Truxton
System: Genesis
Release Date: December 1989
Developer: Toaplan
Publisher: Sega
Genre: Shoot ‘Em Up
Despite being an avid Genesis owner in the early 90s, I had never seen or heard of Truxton before. As a fan of vertical scrolling shooters, I was eager to play as I looked up what it was. While it was decent, it pales in comparison to Blazing Lazers. The story is boiler plate: aliens are hell bent on Earth’s destruction and it’s up to one man to stop them… your name? Tom the Bomb.
There are three types of weapons you can switch between as you find their icons. Your default weapon is the red spreadshot. The green are missile-like lasers. The blue is a lightning gun that homes in on deadlier enemies. Weapons can be powered up to provide more projectiles or beams as you collect P icons to power them up. The red beam adds a shield when it powers up all the way. You start off moving at molasses speed, but can pick up S icons to increase your movement.
Any speed and weapon levels are lost when you take a hit and die, but you keep however many P icons you have in reserve. In this way, it’s possible to come back with a fully powered up weapon. You can choose to fire a single shot at a time with the A Button or hold down the C Button for rapid fire. A screen clearing (or boss damaging) bomb can be dropped with the B Button. These also cancel out enemy projectiles, so are helpful in a pinch.
I preferred the lightning gun in my playthrough, as it kept me safe from having to be directly below bosses to hurt them. Most of the time you’ll find yourself holding the C Button down and moving left and right to wipe the screen of enemies. One design flaw is that enemies can enter from the bottom of the screen, but you can’t shoot behind you, so you’ll get hit with cheap deaths. Another is that later enemies get blue projectiles, which can blend into the lightning gun, so you explode without realizing why. Continues can be earned by reaching score milestones.
As is the case with many powerup based shooters, if you die near the end of a level, completing it becomes very difficult with the low power default gun. This typically results in a trip to the continue screen armed with hopes that you will avoid the kill spot in your next try.
Graphics: 3.0
Everything is clear and detailed, though not spectacular.
Sound: 2.0
Music sounds like Genesis music, but it’s not great or particularly memorable.
Gameplay: 2.5
There are pros and cons to each of the weapons. Using the bombs to clear the screen of projectiles is an important skill to learn.
Difficulty: 3.0
I think there’s enough challenge, but there is bad design that makes some of it unfair. Continues can be plentiful.
Fun Factor: 2.5
This isn’t the most fun vertical scroller I’ve played recently, but it wasn’t a waste of time.
Overall Grade: 2.6
Truxton earns a B-. This is a decent game that you should try if you like the genre.