Taito Legends -- Final Opinion.

First off, you're getting an awful lot of bang for the buck with this disc. Twenty-nine games is impressive even at $50, let alone Taito Legends' $20 asking price. They're not all gems, but for the most part the disc contains quality games. You get the legendary Space Invaders. You do get the few star titles like Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Islands, Operation Wolf, and Elevator Action. You get good games in the likes of Jungle Hunt, Rastan, Operation Thunderbolt, ThunderFox, and Battle Shark. You'll find true gems you've probably never heard of in Plump Plop, Tube It, and Great Swordsman. You'll find some notable oddities in Plotting, The Ninja Kids, and The New Zealand Story. What the disc really offers is a look at a couple eras of gaming. A traceable sense of history of development and just how long they've been chasing the 3D we take for granted now. Most kids these days probably believe one day there wasn't 3D and then one day there was Virtua Fighter and we've never looked back. Hell, Virtua Fighter might even be too old a reference for some of them.  How scary is that? The games are only part of the story with these compilation discs of course. The other part of the story is okay here. The presentation is simple and clean. It works perfectly. No hassles. No overwrought animation or crap to wade through. Just cycle left or right through the games which are listed in alphabetical order. Select a game and you'll get a list of options. You can set the controls, look at a game's sales advertisement, read the game description, get some hints and tips, and in some cases watch an interview with the developer. No bonus content to unlock. They offer up a Taito corporation history to read through. You'll be able to save all the high scores for each game as well as their individual settings. So in all it's heavy on content, light on extras, and is presented simple and clean. and offers up a good look at some arcade history. It is however missing some notable Taito releases like Arkanoid, Bust-A-Move, Cadash, Chase H.Q, Cloud Master, Darius, Darius Gaiden, Darius 2, Insector X, Parasol Stars, Qix, Sagaia, and a few more. Of course most of these will be in volume two of this compilation which will be released in Japan. Too bad it's never likely to come here. I'd buy it... I'm giving Taito Legends an 8.0.