Taito Legends 2

professor ganson · Post by **professor ganson** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 2:02 pm

The manager at an EB Games asked me the other day: "Does Taito even have enough good stuff for a Taito Legends 2?"
My answer: "Yes."

CMoon · Post by **CMoon** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 2:09 pm

professor ganson wrote:The manager at an EB Games asked me the other day: "Does Taito even have enough good stuff for a Taito Legends 2?"

*smacks*

Alpolio · Post by **Alpolio** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 3:00 pm

professor ganson wrote:The manager at an EB Games asked me the other day: "Does Taito even have enough good stuff for a Taito Legends 2?"

And then when he asks you to pre-order, Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, ask him, "Does Rockstar even have enough good stuff to stay in business?"

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 6:10 pm

Alpolio wrote:
professor ganson wrote:The manager at an EB Games asked me the other day: "Does Taito even have enough good stuff for a Taito Legends 2?"
And then when he asks you to pre-order, Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, ask him, "Does Rockstar even have enough good stuff to stay in business?"

Oh that's nothing! Last weekend, the manager of a Game Force store out here told me all of the following, while appearing to be serious:

1. That he's friends with Hideo Kojima, and could make over $300,000/year testing games for him. (Right, that's why he's still working at Game Force!

)

2. That the PS3 won't be region free because you can get life in prison for owning an import console.

Not to rip him apart, or anything; he's a really nice guy, and this store (their old-school H.Q. in Denver) does have an awesome selection of games.

The Coop · Post by **The Coop** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 7:38 pm

Any word yet on a confirmed "It's coming to America" statement for these two games?

Bloodreign · Post by **Bloodreign** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 4:50 am

professor ganson wrote:The manager at an EB Games asked me the other day: "Does Taito even have enough good stuff for a Taito Legends 2?"
My answer: "Yes."

That manager should be fired, and his feet stuck in his mouth. If he'd told me that I'd have told him to shut his mouth and turn in whatever consoles he owns.

RoninBuddha · Post by **RoninBuddha** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 6:41 am

how is Metal black related to Gun Frontier?? i dont see the connection at all (prolly same dev team)

Turrican · Post by **Turrican** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 11:27 am

Thunder Force wrote:They fixed it. We can finally throw away our slowdown-plagued PSX version.

12 shmups on a single PS2 disc, is amazing.

What Taito have done is created the perfect gift to introduce friends to shmups. You can give someone PS2 Taito Legends 2 and they instantly have a pretty good "starter pack" shmup collection. The menu even explains some basic gameplay mechanics for each shmup for newcomers. This range of titles is nice and diverse, some simple shooters all the way up to some serious hardcore hits

Metal Black (poorly emulated, it misses a gameplay element!)
Raystorm
Genkirindan (vertical without tate)
Space Invaders DX (vertical without tate)
Super Space Invaders '91 (vertical without tate)
Darius Gaiden (poorly emulated, it runs slower than it should)
Gun Frontier (vertical without tate)
Space Invaders '95 (vertical without tate)
Insector X
Grid Seeker (vertical without tate)
Syvalion
G-Darius

Not so amazing, I'm afraid then.

But I suspect the no-slowdown version of G-Darius is still worthy the admission price. Shame though.

CMoon · Post by **CMoon** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 11:45 am

Well not to be super hard-core, but most of us owned these titles for our saturn anyway, right?

Still, tate for poor Gekirindan would have been nice (since the saturn port is so prone to abuse.)

Yes, absolutely, the reason for this set is G-Darius. A nice sampler if you haven't been exposed to the other games, but may be worthwhile to seek out their other ports.

Is Metal Black really broken?

Thunder Force · Post by **Thunder Force** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 4:28 pm

Turrican wrote:
Thunder Force wrote:They fixed it. We can finally throw away our slowdown-plagued PSX version.

12 shmups on a single PS2 disc, is amazing.

