Manufacturer: 
Year: 1988
Other versions
Tatsujin (Japan) 1988
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That's always the same old story: everybody's happy and joyful. Then the ugly and evil aliens come and destroy everything with no apparent reason. And then? Who's gonna send invaders back to their world? Well... it's our turn of course! Today's enemies are named Gidans, and our mission is to overcome two hundreds areas composing eight asteroids where Gidans fortresses are, fight and destroy five giant motherships and finally kill Doguraga (the Gidans' king) and his fortress. Then we'll have the right to go back to Borogo, our native planet. Sounds easy - doesn't it? The game is a classic shoot'em up. Gidans starships attack from all possible directions - from the back too! There are no pauses between phases: the game is a continuous action and you'll often find your ship in the middle of a final boss fight when other minor ships attack! |
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Action begins in open space with a scrolling starfield. At first we encounter alien metallic ships (very well drawn indeed) of various size. The smaller ones attack in formation and it's easy to forsee their next moves. Battle becomes harder as soon as larger enemies appear: they need to be hit more and more times before being destroyed. They're not just more resistant to our bullets, they also have an impressive fire power and force us to tackle their fast bullets as light and... they're never alone when attacking us! We'll soon move to the first asteroid where the Gidians army awaits for us to approach. Lots of blue round turrets attack from the ground, but there's nothing to worry about. Huge and powerful bosses challenge us in phases between one asteroid and the its follower: they're often as wide as half of the screen and do their best in order to prevent us from reaching their chief. As soon as we win against all five monsters we'll finally meet the terrible Gidans king: he's protected by opening and closing shields. We have to shoot when they're open or our weapon will be useless. What after? Well going back to the beginning and start again restless of course! |
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As in most Toaplan shoot'em up videogames, we can collect power-ups and bonuses by destroying certain types of starships and turrets and getting the icon they release. There's a two-player alternating mode, different to the simultaneous game as in Out Zone, the Toaplan masterpiece. There are three shooting configurations: Power Shots, Truxton Beam and Thunder Laser. Each configuration has its own colour: red, green, blue. The Power Shots (red starship) consist of a three-way shooting capability, and we can upgrade it to five-way and then multiple-way (the so-called Rainbow Circle Shot). The Truxton Beam (green starship) is a single-way very powerful green beam. It's very efficient against bosses. It can be powered to shoot three and then five beams (a terrific fire power!) The Thunder Laser (blue starship) is a lightning bolt attack capable of hunting enemies. Can be powered up do three and then five bolts wow! The Destroyer Bomb (icon marked B) is nothing but a smart bomb. |
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The Power Booster icon is marked P and increases the power of the current weapon. At every five we collect, a new red icon appears and it represents you're ready to upgrade. You can get ten of them (five for the first upgrade, five more for the second upgrade). Every power-up (except the uncomplete ones) is lost as your starship is hit. The Speed Booster icon is marked S and it makes your Super Fighter faster. Get five and your ship reaches its maximum speed. Every additional icon is transformed into a bonus worth 5000 points. The 1UP and 2UP icons bring us one/two additional lives - that's quite obvious! All infos are on-screen: from the top-left corner clockwise you'll read score, the number of collected power-ups, highest scor, the number of remaining smart bombs (the blue skulls), lives left. And now, whops, let me beg your pardon: I just see a nasty Gidans getting ready to attack... Where did I put the keys of my Super Fighter? |
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Ratings
PRESENTATION: 60%
Demo mode, score table and beautiful introductory screen.
GRAPHICS: 76%
Great sprites, spectacular graphics.
Backgrounds are average - they
could do much better than this...
SOUND: 86%
Highest quality soundtrack as
most Toaplan games. It highly
involves player
ORIGINALITY: 59%
Shoot, tackle, collect... how
many times did we see that all?
HOOKABILITY: 76%
It doesn't pass unobserved:
well designed for sure!
LASTABILITY: 69%
You might want to throw
the joystick away because of
the high difficulty level!
A great vertically scrolling shoot'em
up. The lack of originality is balanced
by spectacular graphics and sounds.
A must-try, even though quite hard.
This is a typical
"Toaplan-quality" videogame: great soundtrack, lots of bonuses scattered everywhere, lots of available weapons
making this shoot'em-up game interesting for long time. By the way I'm not 100% satisfied... it's nothing peculiar actually
(that's not true for other Toaplan's videogames and especially its masterpiece: Out Zone).
Truxton is an almost-top quality videogame: scrolling screen and animations are smart, there are wonderful backgrounds (in
the final part of the game especially), huge and extremely detailed sprites. Soundtrack contributres in creating a hooking
atmosphere... but there's the lack of "a something" that would make the game perfect.
Game difficulty is probably badly-balanced: our ship often happens to stay in the middle of really hard battles, which you won't
win unless you have the correct weapon against that peculiar enemy. Some other times all you have to do is staying in the middle
of the screen and... shoot at random: some enemy's gonna be hit for sure.
A brief note about the last battle boss: wonderful! You'll enjoy him a lot if you're able to reach out for him! I also suggest you
to play the sequel: Truxton 2 - that's much better than this chapter.
I totally disagree what Zaxxon1
just said! Truxton is a true milestone in shoot'em-up videogames history. Oh yes, it's hard but it's also very very
satisfying. It's difficult to overcome certain phases of the game, but the prize is worth the efforts: you'll then watch new
graphics styles, enjoy a hooking soundtrack both varying at every phase.
Graphics are simply beautiful, enemies don't differ in their look but also attack modes and squadron formations are much
innovative - even though shoot'em ups are rarely innovative heh! End area bosses are tough indeed and most of the times you'll
have to use one or more smart bomb against them - at first at least...
Weapons are terrific: beautiful to see and lethal to use against enemy crafts, the shining effect of the Thunder Laser
brings a special sense of power. I also suggest not to get the fifth "speed" pickup or your Power Fighter will go
as fast as light, making it very hard to maneuver!
Well here's another shoot'em up. I
have to admit I had no idea about what expected me before writing this review. Well I still have no exact idea about it: that's a
shooter, there are enemy starships, your ship's bullets, other bullets, smart bombs, power-ups... and again bullets, enemy starships,
smart bombs etc. So, that's a shooter, nothing more than that. Presentation doesn't even exist.Power-ups are nothing special, opponent starships always attack in the same ways (at first at least - sorry I had no strength to go further than that). It's sooo boring - even graphics is poor... all but varying.
The soundtrack is the best part of the lot: very involving and pleasant. What else... if you ever see a cabinet marked "Truxton" I sugegst you to keep coins in your pocket: there's much else you can do with them - playing Bubble Bobble for example.
