AND WE’RE BACK!!!

After a bit of downtime, the CPB blog is up and running!

As a celebratory first post, I’ve decided to write with a slightly different focus than I usually do.  Instead of looking at one or two games in particular, I’ve decided to look at one of the most underrated video game companies from my youth – Taito.

There are several publishers this entry could have been about; Sunsoft, Jaleco, Taxan, Data East, Hudson Soft, the list goes on.  There are some fantastic games strewn among each of these publishers, and a few of them landed on my Top 100 countdown.

In recent years, “video game hunting” has become a fun hobby of mine.  I’ve read countless articles about game collecting and watched a ton of YouTube videos about it, and there’s just something about the search for rare and hard-to-find games that get the blood going.

 

 

As I built myself a wish list of games I should try to keep an eye out for, I couldn’t help but notice that every Taito game on it seemed to be way out of my price range.  In fact, of the top ten rarest and most valuable *licensed* NES games, half of them were released by Taito!

With that in mind, I figured I’d try and shed some light on the games they released, and why some of them are so hard to find today.

Taito was the company responsible for the massive arcade hit Space Invaders in 1978, but to me, they were always known as the makers of Bubble Bobble.

 

Surprisingly don’t see this one around too often, considering how popular it was. $25 cartridge only.

Surprisingly don’t see this one around too often, considering how popular it was.
$25 cartridge only.

 

There were so many hours of my childhood spent playing that game with my father and my sisters, humming that non-stop music, bubble-hopping my way up to higher platforms, and shrieking in fear at the sight Baron von Blubba.

 

I had nightmares about this guy...

I had nightmares about this guy…

 

Bubble Bobble had a quasi-sequel in the form of a similar-looking (but human) protagonist in Rainbow Islands: The Story of Bubble Bobble 2.  Instead of bubbles, you shoot rainbows at your enemies as you climb vertically-scrolling stages up high into the sky.  The controls were almost identical to the original, and I had quite a bit of fun stomping on the rainbows to make them fall and take out any enemies below.

 

Not the rarest game, but definitely not easy to find. $40 cartridge only.

Not the rarest game, but definitely not easy to find.
$40 cartridge only.

 

This is going to sound strange, but have you ever had a memory tied to something, and it was only a brief visual image?  Like, I know I had just rented the game somewhere nearby, but why on Earth does this specific place stick out in my mind?  In any case, I remember being excited to play Rainbow Islands, and looking at the cartridge label while at this very intersection.

 

This is near the Oromocto, NB hospital, just outside of Fredericton.  We so rarely went there to rent games, so we must have been there for some other reason...  road trip?  ER visit?  Whatever it was, I can't recall.

This is near the Oromocto, NB hospital, outside of Fredericton. We never drove to Oromocto to rent games, so we must have been there for some other reason… road trip? ER visit? Whatever it was, I can’t recall.

 

One of the first NES games I was ever witness to was actually one I was told I was too young to play.  Renegade was one of my friend Stéphane’s games; he and his family lived in Shediac, New Brunswick, and it was he who first introduced me to the NES.  Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt blew my young little mind and had me hooked for a while, but it wasn’t long after being left alone with the console that I “broke the rules” and popped in Renegade.

 

Easily found, probably because it wasn’t that great a game. $10 cartridge only.

Easily found, probably because it wasn’t that great a game.
$10 cartridge only.

 

Compared to the other games I had been playing that night, the controls for Renegade felt awful, and I wasn’t very good at it at all.  I can still play it today and not make it past that first screen (the one where they’re down in the subway station).

It was one of the first games I had ever played, and because of that, it will forever hold a special place in my mind.

 

Stephane’s family’s house was in a subdivision next to a drive-in theatre…  I remember seeing its screen tower over the houses in front of it! (This isn't nearly as huge as I remember it...)

Stephane’s family’s house was in a subdivision next to a drive-in theatre… I remember seeing its screen tower over the houses in front of it!
(This isn’t nearly as huge and amazing as I remembered…)

 

Another random Taito game from my childhood was Kiwi Kraze.  This was the first time I heard about a kiwi being something *other* than a small, fuzzy fruit I was too fussy to eat.  You play as a small yellow bird – a kiwi – that shoots spikes and travels from one end of New Zealand to the other to save all his kiwi friends.

So, it’s a game where you play as a kiwi, and the goal is to save all your Kiwi kiwi buddies.  Yup!

It’s pretty straightforward and easy, but I enjoyed it.  I’ll always associate it with being downstairs in our unfinished basement, playing the game, then turning it off to watch shows like DuckTales, Fun House and Tiny Toon Adventures on CTV…  ahhhh the 90’s.

 

I don’t think I’ve ever seen this game in my travels, actually. $30 cartridge only.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen this game in my travels, actually.
$30 cartridge only.

 

I’ve already made a post about one of my favourite Taito games, Power Blade, so the last remaining Taito game I remember playing is The Flintstones: Rescue of Dino and Hoppy.  I’ll save the talk of the extra-rare games for my next post!

In any case, this Flintstones game is actually quite good.  It’s a platforming game where you play as Fred and bash enemies over the head with a club.  You can hang from ledges and pull yourself up, and the level design takes advantage of that mechanic a little bit.  I always found the graphics to be nice and colorful, and even though I didn’t watch the cartoon at all, I definitely enjoyed the overall feel the game had.

I’m not sure if my memory for this game comes off as creepy or not, but I’ll share it anyway!

When we rented the game for the first time in Baie-Sainte-Anne, the instruction manual came with it.  I’m not sure why, but it seemed that one of the game’s previous renters had sprayed some kind of woman’s perfume on the manual.  Now…  instead of being grossed out or repulsed by it, I couldn’t stop sniffing it.  It smelled fantastic!

I mean, I didn’t rub it all over myself and wear it as a perfume of my own, but I’d definitely wave the booklet around in between levels to get a good whiff!  It just smelled so good.  If I were to ever smell that same scent today, I’d be like “GET ME TO AN NES WITH FLINTSTONES, STAT!”

 

Great game.  I’ve seen it around here and there, but without the smell. $20 cartridge only.

I’ve seen this one around here and there, but without the smell.
$20 cartridge only.

 

In the next post, I’ll talk about those Taito games that, for one reason or another, have managed to increase in value since they were released 20 years ago.  Stay tuned!

3 Comments on “AND WE’RE BACK!!!

  1. My favourite Taito game was Flipull. It’s a puzzle game that a friend had on a multicart. I was hooked.

    I remember Rainbow Island as being one of the few games I beat as a kid. I still remember the boss music vividly.

    As for Oromocto, that exact intersection reminds me of Predator for the NES and Aladdin for the Genesis, as both were game I had rented on a weekend when, I think, my grandmother may have been staying there for something or other.

      • No no, I would just have rented the games elsewhere, and would either have to wait until we got home to play them, or have already been playing them before we visited.

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