April 27, 2005 2:27 pm - MULTI, news

Taito Memories Vol. 1, Sengoku Cannon, RTK10 goodies

Hamapika-ya has reported, and Famitsu magazine has confirmed, the contents of the arcade compilation Taito Memories Vol. 1, and the featured games are above and beyond anything I could have hoped for. The list, with links:

Space Invaders Color/Space Invaders Part II (1979)
Lunar Rescue (1979)
Alpine Ski (1982)
The Fairyland Story (1985)
Kiki Kaikai (1986)
Bubble Bobble (1986)
Rastan Saga (1987)
Kuri Kinton (1988)
Syvalion (1988)
Jigoku Meguri/Bonze Adventure (1988)
Cameltry/On The Ball (1989)
Don Doko Don (1989)
Plotting/Flipull (1989)
Aa Eikou no Koshien (1990)
Majestic Twelve The Space Invaders Part IV / Super Space Invaders '91 (1990)
Runark/Growl (1990)
Pulirula (1991)
Metal Black (1991)
Grid Seeker: Project Storm Hammer (1992)
Space Invaders DX (1994)
Darius Gaiden (1994)
Light Bringer/Dungeon Magic (1994)
Elevator Action Returns (1995)
Cleopatra Fortune (1996)
Puchi Carat (1997)

This is the kind of arcade collection that I've been hoping for since seeing the potential in the Namco Museum series: ports of games that have never received console ports or were ported to consoles that weren't up to the task at the time. Several of the games here have been ported to Saturn, as well, but those often command premium prices on eBay (Metal Black, Elevator Action Returns, I'm looking at you) or are just plain stupid-rare (PCE Jigoku Meguri). Taito could easily have turned this into a Bubble Bobble (or even Puzzle Bobble) collection, so I'm especially glad to see the route they've taken. I can't wait to see what the next volume will include. This volume will be out on July 28.

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In this week's Dengeki Playstation magazine and as reported by Gamespot, more details on Sengoku Cannon for PSP have emerged. Koyori and Ain will return, as well as Tsukasa Jun on illustrations (he spilled the beans on his involvement with the game in his diary a month ago, but I wasn't checking it regularly enough). Whether X-nauts will be able to coax themselves out of their usual militant laziness for this project remains to be seen. It'll be out July 25 for 5040 yen, and I'll probably buy it like a sucker regardless. July's going to be a busy (shooting) month.

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IGN's resident Romance of the Three Kingdoms nut (how many major gaming-news sites have one of those?), Jeremy Dunham, wrote up a small preview of RTK10 last week. It has a nice rundown of some of the new features, and on the media page are the first full-resolution screenshots I've seen of the PS2 version of the game, and it's looking very nice indeed.