When did they go wrong: Taito edition.

sideshow · Post by **sideshow** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 4:23 am

Taito should of tried to make a new Darius game for the last gen systems. long runners Gradius and R-Type did.

Taito did right with Taito Legends 2 although Empire Interactive developed it.

shoe-sama · Post by **shoe-sama** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 4:30 am

Taito makes shmups!?

sideshow · Post by **sideshow** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 4:31 am

shoe-sama wrote:Taito makes shmups!?

They make space invader games for the PSP now.

gameoverDude · Post by **gameoverDude** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 4:37 am

shinsage wrote:When the graphics became polygonal.

seriously, fuck G-NET.

Some G-NET games are actually good. XII Stag is G-NET. RayCrisis is definitely not the best of the series, but still worth a look- even if you'll go back to RayForce more than it.

For a non-shmup, Chaos Heat is not bad. The 3D graphics look maybe a step above PS1, but the game mechanics, level design, and Joutohei Nakayama's soundtrack are great. Due to something going wrong in a lab, scientists become zombies - and the lab's computer system goes nuts. As one of the three D.E.F. agents, you go through the lab and blast away or beat up the zombies and other mutants while also looking out for some of the lab's security systems.

The Coop · Post by **The Coop** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 5:06 am

I don't think Taito went any more wrong than scores of other companies who have been around for a long time. Like Sega and others, they've have had plenty of ups and downs game-wise. For every Front Line, there was an Elevator Action. For each Master of Weapon, there was a RayForce. When we got slapped by Nastar Warrior, we were given a Bubble Bobble to keep us from filing for divorce. They've got great games in damn near every genre, and bad ones as well.

Edit: I'll try the rest of this post again after some sleep.

Post by **nZero** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 6:05 am

gameoverDude wrote:Some G-NET games are actually good. XII Stag is G-NET.

I'm not following you.

gameoverDude wrote:Due to something going wrong in a lab, scientists become zombies - and the lab's computer system goes nuts. As one of the three D.E.F. agents, you go through the lab and blast away or beat up the zombies and other mutants while also looking out for some of the lab's security systems.

Ah-ha, is that where the screenplay for the Resident Evil movie came from.

Randorama · Post by **Randorama** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 8:59 am

Fighter17 wrote:When people starting to leave after Raycrisis.

Smartest post of the thread. Except that they were kicked out, actually

nimitz · Post by **nimitz** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 2:39 pm

Right after Darius Gaiden

The Coop · Post by **The Coop** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 8:48 pm

Now that I've gotten some sleep, perhaps I can get what I tried to post before to make more sense.

In my opinion, what Taito did wrong or right is this...

- They did right by continuing to make games all over the board despite past failures in various genres. They weren't and aren't a one-trick pony, and the end result is a great selection of shmups, RPGs, hack 'n slash, and more.

- They did wrong right around 1998, when their game output took a major nose dive. Don't know what happened, but it's like they just decided to stop (this also happened from 2001-2005). It's also a bad time, as we saw a lot of their major franchises basically all but vanish from their output. One Qix game, one Chase HQ game, a couple Lufia games, and an Arkanoid game. Sure, they made a number of new IPs that met with varying levels of success, but their numbers were also very low (except in 2006).

This is a shame, as they have so many franchises and "one shot" games that could use a new follow up (Rastan, Bubble Bobble, Elevator Action, Darius, Metal Black and others). It's great that they're still around, but I'd like to see them up the output a bit, and find a better balance between new IPs, and a broader range of established ones.

Goshi · Post by **Goshi** » Thu Feb 07, 2008 8:52 pm

When the graphics became polygonal.

G-Darius is one of the best games in the Darius series though and it's polygonal. Mainly because of the boss fights and soundtrack though. The level recycles were just stupid.

But yeah the rest of the stuff they made after Darius Gaiden were pretty weak.

Randorama · Post by **Randorama** » Fri Feb 08, 2008 12:31 am

The Coop wrote:
- They did wrong right around 1998, when their game output took a major nose dive. Don't know what happened, but it's like they just decided to stop (this also happened from 2001-2005).

They outsorced their arcade production and fired or moved to other sectors their internal programmers.

EDIT:

Also, Many Taito games were one-time experiments, and aged quite bad. Case in point being Gun Frontier, which had a lot of small new things for the time and now shows its age. Later titles were less experimental and more thought out, so they did withstand the test of time.

For instance: Darius gaiden is rather simple in gameplay, but has a good pace and decent difficulty. G.Darius has a rather complex gameplay, fast pace (witness MAME, PS2 port before speaking, please), etc. etc.
Same applies for Ray-series games.

Aside that, their output was mostly outsorced stuff (say, Tatsujin and so on), or random graphical experiments. I adored Metal Black in 1991 (17 years ago, when I was 13), but now I may have a shot at it via cheats, else I throw the PC outside.

Of course, if you want to go bananas and held deeply irrational beliefs (you know who you are, my army of Daleks will visit you soon! Exterminate!), you can open this thread and talk about zomg graphicz or mediocrityz00rz.

Enhasa · Post by **Enhasa** » Fri Feb 08, 2008 2:17 am

The Coop wrote:Now that I've gotten some sleep, perhaps I can get what I tried to post before to make more sense.

Your first post made more sense than 99% of the posts here anyway.

You probably already know this but Taito was bought by Square Enix in 2005 which explains the recent increase in output. Also, I don't know if this is well known or not, but some shmup-related trivia is that Zun (the Touhou guy) works/worked for Taito (I don't know if he was cut during the acquisition or not, and I haven't played Thinking Exit yet to find out). He didn't start in the heyday though, so he didn't work on any shmups.

Afterbirth · Post by **Afterbirth** » Fri Feb 08, 2008 7:20 pm

After the golder era Taito made a mass of shmups, many of which were (gameplay wise) rather dire.
I think its fair to say they've actually produced more shmups then any other company ever but that said they've made some bloody good ones in amongst the glut of "meh".

Personally G-Darius was a high point for me just because it has a wealth of innovative bosses (well, innovative if you don't live in the sea) - plus the enemy grab mechanic and scoring potentials when using the enemy as a weapon.

Pixel_Outlaw · Post by **Pixel_Outlaw** » Fri Feb 08, 2008 7:59 pm

I must echo my sentiments from last night on the IRC, Metal Black is a deplorable game. They find out how to do some dynamic background effects and go completely nuts making it very hard to see your ship against the background noise.

BIL · Post by **BIL** » Fri Feb 08, 2008 9:01 pm

Pixel_Outlaw wrote:I must echo my sentiments from last night on the IRC, Metal Black is a deplorable game. They find out how to do some dynamic background effects and go completely nuts making it very hard to see your ship against the background noise.

When bosses explode, you mean? Outside of maybe the fourth boss I can't think of many areas ship visibility is that cruel.

gameoverDude · Post by **gameoverDude** » Sat Feb 09, 2008 11:35 pm

nZero wrote:
gameoverDude wrote:Some G-NET games are actually good. XII Stag is G-NET.
I'm not following you.

gameoverDude wrote:Due to something going wrong in a lab, scientists become zombies - and the lab's computer system goes nuts. As one of the three D.E.F. agents, you go through the lab and blast away or beat up the zombies and other mutants while also looking out for some of the lab's security systems.
Ah-ha, is that where the screenplay for the Resident Evil movie came from.

Seems like it to me. I have a feeling that Paul W.S. Anderson may have played Chaos Heat and borrowed a few elements. The RE movie is a prequel to the 1st RE game.