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Truxton (Tatsujin) [Sega Genesis]

T-Pac

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Played Truxton (Tatsujin) [Sega Genesis].

Truxton is a bit of a cult-classic early 16-bit space-shooter, and I’ve had a secondhand affinity for it ever since I started watching Classic Game Room (which constantly references it as a running gag) in the primordial days of YouTube. It feels almost like a natural evolution of Star Soldier from some parallel timeline where Hudson Soft didn’t develop the successive Soldier games, and instead Toaplan took the reins. My copy of the game is actually the Japanese release, Tatsujin, but I was surprised to see it boot-up as “Truxton”, since it apparently auto-detects the region of whatever system you’re playing on.

The biggest draw of Truxton is its mesmerizing weapons, namely the 3-pronged homing electric beam. In any other shoot-em-up, a laser like that would render you near-invincible, yet Truxton’s frenetic design keeps you on your toes even at full-power. This makes the game’s trademark, screen-clearing skull-bombs all the more indispensable. Luckily, easy mode (which I obviously played on) is generous enough to reset your bomb-count and power-level after each death (and even on each new credit). Credits are unlimited as well, although the checkpoint system is precarious in that dying early in a section can sometimes send you back to a previous checkpoint.

Truxton’s gameplay places extremely heavy emphasis on split-second bullet dodging in cramped quarters of enemy-filled screens. So for someone like me, who has the reflexes of a geriatric sloth moving through half-cured cement, finishing this game felt like a monumental accomplishment (even on easy mode).

Truxton would have the trappings of a great pick-up-and-play title, if not for the punishing boss fights that ruined any sort of momentum I’d gained in the stages themselves. That being said, the game left a positive impression on me even if it isn’t fit for frequent revisits. 

[T-Pac]

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Sumez

The MegaDrive port is a popular one, but from what I've seen of it, I don't really want to play it. The play area looks so constrained due to the squeezed horizontal/vertical orientation, and the enemy bullets are really hard to see, it must make the final stage a pure nightmare.

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easy mode (which I obviously played on) is generous enough to reset your bomb-count and power-level after each death

This happens on any mode - at least on arcade anyway. In Toaplan games you generally want to use all of your bombs all the time, because restocks are plentiful, and you always spawn with a bunch. It's only on the final stage (again, on arcade) that I really had to be conservative with my bombs, because I needed them to get through tight spots.

What I think is most unique about Tatsujin is how much your ship speed affects gameplay. Ideally you'd stop one or two powerups beneath max to get the best control of the ship, being able to dodge bullets on reaction, but since powering over max is so strongly tied to scoring, I feel enticed to always power to max even if I'm not actually playing for score, because I know it's what the game wants me to do.
So most of the time I'll be at either lowest speed (due to recently dying) or highest speed (due to not dying), which massively changes what the game plays like. On slow speed you want to preemptively dodge every aimed bullet, moving all the time and avoid getting trapped. At max speed, you can't possibly micrododge, and need to memorize stages and play strategically in a way that every obstacle can be dodge by being in a specific spot or just slamming all the way to the left or right.

Overall there's a ton of memo in Tatsujin, but I love it regardless.

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T-Pac
4 hours ago, Sumez said:

The MegaDrive port is a popular one, but from what I've seen of it, I don't really want to play it. The play area looks so constrained due to the squeezed horizontal/vertical orientation, and the enemy bullets are really hard to see, it must make the final stage a pure nightmare.

This happens on any mode - at least on arcade anyway. In Toaplan games you generally want to use all of your bombs all the time, because restocks are plentiful, and you always spawn with a bunch. It's only on the final stage (again, on arcade) that I really had to be conservative with my bombs, because I needed them to get through tight spots.

What I think is most unique about Tatsujin is how much your ship speed affects gameplay. Ideally you'd stop one or two powerups beneath max to get the best control of the ship, being able to dodge bullets on reaction, but since powering over max is so strongly tied to scoring, I feel enticed to always power to max even if I'm not actually playing for score, because I know it's what the game wants me to do.
So most of the time I'll be at either lowest speed (due to recently dying) or highest speed (due to not dying), which massively changes what the game plays like. On slow speed you want to preemptively dodge every aimed bullet, moving all the time and avoid getting trapped. At max speed, you can't possibly micrododge, and need to memorize stages and play strategically in a way that every obstacle can be dodge by being in a specific spot or just slamming all the way to the left or right.

Overall there's a ton of memo in Tatsujin, but I love it regardless.

I thought the "hard to see bullets" was a problem with the PC Engine port - I must have them mixed-up, but at least it isn't as bad as the near-invisible bullets in Phalanx haha.

Interesting to hear that you're meant to use smart bombs so liberally - I don't have much experience with Toaplan shooters, so that was a bit of a novel concept for me to get used-to (as someone who naturally likes to conserve any sort of limited-ammo). You're right about the speed, too - I had to actively avoid speed-ups so I wouldn't get too fast and run into stuff all the time.

And I definitely didn't expect Tatsujin to be a memo-heavy shooter, but that's probably why I ended up liking it so much. I'm an R-Type guy at heart, so those kinds of shoot-em-ups tend to go over well with me.

(Love hearing your take on all this, by the way. You really know your space-shooters, @Sumez!)

[T-Pac]

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