Taito Milestones 5 hits Switch in January with Space Invaders

When Tomohiro Nishikado built the original Space Invaders hardware for Taito in 1978, it took four Volumes of the company's modern anthology series before the game actually showed up on the roster. That wait ends on January 28, 2027, when Taito Milestones 5 launches in Japan for the Nintendo Switch, with pre-orders open starting today.

Like the previous entries, this compilation bundles ten coin-op ports developed by Hamster Corporation using the studio's reliable Arcade Archives emulation framework. Each game comes equipped with customizable scanline filters, dip-switch adjustments, and online leaderboards. Taito is also pairing the release with a special retail box styled after an upright Space Invaders cabinet that has enough room to hold all five physical Switch cases, alongside the Taito Sound Milestone 5 soundtrack CD as a pre-order bonus.

Ten games spanning 1978 to 1990

Space Invaders is the obvious headliner here, and it's getting a proper event to celebrate. Taito is partnering with Tokyo's famous retro arcade, Takadanobaba Game Center Mikado, to host the first official Space Invaders tournament in roughly ten years. It's a fitting venue, though I'm curious to see whether the tournament rules stick to standard high-score runs or lean into Mikado's flair for theatrical commentary.

The rest of the ten-game lineup mixes familiar late-1980s staples with deep cuts from Taito's hardware history:

• Space Invaders (1978)
• Marine Date (1981)
• Plump Pop (1987)
• Arkanoid: Revenge of DOH (1987)
• Extermination (1987)
• Final Blow (1988)
• Land Sea Air Frontline, known in Japan as Riku Kai Ku Saizensen (1989)
• Crime City (1989)
• Sagaia, the rare three-screen panoramic cabinet version (1989)
• Hat Trick Hero (1990)

Plump Pop and Arkanoid: Revenge of DOH are great paddle-and-ball inclusions, even if playing them with a standard Switch analog stick instead of a dedicated rotary spinner requires a bit of thumb discipline. The real oddity on the list is Marine Date, a 1981 single-screen obstacle course where you guide an octopus through a hazards-filled ocean using a single button. Getting ten games on a single cartridge is still the best way to experience weird early-80s experiments that nobody would ever pay eight dollars for individually on the eShop.

Shooter fans get an interesting variant with the three-screen version of Sagaia, the overseas title for Darius II. While the original Japanese arcade release of Darius II was standardly a two-screen cabinet, Taito also produced a rarer three-screen cabinet iteration. Taito Milestones 2 already gave us the three-screen Japanese version of Darius II, so including the three-screen Sagaia here brings its altered stage layouts and tweaked boss patterns to the same ultra-wide setup. Squinting at a triple-monitor aspect ratio in handheld mode feels like an optometry exam, so you'll definitely want the Switch docked for that one.

Forty arcade games across the first four volumes

I own and love the first four of these collections, and seeing how Taito and Hamster have parceled out the catalog since 2022 makes this fifth volume feel like the missing piece of a very large puzzle. Every volume has mixed major arcade hits with obscure curiosities, exclusively on the Nintendo Switch.

The original Taito Milestones arrived in early 2022 with a heavy focus on the early-to-mid 1980s. It packed in Qix (1981), Space Seeker (1981), Alpine Ski (1982), Front Line (1982), Wild Western (1982), Chack'n Pop (1983), Elevator Action (1983), The Fairyland Story (1985), Halley's Comet (1986), and the original multi-screen action game The Ninja Warriors (1987). Front Line hasn't aged gracefully, with clunky tank-and-infantry controls, but Elevator Action and Qix easily carried that first cartridge.

Taito Milestones 2 followed in August 2023 and shifted toward the late 1980s and early 1990s. Shoot-'em-up fans got a strong trio in Kiki KaiKai (1986), Gun Frontier (1990), and Metal Black (1991), alongside that rare three-screen cabinet version of Darius II (1989). The rest of the cart rounded out the roster with platformers and brawlers: Ben Bero Beh (1984), The Legend of Kage (1985), The NewZealand Story (1988), Liquid Kids (1990), Solitary Fighter (1991), and the delightfully bizarre pre-historic fighting game Dino Rex (1992).

By the time Taito Milestones 3 launched in late 2024, Taito finally brought out its biggest platforming mascots alongside a wave of action brawlers. That volume included Bubble Bobble (1986) and its sequel Rainbow Islands (1987), plus the entire Rastan arcade trilogy: Rastan Saga (1987), Rastan Saga II (1988), and the dual-screen beat-'em-up Warrior Blade: Rastan Saga Episode III (1991). Rounding out the third set were the sword-and-sorcery action-RPG Cadash (1989), Champion Wrestler (1989), Runark (also known as Growl, 1990), Thunder Fox (1990), and the 1992 gangster shoot-out Dead Connection.

Then came Taito Milestones 4 in March 2026, which grabbed several titles that hadn't yet appeared in the standalone Arcade Archives library at the time of its announcement. That fourth cart delivered the original Arkanoid (1986), the trackball-driven maze game Cameltry (1989), and the golden-dragon shooter Syvalion (1988), paired with Water Ski (1983), Field Day (1984), Typhoon Gal (1985), Bonze Adventure (1988), Kuri Kinton (1988), Don Doko Don (1989), and The Ninja Kids (1990).

With fifty games now spread across five physical cartridges, Taito and Hamster have quietly built one of the most thorough publisher-specific libraries on the Switch. If you've already collected the first four, that five-game Space Invaders slipcase is going to be tough to pass up when January rolls around.

Pick up Space Invaders Extreme on Humble Bundle.

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