Truxton (or Tatsujin as it’s known in Japan) was a popular shoot ‘em up by legends of the genre Toaplan. While not quite as well known among their catalog as Zero Wing (due largely to that game’s iconic meme of a translation), Truxton is still well known among fans of the genre and retro game enthusiasts. It’s been 34 years since fans got a hit of Truxton, and developer Tatsujin (not to be confused with the game’s Japanese title) have decided the world has gotten complacent and needs a shoot ‘em up royalty reality check with their latest title, Truxton Extreme.
Truxton!
Truxton Extreme holds a rather distinct honor within the genre in that it has a rather significant narrative, based around the usual concept of an alien force attacking, and your pilot, or in this case, pilots, are the only ones capable of taking on this enemy threat. Unlike many other shoot ‘em ups, Truxton Extreme expands on this quite a lot with an extensive Story Mode for the genre.
It honestly came as a shock at how much story there was with Truxton Extreme. It follows Ash, Bergamont, and Cyrilla, who all have their own personal motives for taking on the insurmountable task of taking on the alien menace. Interestingly, it follows each one individually, giving each character more than enough time to shine and develop, adding more weight to the narrative than the usual “aliens are bad and you’re the only one bad enough to take them on” window dressing you usually get. The comic sections are incredibly well drawn and give what could have been an incredibly basic but effective story even more weight. It’s a brilliantly drawn comic with some great voice acting, and you can tell the developer approached this with care rather than just treating it as a cheap throw-in to add content.
Keeping it Classic
Truxton Extreme is a vertical shoot ‘em up/shmup falling very much in line with the original and other classic ‘80s and ‘90s titles of the genre, which came before the genre got taken over by the “bullet hell” subgenre. It’s a slightly slower pace of shmup with a stronger focus on memorization over reaction, falling more in line with titles like R-Type instead of Psyvariar 3, for example. This is only a slight discrepancy in structure, but it makes a world of difference in how you play and approach stuff like scoring and survival.
Even though there are three pilots in the story mode, you only have the one ship. But rather than just sticking players with one way to play, the ship is customizable with different shots which you can collect within a stage. The shots range from a standard forward shot to screen-covering lighting, and there’s even a spread shot that hits like a tank. You have an EX shot as well, which is stronger and drops collectibles that give you points, but only has a finite amount of meter before you have to build it up. This is in addition to the fact you can adjust your ships’ speed on the fly (another stark difference between the more classic style of shmup and the bullet hell subgenre), and I’m also happy to report the screen-clearing bomb is still here and displays the Skull image when deployed.
The game is set across 6 stages and follows the traditional gameplay loop of slowly working through the stage before you take on the boss. Truxton Extreme does not disappoint in its design. The first boss is the famous one from the original box art for Truxton, but it’s when you hit the second boss that you realize this game has a few nifty tricks up its sleeve. Outside of dodging a barrage of bullets, the boss will also fire out giant missiles which you can use to shield yourself from the beam of death it tends to deploy. Use of cover mechanics in a shoot ‘em up like this, even a somewhat simple application, was quite a thing to marvel at!
I will say, the stages themselves were quite basic in background design and lacked any distinct set pieces. Earlier stages also seem a little too barren and feel like they drag on too much. You also really need to memorize upcoming enemy patterns, as the game just loves to put danger just off-screen in scenarios where it would be incredibly difficult to react to without a little prior knowledge. Once you hit stage 3 and the Truxton really comes out, the stages feel a lot more dynamic and exciting, forcing you to deal with suicide/retributive bullets that home on your location once the enemy has been killed. And that’s not getting into various other nasty stage hazards that get brought in. The game really lulls you into a false sense of security before it reveals its more “extreme” side.
Modus Operandi
For modes, you have the aforementioned story mode that sees you going across 6 stages as one of the three pilots. The way this is handled is somewhat of a letdown. You have to play through the game 3 times to get the full story, with no gameplay differences between runs aside from the pilot used. Remixed enemy patterns or other variations would have been very welcome.
There is an arcade mode which omits the story. You can also find an easy mode which allows you to fly through the game with no risk of a game over, which is ideal for learning the stages and what you’ll be coming up against.
Truxton Extreme also has a local multiplayer mode where you and a partner can take on the alien menace together, controlling a ship each. As my son isn’t a fan of the genre and there is no online feature for this, I was unable to try this mode out properly for myself. There is an online leaderboard for you score chasers out there at least, and a model viewer and extras mode where you can check out the Story Mode comic and other juicy unlockables.
It’s Barren In Space
The visuals of Truxton Extreme are fine, if nothing mind-blowing. It keeps the art direction of the original game, but personally I don’t find anything inspiring about HD textured shoot-em-ups. Outside of the first boss and the bomb animation, there really isn’t anything to make this game really stand out from the crowd from a visual standpoint. It’s a serviceable job at least, and fortunately you don’t have the problem of bullets being obscured and overly distracting backgrounds, but at no point during the game did I feel it looked anything other than ok.
Performance on the Nintendo Switch 2 version of the game is fine. I didn’t notice any slowdown, and there was very little input lag to deal with, if at all. Everything runs just fine, with the only caveat being that you have to sit through numerous loading screens, which can sometimes take upwards of 30 to 45 seconds. Fortunately, they don’t disrupt the gameplay, but it’s still worth a mention.
The comic sections in the story mode are really well drawn, so I have to praise that again, but the main draw from the audiovisual side of things has to go to the soundtrack. The composer of the soundtrack for the original Truxton, Masahiro Yuge, returns and does an amazing job of not only capturing that original sound but putting out some genuinely enjoyable music for the genre. It’s a standout, and makes for a wise decision by the developers to bring the sound of Truxton back here in Truxton Extreme.
Verdict
I enjoyed my time with Truxton Extreme and appreciated the effort put into the story mode. It mostly feels feature-full as well. Though once you peel that layer off, you realise a lot of it is just the same content. A dedicated practice mode wouldn’t have gone amiss, and maybe some alternative enemy patterns or visuals for differing playthroughs of the Story Mode would have staved off the feeling of repetition.
Much like the original Truxton, I have no doubt this game will garner a cult-like following, and I feel this title is strongly aimed towards them while trying to bring in the wider shmup demographic, albeit with mixed results. The bland visuals and initial few stages don’t help matters, so while this is a damn fine shmup in its own right, I just feel that more could have been done to truly make this title a little more extreme and less extremely bloated.
TRUXTON EXTREME IS RECOMMENDED
If you would like to see more Shmup, you may be interested in our review of Under Defeat.
Many thanks go to Clear River Games for a Nintendo Switch 2 review code for this title.
Pride of utopia & greatest thing ever, I found the One Piece, Collected the Dragon Balls & won the Mortal Kombat Tournament in one night, it was quiet for me that night! Follow me on Twitter @powahdunk
