Well, here we are. The third collection in the Taito Milestones series, and it still doesn't have Space Invaders '95: The Attack of the Lunar Loonies on it. The best game Taito ever made (besides Parasol Stars) and it's not here, it's not on any Space Invaders collection, but it is on the third Arcade Memories expansion for... the Taito Egret II Mini. They are taking the piss. Get it on Arcade Archives NOW or face my wrath. Which is mostly just me sort of being a bit cross, quietly.
So, yes, no Akkanvader, but the selection here is comfortably the best of the lot to date. With the aforementioned Arcade Archives powering every one of the ten included games thanks to Hamster, you're at last getting absolute stone-cold classics Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands. I have no idea how it took until the third compilation for them to get around to them, but here we are - you can at last enjoy them in a packaged form on your Switch, along with a host of other decent-to-great games. Indeed, the entire arcade Rastan trilogy is present and correct - Rastan Saga, Rastan Saga 2 and Warrior Blade. I'm someone who favours the Master System version of the original Rastan, but the coin-op version here is great fun. Sadly, I can't really say the same about Rastan Saga 2, a completely unfair experience with some of the must frustrating collision detection I've ever experienced. Thankfully Warrior Blade is an awesome, awesome thing, a dual-monitor beat-'em-up with absolutely gorgeous sprites and an enjoyably unconventional feel.
Of a similarly swords and sorcery bent we have Cadash, a thoroughly good little multiplayer side-scrolling action RPG thingy, scuppered on its original bow by a completely unreasonable time limit, fixed now by our beloved Hamster, who have also made the previously invisible EXP meter visible for us all to enjoy. It's another game I mostly enjoyed on a home console - this time the Mega Drive - but I'm grateful to have a version of it here that's not only arcade perfect, but arcade better.
Dead Connection and Runark (perhaps better known as Growl) are both extremely good-looking games that are merely fine to play. The 1930s prohibition-y mafioso-ness of Dead Connection is appealing, as you dive around some extraordinarily destructible environments, erm, destructing them with bullet after bullet from your trusty pistol. Not bad, but it gets old pretty quickly. The same can be said for Runark, though this game has the dubious honour of being the strangest one on the comp. A hilariously on-the-nose environmentalist/anti-poacher beat-'em-up, it has enough crunch to be enjoyable, albeit briefly.
Bringing up the rear are Champion Wrestler and Thunder Fox, a couple of games I just couldn't get into. Champion Wrestler is one that I just can't get enthused about due to its lack of a real fed license - and yes, I know that's not particularly fair, but here we are. It's actually one of the better arcade pro wrestling games, but it's the characters that bring me back to grap, not the matches, or at the very least not the button-mashing on offer here. Thunder Fox is just a fiercely generic little action game, an erratic mixture of genres which certainly seems to make an effort at being exciting only to scupper everything with its terrible boss battles. It's a no-go, but eight out of ten is resolutely not bad - and you might dig Champion Wrestler more than I did.
In terms of supplemental content, there's nothing in the way of any concept art, but the individual releases - being identical to their Arcade Archives source material - have an array of options to choose from, including a few quality of life features. As I said, this is easily the best of the Taito Milestones series and well worth a pick-up, especially given it'll cost you more to buy even just the eight good'uns they've deigned to offer us. Collected, they make for a decent trio, but it's hard not to compare it to the generosity of the Taito Legends releases back in the day. While they were a long time ago, they did give us Akkanvader, so I still can't forgive this set for not managing to do so in three entries. Come on lads - sort it out.