Category Archives: Taito

Rainbow Islands, PC Engine

The PC Engine version of Taito‘s classic arcade game Rainbow Islands was only made available on CD-ROM, so you had to have a CD compatible PC Engine to play it.

[That was: until emulation was invented…] 🙂

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Rainbow Islands, Amiga

Graftgold‘s Amiga conversion of the legendary Rainbow Islands is pretty much flawless… Well, if you discount the three secret hidden worlds the developers had to ditch when they discovered them… And the lower resolution, compared to the arcade original.

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Parasol Stars, PC Engine

Taito released Parasol Stars for the PC Engine in 1991. It is the third game in the Bubble Bobble series and features Bubby and Bobby – the two human characters from Rainbow Islands – both armed with a multi-purpose parasol and the ability to chuck water around with them.

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Rainbow Islands, Atari ST

Thanks to British developer Graftgold the Atari ST has an almost perfect conversion of Taito‘s arcade classic, Rainbow Islands. To all intents and purposes the ST version of Rainbow Islands is identical to the arcade original. Well, kind of…

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Bubble Bobble, Arcade

Taito‘s Bubble Bobble first came out in arcades in 1986. Its colourful, jolly, platform action proved a sensation among gamers, and it has since gone on to earn “legendary” status in the retro gaming community.

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Bust-A-Move 2 Arcade Edition, PlayStation

Bust-A-Move 2 is the console name for the famous arcade game Puzzle Bobble 2. Thus: the “Arcade Edition” subtitle. I’ve no idea why they changed it – it just makes things confusing.

Puzzle Bobble 2 is a brilliant game though. It was initially released into arcades by Taito in 1995 and this arcade conversion came a year later via Acclaim in 1996.

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Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals, Super Nintendo

I was going to add a Final Fantasy game to our Super Nintendo special this week, but – you know what? – Final Fantasy on the SNES is messy, because of all the US and Japanese title discrepancies, so… Instead I’m going to pick this: probably my favourite turn-based level-grinder on the Super NintendoLufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals.

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Lady Stalker: Challenge From The Past, Super Nintendo

This 1995 Japan-only Taito release is a follow-up (spin-off, rather than a sequel) to Landstalker on the Sega Megadrive.

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