tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

This is the main shmups forum. Chat about shmups in here - keep it on-topic please!
User avatar
OmegaFlareX
Posts: 884
Joined: Tue Jan 25, 2005 10:15 pm
Location: Virginia, USA

Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by OmegaFlareX »

gameoverDude wrote:Tatsujin-ou on the Marty/FMT was 90 UKP at that time... Damn. In USD I'm sure that would've been over $110, right?
According to this, the Pound was worth ~1.5x more than USD in 1993, so $135. God damn.
Craft_XIII
Posts: 49
Joined: Sat Aug 27, 2016 7:49 pm

Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by Craft_XIII »

"Chunky"
That's the first adjective that comes to mind when I think of Truxton, specifically the Genesis/Mega Drive version.
Give me a model 1 Genesis(for the superbly grimy sound-chip), that fat knob Sega stick, and a copy of Truxton and I'm a happy man.
The big detailed sprites, the crisp sound effects/music, the awesome firepower, weighty movement, and stiff challenge...

I love Toaplan shooters.

Truxton and Fireshark for Genesis both hold a special place in my heart. And I hadn't played either of these games until about 5 years ago as a grown-ass man. So it ain't nostalgia. I love Batsugun, and some of the other bullet-hell shooters it help pioneer... but I've always loved the classic Toaplan style shooters and the traditional Raiden type games much more. ...Unless I'm high, then it's DoDonpachi, Bug Princess all day. I got a highscore in Bug Princess once that I don't even remember, and have yet to even come close to when sober. It's Toaplan for drink & Cave for smoke at my house.

I only play strategy games and "Souls" games sober...
Kanada
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Jul 16, 2018 4:44 pm

Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by Kanada »

Cool shmup
User avatar
pmp
Posts: 81
Joined: Wed Nov 29, 2017 7:45 am

Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by pmp »

What are the important differences between Tatsujin Ou and Truxton II? I’ve been going back and forth between the two games and haven’t seen anything obvious.
parallaxscroll2
Posts: 156
Joined: Mon Sep 17, 2012 3:30 am

Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by parallaxscroll2 »

Speaking of Fire Shark, an assortment of reviews from the U.S. and UK.

Electronic Gaming Monthly #15 October 1990
Image

Mega Play #2 February 1991
Image

RAZE (UK) #4 February 1991
Image

Computer and Video Games (UK) #110 January 1991
(clearly, this is Fire Shark, not Sky Shark)
Image

ZERO (UK) issue 33 - July 1992
Image
User avatar
FRO
Posts: 2263
Joined: Tue Jan 25, 2005 10:25 pm
Location: Nebraska, USA
Contact:

Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by FRO »

Thanks for the scans, parallaxscroll2! Fire Shark is probably my favorite Toaplan shmup, and definitely cut from the same mold as Truxton/Tatsujin. The Genesis version is pretty great.
User avatar
mycophobia
Posts: 751
Joined: Thu Sep 22, 2016 4:08 pm
Contact:

Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by mycophobia »

pmp wrote:What are the important differences between Tatsujin Ou and Truxton II? I’ve been going back and forth between the two games and haven’t seen anything obvious.
from what I can tell Truxton 2 is just Tatsujin Ou but with the difficulty dipswitches moved down a notch, meaning Truxton 2's Normal is Tatsujin Ou's Easy. The difference, I believe, is mainly enemy aggressiveness in terms of how often and how quickly they fire. Interestingly, Truxton 2's Easy actually lowers enemy and boss HP so you can do stuff like bomb the stage 3 boss to death without having to time him out. the game's probably a little too easy at that level though because you end up destroying a lot of enemies before they even start firing.
User avatar
BrianC
Posts: 8859
Joined: Wed Jan 26, 2005 1:33 am
Location: MD

Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by BrianC »

Nice to see that Fire Shark got favorable reviews BITD. Not sure about that 99 levels thing, though. Funny how Computer and Video Games UK listed it as Sky Shark. Too bad there isn't an actual port of Sky Shark for the Genesis.


edit: Fire Shark's level counter stops at 99, but continues looping. Not sure when difficulty stops increasing.
User avatar
pmp
Posts: 81
Joined: Wed Nov 29, 2017 7:45 am

Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by pmp »

mycophobia wrote:Truxton 2's Easy actually lowers enemy and boss HP so you can do stuff like bomb the stage 3 boss to death without having to time him out.
So you still need to bomb spam the boss to kill it even on the easiest difficulty. Yeesh.
I've only ever gotten up to the stage 3 boss, is this not a problem with the later one also?
User avatar
Shepardus
Posts: 3505
Joined: Sat Dec 13, 2014 10:01 pm
Location: Ringing the bells of fortune

Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by Shepardus »

mycophobia wrote:the game's probably a little too easy at that level though because you end up destroying a lot of enemies before they even start firing.
I can't rightfully call Truxton II too easy with all the crap it still throws at you - it's more that the game's difficulty (both Tatsujin Ou and Truxton II) fluctuates a ton. Even Tatsujin Ou is really easy in many places.
pmp wrote:
mycophobia wrote:Truxton 2's Easy actually lowers enemy and boss HP so you can do stuff like bomb the stage 3 boss to death without having to time him out.
So you still need to bomb spam the boss to kill it even on the easiest difficulty. Yeesh.
I've only ever gotten up to the stage 3 boss, is this not a problem with the later one also?
The stage 3 boss is probably the most BS out of all of them (without the timeout strategy), but the later bosses are also terrible at high rank.
Image
NTSC-J: You know STGs are in trouble when you have threads on how to introduce them to a wider audience and get more people playing followed by threads on how to get its hardcore fan base to play them, too.
1CCs | Twitch | YouTube
User avatar
mycophobia
Posts: 751
Joined: Thu Sep 22, 2016 4:08 pm
Contact:

Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by mycophobia »

Shepardus wrote:
mycophobia wrote:the game's probably a little too easy at that level though because you end up destroying a lot of enemies before they even start firing.
I can't rightfully call Truxton II too easy with all the crap it still throws at you - it's more that the game's difficulty (both Tatsujin Ou and Truxton II) fluctuates a ton. Even Tatsujin Ou is really easy in many places.
I meant Truxton II on Easy is probably a little too easy. I can basically sleepwalk to the end of the fourth stage before things start getting really hairy. Truxton II on normal is still probably a little too hard, which points to the main problem of Tatsujin Ou in general being that enemies and bosses just have way too much HP. If they'd turned that down a bit and maybe upped enemy aggressiveness to compensate then you'd still have a very difficult but much more fair game imo.
User avatar
Shepardus
Posts: 3505
Joined: Sat Dec 13, 2014 10:01 pm
Location: Ringing the bells of fortune

Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by Shepardus »

Ah I misread the post. I've never tried adjusting the difficulty dipswitches myself. Wonder how hard it'd be to make a hack of Tatsujin Ou that increases the damage of all your weapons.
Image
NTSC-J: You know STGs are in trouble when you have threads on how to introduce them to a wider audience and get more people playing followed by threads on how to get its hardcore fan base to play them, too.
1CCs | Twitch | YouTube
User avatar
pmp
Posts: 81
Joined: Wed Nov 29, 2017 7:45 am

Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by pmp »

I made a cheat for Truxton 2 which sets your minimum weapon/power/speed so you don't go down to nothing every time you die.
https://gist.github.com/pmpforever/9d37 ... 9e4808b98b
User avatar
mycophobia
Posts: 751
Joined: Thu Sep 22, 2016 4:08 pm
Contact:

Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by mycophobia »

That works for the practical purpose of easier recovery I spose. Ultimately though I'd like to come up with a rebalance hack that, as I mentioned before, lowers enemy/boss HP and increases their aggressiveness w/ regards to attack speed and frequency. just, yknow....effort. every time I crack open the mame debugger my eyes glaze over as I realize I have no idea how to use this thing and would rather go play a game or something lol.

in other news I tried MD Truxton yesterday and found out there's a crazy difficulty spike starting on stage 5. Like it goes from easy mode to arcade difficulty instantly. Not only that but the checkpoints are in completely different places, and there's a weird fuck-you zako pattern right after the last major meteor section about halfway through the stage. prolly gonna stick with the AC version O_o
User avatar
pmp
Posts: 81
Joined: Wed Nov 29, 2017 7:45 am

Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by pmp »

Ya a romhack is a bit beyond me as well. To just increase weapon power you can raise the shot level above 4 but that’s not really ideal either. The best solution would be to manually adjust the health of problematic enemies. Finding the where the initial health values are stored for each enemy could be a lot of work and certainly tedious to do.
User avatar
mycophobia
Posts: 751
Joined: Thu Sep 22, 2016 4:08 pm
Contact:

Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by mycophobia »

can't clear MD Truxton lol. wasn't this supposed to be easier ?? :p
User avatar
mycophobia
Posts: 751
Joined: Thu Sep 22, 2016 4:08 pm
Contact:

Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by mycophobia »

MD Tatsujin stage 3 boss and stage 5 boss are harder than their AC counterparts if you're recovering. Stage 3 in particular, it's really hard to get the two bombs at the beginning of the boss checkpoint whereas it's trivial in the AC version, and in stage 5 if you die right at the beginning of the boss checkpoint you get sent back one, whereas in the AC version you're there no matter what. But these are smaller issues compared to the main one, which is that the reduced screen height makes their bullet spreads far more dangerous and much harder to dodge on reaction. I spent 8 lives trying to kill the final boss on MD Tatsujin today whereas on AC I wouldn't have spent more than one. The patterns are the same it's just that even if you're at the bottom of the screen the boss is right in your face.
User avatar
Despatche
Posts: 4196
Joined: Thu Dec 02, 2010 11:05 pm

Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by Despatche »

Most important thread right now.