What Taito have done is created the perfect gift to introduce friends to shmups. You can give someone PS2 Taito Legends 2 and they instantly have a pretty good "starter pack" shmup collection. The menu even explains some basic gameplay mechanics for each shmup for newcomers. This range of titles is nice and diverse, some simple shooters all the way up to some serious hardcore hits

Metal Black (poorly emulated, it misses a gameplay element!)
Raystorm
Genkirindan (vertical without tate)
Space Invaders DX (vertical without tate)
Super Space Invaders '91 (vertical without tate)
Darius Gaiden (poorly emulated, it runs slower than it should)
Gun Frontier (vertical without tate)
Space Invaders '95 (vertical without tate)
Insector X
Grid Seeker (vertical without tate)
Syvalion
G-Darius
Not so amazing, I'm afraid then.

I didn't suggest it was perfection, I said it would be a great starter pack for newcomers; folks who certainly aren't bothered about Tate and a glitch or two - when they're still credit-feeding and just learning how to dodge bullets. So put yourself in the shoes of those players who just think a 1CC is some kind of really lame motorcycle...

CMoon wrote:Yes, absolutely, the reason for this set is G-Darius.

It's the crown jewel, definitely.

theevilfunkster · Post by **theevilfunkster** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 5:18 pm

The music skiped a few times when I was playing Rayforce on the Xbox version.

Much prefer the Xbox menu system with the pics of the cabs. Also prefer the screen sizing options and the ability to remove the fuck awful purple borders.

Does the PS2 version have any videos or flyer galleries to be unlocked or does it just not have any?

AJhooglestein · Post by **AJhooglestein** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 10:16 pm

Does the PS2 version have any videos or flyer galleries to be unlocked or does it just not have any?

I've been playing for over 20 hours and no unlocks yet...

One thing i do like about the PS2 version is that the games are listed in chronological order. The favourites list is a nice touch aswell.

Limbrooke · Post by **Limbrooke** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 2:56 am

I felt Darius Gaiden and G-Darius were well done.
Pretty close to what I'd call enjoyable. I'm no expert on either, however I was disapointed with Elevator Action Returns.
Nicer graphics and no loading, but, it's slower, much slower I find than Saturn. It's a real let down for someone who already has the Saturn version but perhaps a great opportunity for someone without. Saturn controls even seem more fluid and easily pulled off. (Perhaps Arcade version was always at the right speed but Saturn got sped up somehow, I dunno)
Liquid Kids also doesn't seem quite right but maybe it's just been a while.
Qix seems to be the early favourite for me out of the bunch. (No Bubble Symphony, I got PS2

)

Danny · Post by **Danny** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 10:23 am

I dunno why people are getting all excited about G Darius with no slowdown, have you guys not herd of ePSXe before?

Seriously though there are ways of eleminating slowdown on PSX games using PSX emu's and without messing up the game in any way.

Skyknight · Post by **Skyknight** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 10:21 pm

According to DHunt (one of the moderators on the TL2 board), Empire's still working on getting the compilation to this side of the Atlantic (the timestamp was today).

And yes, I have reason to believe him...

http://forum.empireinteractive.com/defa ... HT=31&PN=1

This sounds like he's VERY heavily involved in Empire's goings-on...

Turrican · Post by **Turrican** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 10:31 pm

Very interesting thing he says:

Taito Japan produced Taito Memories for the Japanese market only and hence only developed it on PS2 - it was released in Japan a bit before Taito Legends 1 was released by Empire in EU/US (on PC/PS2/XBox). It didn't include Bubble Symphony. Some of the later games are beyond the power of the PS2 to emulate (Eg. G Darius/Raystorm which use PS1 level hardware), however Taito still had the source code for these and so made proper ports of them, they also spent some time getting the F3 system games running on PS2 which involved removing the F3 sound CPU and replacing sound generation with very long pre-canned sound streams.

So G-Darius is a port of sort, not simply emulation. As with the Street Fighters on CCC.

theevilfunkster · Post by **theevilfunkster** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 11:15 pm

Just been looking through the files for the Xbox collection on my modded Xbox and the rom for Rayforce is called Gunlock

Ganelon · Post by **Ganelon** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 4:39 am

Turrican wrote: So G-Darius is a port of sort, not simply emulation. As with the Street Fighters on CCC.

Aren't all the games on CCC ports of the PS Generations (except maybe Final Fight)?

