tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

[ZPScissors]

[PerishedFraud ឵឵]

you died to potatoes

[Sumez]

Hot damn, so close to the goal!

[ZPScissors]

Just two checkpoints left...

[To Far Away Times]

Tatsujin-Oh takes no prisoners. It is merciless. Crazy to make it that far.

[bcass]

@NMS and @Flobeamer1922 - what autofire did you use for your playthrough? Rapid Fire set to ON in the board settings, or did you configure a MAME autofire via the Plugin Options?

[Sengoku Strider]

Funny to see this thread pop up. I've been playing a lot of early Mega Drive stuff lately, and I was literally just thinking that in context, Tatsujin/Truxton really comes out looking like the cream of the early crop. Super Shinobi, Ghouls n' Ghosts & I guess Phantasy Star II are the only games from that first year that can really hang with it. Any kid whose parents got them Truxton that first Genesis Christmas lucked out. It's baffling to me that EGM gave it mediocre reviews back in the day. They really thought Thunder Force II came across as the better game? Ah well, time has certainly told the tale on that one.

[Flobeamer1922]

@NMS and @Flobeamer1922 - what autofire did you use for your playthrough? Rapid Fire set to ON in the board settings, or did you configure a MAME autofire via the Plugin Options?

For Truxton II, we use the built-in autofire. External auto is useless for the game because your firing rate is locked at 15 Hz, no matter what.

[bcass]

Same for Tatsujin Oh?

[Flobeamer1922]

Yes.

[bcass]

Another question - when your ship is at max power and subsequent power-ups collected give score instead, do those collected score power-ups also increase rank?

[Flobeamer1922]

Rank is only tied to power level.

[bcass]

Is it incremental (goes up slightly with each power-up) or does it simply activate when you reach max power? It's difficult to tell when playing, except when you hit max rank, which is when it becomes very obvious.

[Flobeamer1922]

Rank increases every time you power up. In Truxton II, the rank value goes up by 2 units per power level increase, and in Tatsujin Oh, it goes up by 4 units.
For the purposes of loop 1, rank in Truxton II starts at 12 units, and maxes out at 20 once you hit max power. With Tatsujin Oh, it starts at 16 units, and maxes out at 32.

[bcass]

I guess there is no point in trying to manage rank in Tatsujin Oh then? Just try to survive for as long as possible at max? Avoiding power-ups would be an additional headache.

[Flobeamer1922]

Rank management is important when recovering. For the second-to-last checkpoint on stage 6, for example, once I have the red weapon, I avoid every other powerup for the rest of the stage so as not to raise rank, since that part becomes significantly harder at higher rank values.

[bcass]

Can you remember at what points you start managing rank? And do you always try to manage it the same way? E.g. only collect a single power-up and avoid all the rest? Also, in your opinion, what is the earliest point at which a death would be acceptable in a run? I'm guessing no earlier than stage 4?

[Flobeamer1922]

When recovering, I usually start keeping rank in mind towards the end of loop 1. The first four stages are manageable at any rank level, I'd say. It's much more of a concern in loop 2, really. As for resets, honestly, I would play out a credit that took one death on the stage 1 boss. The stage extends you can potentially get after the stage 2 boss and at the start of stage 4 can make up for an early death.

[NMS]

Can you remember at what points you start managing rank? And do you always try to manage it the same way? E.g. only collect a single power-up and avoid all the rest? Also, in your opinion, what is the earliest point at which a death would be acceptable in a run? I'm guessing no earlier than stage 4?

Regarding rank, I only care for specific parts. This is only referring to loop 1:
- During stage 5, for the section with the big green enemies (the "frogs"), after the opening part with the crabs. One reason is that if you didn't die too much before (but took a death early in stage 5), one of the speed-ups during this section should be replaced by a bomb item because that's how the item list works. So at some point you would have like 3 power-ups for 1 speed, and the rank just feels too high for the low speed. I actually grab the blue weapon on purpose at some point (and switch to red later), since it doesn't increase the power level (and therefore rank), and it's pretty effective there. You get so many power-ups after this part that you can afford to not get to max power immediately.
- The last 2 checkpoints in stage 6. For the last checkpoint, it's only a concern if I'm on my last life and the ship from the original Tatsujin appears and drops two power-ups: I actually don't want these power-ups since it would make the final boss much harder. I want to do the final boss with one power-up.
For the rest it's manageable at any rank in my opinion. Of course loop 2 is a different thing but I don't know enough about it.

But the rest of the time, I'd say to just grab any power-up you can, generally speaking. You should only start thinking about it in Stage 5. Though maybe it could be worth managing rank if you died near the end of stage 4, so you don't have to face the boss at max rank (he's just super hard at max rank but can be done with 0 bombs at low rank if you're confident enough). But that's only me thinking out loud, maybe you need decent firepower to deal with the section just before.

Regarding deaths, one thing to note is that you can't make bonus extends appear from the crates (the ones you bomb) if you have more than a certain amount of lives in stock (I forgot how many, think it's 6). Which means that on no-miss pace, you usually don't get the one at the beginning of stage 4 since you should have reached the lives threshold from score + the extend in stage 3. If you died before that point however, then you can get this extend and it makes up for your early death.

