I really think Runark/Growl is going to get a YES! And that will officially put Taito Milestones 3 as the game with the most YES! votes of any Milestones collection. Taito Milestones 1 received four YES! votes (in order: Elevator Action, Qix, Halley's Comet, Alpine Ski). Taito Milestones 2 got five (in order: Liquid Kids, Metal Black, Darius II, Kiki KaiKai, and Legend of Kage).
Right now, the total is six, with only one NO! (for Rastan Saga II). It only needed five. We're in the end zone dance, right now, folks. Runark is loaded with personality and little touches. Like it's not in this clip, but this guy tried to break through a door to kill me and he fell through the broken door. I mean, come on! This is a satire of brawlers, but it's genuinely funny, and the action is fine. I also like the idea of saving animals now earns you help from the animals later. This is really something different and I didn't see this one coming at all. It's a spoiler for #1 right now. It has a shot!
(snicker) I honestly don't know if Runark, aka Growl (confusingly, the cover art says Runark but the game says Growl, and no, there's no regional options) is going to get a YES! But for unintentional comedy, it's one of my favorites of 2024.
Raiders of the Intellectual Property? South Carolina Sam and the Castle of Death? Dial of Destiny? Oh wait, that last one really happened.
I don't remember fighting this before. Cadash is one of the only games in Taito 3 that's worth playing through more than once. All four times? Well, I dunno about that.
Cadash suffers the same problem so many coin-ops of this era do: it's shameless about forcing players to reload coins. And I hate any indestructible enemy in games like this. Why don't the big bads just make armor out of these things? You'd win, idiot! You'd conquer the kingdom! Enslave humanity! Get the best tee times at Augusta or whatever your goal is. And does it say about the heroes? This wizard can cause it to rain swords in any room he's in. He can point his staff at anything and FIRE comes out of it. But these things? "Their shells are too hard." Hard shells? "VERY hard shells. Like, plexiglass hard."
Cadash didn't stick the landing. I think the final stretch before the castle was too confusing and directionless. The entire zombie section was, um............ bad, with cheap shots galore. But I like a good door maze, and the final Castle had a solid door maze layout. Cadash moves into the driver's seat for Taito Milestones 3, with four games to go. Rastan II sucked, but this made up for it.
This is janky as all hell. I talked to this woman over and over and over again and it took FOREVER for her to drop the gem. Cadash is my favorite game in Taito 3 so far, but I'm not a very happy camper. Taito is the most indie-like developer during this era in the sense that they made some janky-ass games.
Uh, did I just softlock Cadash? UPDATE: No, but for whatever reason, the woman didn't hand me the gem to let me out for several minutes and multiple talking attempts. I'm absolutely f*cking livid right now.
My gut tells me I'm playing the winner of Best in Set for Taito Milestones 3. I'm really digging Cadash. Like my little brother from a different mother Jon told me, "why didn't they just call THIS Rastan Saga II?" Good question. I was VERY skeptical of the RPG-like nature of it (now you know why I got the Wonder Boy collection, I've never played most of them), but it's pulling it off. Okay, so the sword noise sounds like a whoopie cushion, but otherwise, I'm digging this a lot. Love the set pieces.
I've never played Kadash before. An arcade RPG. It's such a strange choice and I get wanting to experiment with a genre that was scorching hot as a coin-op, but................ I dunno. Something tells me I picked the wrong starting character so I'm swapping back before I get too deep.
Nobody can accuse me of half-assing Taito Milestones 3: The Definitive Review. This is my second playthrough of Bubble Bobble, now in co-op, complete run. That's in addition to all the co-op a couple days ago. I don't get to play co-op on everything as much as I like, but with Definitive Reviews, I'm holding myself to a different standard. They're now the signature feature at IGC and I need to be as complete as possible.
This is just about the saddest gameplay video ever made. The only way it could be worse is if a puppy and a kitten walked into the frame and the puppy died by choking on the kitten.
This crosses the line from bad gameplay to outright shady. "Hey, in the first Rastan, why did you make it so players just automatically bind to the ropes? The little sh*ts would die faster if you made it unintuitive. MAKE IT UNINTUITIVE! These anti-bullying measures mean kids aren't being shaken down for their milk money. WE'RE THE BULLIES NOW, BITCHES! SHAKE THEM LITTLE BRATS DOWN!"
This is horrible. Absolutely god awful.