Neon · Post by **Neon** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 6:37 am

Just for the sake of clarity, darius gaiden runs perfectly on Memories, but not Legends?

Marc · Post by **Marc** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 7:40 am

Ganelon wrote:
Turrican wrote: So G-Darius is a port of sort, not simply emulation. As with the Street Fighters on CCC.
Aren't all the games on CCC ports of the PS Generations (except maybe Final Fight)?

Yea, but the PS1 originals were ports. So those are ports of ports.

Skyknight · Post by **Skyknight** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 9:20 pm

Just to be sure, how grave (or not-so-grave) is Darius Gaiden's slowdown? Specifically, compared to the slowdown that can occur in the PS1 version of G-Darius?

Alpolio · Post by **Alpolio** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 3:28 am

Skyknight wrote:Just to be sure, how grave (or not-so-grave) is Darius Gaiden's slowdown? Specifically, compared to the slowdown that can occur in the PS1 version of G-Darius?

What? I have the Saturn version of Darius Gaiden and it doesn't have any slowdown. (Reviews) If the PS2 version has slowdown, that would annoy the crap out of me.

doctorx0079 · Post by **doctorx0079** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 4:52 am

After looking at the web site I am totally stoked about this. This one has lots of newer games that fit our definition of shmups.

http://www.taitolegends2.com/default.aspx

There is a CONTEST on the site now. You have to live in England or Ireland to enter, but a lot of ppl on this board do. So hurry up and enter guys!!

Bloodreign · Post by **Bloodreign** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 7:02 am

doctorx0079 wrote:
There is a CONTEST on the site now. You have to live in England or Ireland to enter, but a lot of ppl on this board do. So hurry up and enter guys!!

Oops I didn't see those rules until now, but I already threw my name in days earlier, crikes. >_<

That totally kills my buzz.

Klatrymadon · Post by **Klatrymadon** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 9:40 am

Just for the sake of clarity, darius gaiden runs perfectly on Memories, but not Legends?

I haven't compared them side by side, but when I play the Memories version and then switch to MAME the next day or something, I do find myself having to adjust to a slight speed difference. I'm certainly not going to say that both ports are flawed, though. I haven't spent much time playing it in MAME at all, so I can't trust my gut feeling on this one...

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Tue May 02, 2006 4:36 am

Not that it's the most reliable source, but Gamefaqs lists a US release date of 10/25/06 for both XBOX and PS2 Taito Legends. They also list Sega as the company porting both releases. IGN still lists both as "TBA 2006".

I certainly hope Gamefaq's release date proves to be true, although it would be nice to get both compilations sooner.

CecilMcW00t · Post by **CecilMcW00t** » Tue May 02, 2006 11:43 am

Hmm... You got a link Dave? I went and checked a few hours ago and it still said TBA.

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Wed May 03, 2006 12:06 am

CecilMcW00t wrote:Hmm... You got a link Dave? I went and checked a few hours ago and it still said TBA.

My bad, that info was for the first Taito Legends, and for 2005, not 2006.

Oh well, I certainly hope that we here SOMETHING about PS2 and XBOX Taito Legends 2 from E3!

BrianC · Post by **BrianC** » Sat May 06, 2006 12:00 am

Are the games really emulated/ported better in Memories? Some stuff I read in Empire's forum suggested that they got the ports for all the games from Taito and that they didn't use emulation like in the PS2 Taito Legends 1. If Empire used the Taito's source code from the Memories collections for the PS2 Legends 2 like the Empire forums suggest, how did the ports turn out worse?

The Xbox and PC version of Legends 2 are actually different from the PS2 one. They both use emulation for every single game.

Turrican · Post by **Turrican** » Sun May 07, 2006 12:29 am

BrianC wrote:Are the games really emulated/ported better in Memories? Some stuff I read in Empire's forum suggested that they got the ports for all the games from Taito and that they didn't use emulation like in the PS2 Taito Legends 1. If Empire used the Taito's source code from the Memories collections for the PS2 Legends 2 like the Empire forums suggest, how did the ports turn out worse?

I'd like to know as well... Thunder Force, do you happen to own a Memories copy as well? I trust your comparison