So really, thanks to this, one death before Stage 4 is perfectly fine and has little to no impact since you get one life that you wouldn't have gotten on no-miss pace.

My "reset point" is the beginning of Stage 2. As long as I beat the Stage 1 boss, I keep going. Any death before just feels too early so I reset, but for any death after I just keep going.

[bcass]

Thanks for the info guys. I'm currently only practising stages 1 to 3 and will move on to 4 to 6 when 1-3 are burned into memory. I estimate it will take at least a month to get comfortable with them, then god knows how long 3-6 are going to take.

[MintyTheCat]

I started playing tatsujin-ou on the Astro City Mini V using the official pad. The pad makes my fingers ache after an extended play - I need to get a stick to play it.

I hadn't played it for near 10+ years and what a beautiful, punisher it still is I used to be able to get much further. I never used to play for score though.
Last night I understood why I never trusted the blue laser weapon and how some of the zako try to collide with your ship.

Still, it's a good Shmup and a LOT harder than the first game.

One of the main reasons that I bought the ASM-V was because my PCB needs to be repaired and I had missed it.

I shall put some serious time into this again

[Fudoh]

Justforgames has the Astro sticks in both colors for 128 EUR shipped via Ebay. Not the worst offer considering it's coming from within the EU.

[MintyTheCat]

Justforgames has the Astro sticks in both colors for 128 EUR shipped via Ebay. Not the worst offer considering it's coming from within the EU.

Aye, as soon as I have the cash I shall make an order - cheers, Fudoh

[bcass]

I have some Tatsujin Oh (personal) milestones to report, after a month of practise:

- stage 1, 2, 3 no-missed (individually)
- stage 1 + 2 no-miss

I almost have stages 1 to 3 no-miss, will probably take me another week or so at my current practise rate. Even when you get reasonably consistent at stages 1 to 3, I image your odds are something like 1 in 30 for a no-miss, unless you're exceptionally experienced. I haven't played much of stages 4 to 6 yet, but I imagine most of that practise will be learning recovery points. With a reasonable proficiency on those last 3 stages, I'm going to guess that your odds of completing them are going to be less than the odds of no-missing stages 1 to 3. So once you have the whole game practised well, I think my odds of a clear are around 1 in 70. Take into account nerves towards the end of such a long run (the main thing that kills most of my full-game runs) and it's probably more like 1 in 100+. Some of the recovery point in stages 1 to 3 are very difficult, so for me I would always reset on a death before stage 3 boss.

Interestingly, I find stage 2 to be more difficult than stage 3. It seems a lot longer and there are much more dense bullet patterns to avoid, and although the boss isn't super-hard it does require quite precise manoeuvring.

[mycophobia]

stage 3 isn't bad but the penultimate checkpoint is a potential run killer for me if i die there. the dudes swooping in from the sides are motherfuckers

[bcass]

stage 3 isn't bad but the penultimate checkpoint is a potential run killer for me if i die there. the dudes swooping in from the sides are motherfuckers

I struggled with that bit for a long time as well. I tried copying what NMS and Flobeamer1922 do in their videos, but I wasn't having much success with it so I developed a slightly different approach:

https://youtu.be/IrUjLmvEu-8

I do a kind of rectangular movement in the second part (after the big ship), whilst staying within the boundaries of the road below so I never crash into the side attacking enemies. This gives more coverage over the enemies coming from the bottom which destroys them with enough time to get back to the top ready for the next wave of those side-attack enemies.

[bcass]

Progress update: stage 4 no-missed. Yes, it really has taken me that long to no-miss this stage. No-missing a stage is my criteria for advancing onto practice for the next stage. However, in my defence, I did change joystick in Nov from a Sanwa JLF (with higher tension spring) to a Korean lever (Taeyoung Fanta with cherry microswitches, 9mm shaft, switch support plate, 3D printed full collar square gate, 16.5mm actuator). The difference in precision movement is staggering but it's still taken me a while to get used to this stick, it's very different from the JLF I was using. I also spent a lot of time learning the recovery points at the end of stage 4 as even getting to the boss with 3 bombs in stock, it can still be tough at max rank.

[bcass]

Start of stage 5 @ max rank - holy shit. I wasn't expecting the game to get any easier, but I wasn't expecting it to get that much harder either. NMS - in your video I notice you die here. Is that deliberate to lower the rank?

[mycophobia]

stages 5 and 6 comprise one of the most brutal stretches of shmup in existence. the game goes from serious to dead serious there. good luck

[MJR]

stages 5 and 6 comprise one of the most brutal stretches of shmup in existence. the game goes from serious to dead serious there. good luck

I can't even beat first Truxton on single credit, despite playing it all my life and having the PCB for years - and yes I do have even autofire on my cabinet. So kudos to anyone who can get anywhere on Truxton 2. I can get as far as stage 2 before I get completely bitch slapped.