in 1999 alongside parent company Gamer Network. In 2008, it started in the formerly eponymous trade fair EGX (Eurogamer Expo until 2013) organised by its parent company. Fr ...

'' wrote a more positive response: "It's all but impossible to make an objective assessment that takes into account everyone's hugely varying tastes. What's definitely unarguable, though, that this particular package has much better presentation than the last one, with all games sorted into chronological order (a small but valuable point), and various useful options that make the experience far better than most retro collections". Some reviewers also compared ''Taito Legends 2'' unfavorably with the ''

Sega Genesis Collection ''Sega Genesis Collection '' (''Sega Mega Drive Collection'' in PAL regions) is a compilation of video games developed by Digital Eclipse and published by Sega for PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable. The collection includes twenty-eight Sega ...

'', writing the aforementioned'' Genesis Collection'' as superior, and was also criticized for its lack of bonus content (asides from instructions panels that can be viewed in the main menu and during gameplay).

References

External links

Destineer site
*Empire support site: , , * {{Portal bar, Video games 2006 video games Windows games PlayStation 2 games Xbox games Taito games Square Enix video game compilations Taito video game compilations Video games developed in the United Kingdom Empire Interactive games Video games developed in Japan Multiplayer and single-player video games