| paleface [sys=PSP; cat=Action_Variety; reg=JPN] |
| | | Taito continues with the "you'll play them and you'll like them" collections of their old games, taking games from their recently released console collections and slapping them onto the portable. The games include:
Crazy Balloon
Balloon Bomber
Lunar Rescue
Qix
Alpine Ski
Elevator Action
Chack'n Pop
Legend of Kage
The Fairyland Story
Kiki Kaikai
Rastan Saga
Kuri Kinton
The New Zealand Story
Raimais
Rainbow Islands: Extra Version
Cameltry
And then there are four remakes, or "Arranged" versions:
Crazy Balloon 2005
Balloon Bomber 2005
Legend of Kage 2005
Cameltry 2005
The problem here is that 1) all of these games have been on other collections that just came out, and 2) most of them stink. Now, I like having portable versions of Alpine Ski, Fairyland Story, New Zealand Story, Rainbow Islands, Cameltry, and maybe even Qix, but the others I really don't need to play again in my life.
But since even those were on collections just put out, it really comes down to the four "arranged" games to make or break this collection, and...well. Crazy Balloon 2005 and Legend of Kage 2005 are faithful to a fault to their originals. Balloon Bomber 2005, on the other hand, has lovely graphics, fairly fast shooting, and powerups. It's not bad; very limited, but not bad. I particularly like how some stages are zoomed in real close, and others are far away.
The real jewel, by rights, should be Cameltry 2005, and so far it seems to be doing pretty well. It's hard, especially those darn air currents they've added in, that waft your ball along, often in the wrong direction. It'd drop-dead gorgeous, though, and the ball bouncing maze tilting gameplay is still there.
The original versions allow you to toggle between screen rotation and scaling modes, as you would hope. Curiously, though, there's no non-scaled vertical mode or the vertically oriented games. Hrm. Anyway though I find myself playing in the slightly blurry scaled-up modes, because the original resolutions are so tiny on the PSP's high-res screen.
The ports all seem accurate, and you can remap buttons, restart the game, and so forth.
Curiously, although the back of the case says that the collection supports Ad Hoc wireless 2P, according to the little English instruction slip, that's just for game sharing (ie sending a demo of one of the games to someone else); the only actual 2P you do is hand-off alternating play. That doesn't really qualify as 2P in my book, if you know what I mean.
This collection is all right, but a few game substitutions could have made is a lot better. Are they just picking these from a hat, or are there actually people at Taito who are huge fans of Crazy Balloon, Chack'n Pop, Legend of Kage, and the other distinctly mediocre games recycled here again? |
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