Truxton Review: Reliving The Past
Seeing the rerelease of classic games on Steam always makes me happy. There are so many fantastic titles that could use the exposure to modern audiences. That’s why I was thrilled when I saw that Bitwave Games would be releasing a set of Toaplan shooters, with Truxton possibly being the biggest name among them. Originally released in the arcades back in the late 80s, with Genesis and PC Engine versions following, Truxton has long been known for its extreme difficulty, but does anything else stand out about it in 2023?
The Right Stuff
Truxton is still a very playable game today. A relatively basic space shooter, each level is filled with three different weapons you can use to fight your way past an incredibly difficult selection of spaceships and enemies. You had a basic red attack which is about as generic an option as a shooter can give you. There’s a green energy attack which is also cool. Finally, you have a blue lightning weapon that locks on and is by far my favorite of the options here. It’s incredibly satisfying to use.
Unlike in a lot of shooters, your initial attack isn’t weak and useless. While it’s true that you can upgrade each weapon, ultimately enabling you to do devastating damage to even bosses, the initial weapons you get are still plenty dangerous. That’s good, because Truxton is well known as being an incredibly difficult game, and that remains true here, though you can lower the difficulty and enable a bunch of different assist options, which will be welcomed by modern players who just want to have fun blasting through a fun shooter and aren’t worried about a 1CC clear. There are even rewind and save state options which are nice to have available and work great. If you are someone who cares about mastering the game, there’s also a cool practice mode available to you where you can get into a pretty absurd level of detail in how you want to tackle challenges.
Considering how good even the default weapons are, however, it’s strange how devastating death still is to a run. That’s not new for SHMUPs, but it still annoys me when a game bothers giving you a bunch of lives to use when losing one pretty much dooms you. That’s often the case here. Oh, if you die early in an area, you might be alright, but against a boss? Forget about it. Your weaker weapons might be workable if not for the fact that you also lose your speed power-ups which will leave you without any real chance unless you plan to liberally rely on the rewind mechanic.
Lacking In Presentation
From a presentation standpoint, Truxton is very much of its time. The soundtrack is standard electronic music from the early 90s, which has a ton of energy but isn’t particularly memorable. It does the job and sets the tone, but it’s not going to be a favorite of genre fans.
More of an issue is the game’s look, which is very generic. Backgrounds are lacking much in the way of detail, and they start repeating after only a few levels. Some of the attacks, including your rather awesome-looking bombs, are a notable exception, but this is the sort of game that someone who has never played Truxton would never pick out of a lineup.
Conclusion
Truxton has its flaws, and in a lot of ways, it feels very much of its time. That said, it has one major thing going for it. It simply feels good to play. With tight controls, one notably awesome weapon, and a soundtrack that sets the tone I want out of the genre, I came away from my time with Truxton with a smile on my face. It isn’t going to blow fans of the genre away, and there are definitely better options out there, but there’s still plenty of fun to be had with Truxton, even after all this time.
Final Verdict: 3.5/5
Available on: PC (Reviewed); Publisher: Bitwave Games; Developer: Bitwave Games, Toaplan; Players: 1; Released: February 14th, 2023; ESRB: TBA; MSRP: $7.99
Full disclosure: This review is based on a copy of Truxton provided by the publisher.
