What I’m Playing #25 – Definitive Review Mayhem

I haven’t updated in a bit because I’m neck-deep in two Definitive Reviews, and they take a lot of time and work. Definitive Reviews and “The Games They Couldn’t Include” have become my blog’s signature features, and that’s awesome because they’re so much fun to do. For all the time and effort they take, it means the world to me that people dig them to the degree they do. And I’ve got a couple more planned for next year. My Taito Milestones reviews have done well, so what if I give them “The Games They Couldn’t Include” treatment? The home ports of the thirty featured games, assuming there are home ports. And I just bought Wonder Boy Anniversary Collection. I’ve never played any of these except the arcade original (which I reviewed a terrible remake of) and Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap (which, again, I reviewed the remake of). The rest of the games? I’m going into them icy cold, and I’m so excited. This will not be the type of review I can do all at once, so I have no time window for when I’ll get it done. Six total games, but twenty-one total builds. It could take some time.

I’m going to try to have Power Rangers up by the end of next week. And no matter what, Taito Milestones 3: The Definitive Review is going to be posted on Monday. I wanted to do a ton of bonus reviews with it, but I’m crunching for time so it’s likely to only include one bonus review: for Parasol Stars, which I bought for this feature. It’s sold separately on every platform, and it has quality of life features that I’ll cover. Tetris Forever: The Definitive Review will be posted Christmas Eve and feature full reviews of all 18 included games plus a ton of games they couldn’t (or wouldn’t) include. Seriously, I’ve already completed the release plus all its games PLUS twenty reviews and counting, including some weird stuff.

AND, on top of all that stuff I have to work on, we just got the date for Williams Pinball Volume 8. It’s next week. We’ll try to have those reviews up ASAP. The tables are Banzai Run, Earthshaker, and Black Knight 2000. Folks, this could be the strongest three table collection in years. For Pinball Arcade, I rated Black Knight 2000 the 10th best table out of 100. Angela also rated it #10, as did Jordi. Oscar was #21, while crotchety old Dave was the lowest at #32. While I’m discussing the Pinball Arcade rankings, Earthshaker I had at #19 out of 100, while Angela was #11, with nobody else liking it as much as we did. We’re Pat Lawlor fangirls. Speaking of Lawlor, Banzai Run is the greatest novelty table of all time. For Pinball Arcade, I rated Banzai Run #21 out of 100. Jordi was the highest at #12 (and MASTERPIECE status) while Oscar was #17. We’re VERY excited for this collection.

So, what AM I playing?

Taito Milestones 3, no matter what, will be published this Monday. I’m four games away from completing it, and while I’m almost certainly not going to have time to include all the bonus reviews I wanted, I am going to try to have Parasol Stars be part of it. I’ve put a LOT work into this feature and tried to do co-op where possible. In the case of Bubble Bobble, it was single-handedly responsible for its YES! verdict. If you’re anxious for Tuesday’s release, hey, Taito Milestones 3 is going to win my Seal of Approval and probably be the Milestones release with the most YES! votes. But, is it really the best?

The current scoreboard. The * in Bubble Bobble’s YES! is because I gave it a NO! for solo play. If you have no playing partner, I don’t think Bubble Bobble is very good as a single player experience. With a partner? Yea, it’s for sure the stuff of legends.

“Look at me! I’m Wolverine!”

The feature will include rankings of all thirty games that have been part of Milestones 3, and so far. Until I played Cadash, the top three (Liquid Kids, Metal Black, and Darius II) were all from Taito Milestones 2, and the #4 ranked game (Elevator Action) was from Taito Milestones 1. As of this writing, I’m not even entirely sure Cadash is cracking that top three. That top three is a very solid collection of games. I don’t think Cadash has defeated Metal Black, so it comes down to Darius II. Despite being different genres, Darius II has all the same problems as Cadash: too many cheap shots. It gets old. It’ll be interesting to see where the remaining four games fall. Oh, and I made mincemeat out of Rainbow Islands, a game everyone told me was super hard. It ain’t super hard, as long as you have autofire and get the right items. But, I had fun. The only game I can’t say that for is Rastan Saga II. Yikes! We’ll see the final results on Monday. Until then, I have to beat Cadash for a fourth time.