MD Tatsujin was supposed to be different, not really easier. Honestly, nearly all the MD Toaplan ports seem like that. Same!x3 was supposed to be easier, but that's because the original game is insane.
Rage Pro, Rage Fury, Rage MAXX!
User avatar
gameoverDude
Posts: 2269
Joined: Wed Jan 26, 2005 12:28 am
Contact:

Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by gameoverDude »

mycophobia wrote:can't clear MD Truxton lol. wasn't this supposed to be easier ?? :p
That's how I feel about Genesis Twin Cobra compared to the arcade. The Genesis release is labeled as Twin Cobra but it's really Kyukyoku Tiger in disguise, complete with checkpoints. Some parts I could sail through on the arcade turned out to be totally non-trivial here.
Kinect? KIN NOT.
User avatar
OmegaFlareX
Posts: 884
Joined: Tue Jan 25, 2005 10:15 pm
Location: Virginia, USA

Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by OmegaFlareX »

I also found MD Twin Cobra to be rather difficult compared to other ports.

I had a dream about playing Tatsujin Ou last night, but it was really different. Like, right before the first boss, there an initial phase where panels from the ground opened in random locations and fired really fast shots at you. Then the boss flew in from the top. I must be losing my mind, I haven't even played the game in many months.
Metalsludge
Posts: 52
Joined: Tue Nov 09, 2010 4:13 am
Location: USA

Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by Metalsludge »

OmegaFlareX wrote:I also found MD Twin Cobra to be rather difficult compared to other ports.

I had a dream about playing Tatsujin Ou last night, but it was really different. Like, right before the first boss, there an initial phase where panels from the ground opened in random locations and fired really fast shots at you. Then the boss flew in from the top. I must be losing my mind, I haven't even played the game in many months.
Can Tatsujin Ou cause madness? :wink: I know it's just me, but... something about Tatsujin Ou always gave me the creeps.

The often cheery music and colorful graphics don't quite cover the way the game feels kind of coldly relentless. It's run time for even one loop is nearly twice as long as that of most modern shmups, so the game requires endurance, with no official notification of having reached new stages, and more enemies flying at you even right after defeating a boss. The difficulty seems designed to annihilate the player even more than usual, the alien landscapes and enemies can feel a bit eerie, skulls are the game's symbol, and that screaming face in the bomb...

If I ever wrote a horror story featuring a shmup, it would probably include something inspired by Tatsujin Ou.
Vludi
Posts: 447
Joined: Tue Feb 23, 2016 3:03 am
Location: Chile

Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by Vludi »

Main difficulty increase in the MD port is removing some crucial checkpoints in the last stage, also some enemies shoot off-screen which can be really annoying. On the positive side the maxed out Tatsujin laser gives a lot of slowdown so that helps.
MD Tatsujin is supposed to be quite harder than MD Truxton also.
Martinov
Posts: 158
Joined: Thu Jan 18, 2007 3:36 pm
Location: UK

Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by Martinov »

Vludi wrote:MD Tatsujin is supposed to be quite harder than MD Truxton also.
Yes, definitely. Switching back and forth between MD Truxton and Tatsujin on emulator, you can see that the enemy fire more in Tatsujin (not to mention the bullets travel a lot faster too). I swear some of the mid-bosses also require more hits to kill too.
User avatar
mycophobia
Posts: 751
Joined: Thu Sep 22, 2016 4:08 pm
Contact:

Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by mycophobia »

arrggh why did they have to fuck with the checkpoints so hard on stage 5. I hate it so much. feels like recovery is just fucking impossible in the latter part.
User avatar
gameoverDude
Posts: 2269
Joined: Wed Jan 26, 2005 12:28 am
Contact:

Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by gameoverDude »

OmegaFlareX wrote:I also found MD Twin Cobra to be rather difficult compared to other ports.

I had a dream about playing Tatsujin Ou last night, but it was really different. Like, right before the first boss, there an initial phase where panels from the ground opened in random locations and fired really fast shots at you. Then the boss flew in from the top. I must be losing my mind, I haven't even played the game in many months.
Sounds like that bit in Giga Wing Generations stage 4 on the flying fortress, with the flipping blocks that reveal sniper turrets. They fire a few shots then turn over.
Kinect? KIN NOT.
User avatar
OmegaFlareX
Posts: 884
Joined: Tue Jan 25, 2005 10:15 pm
Location: Virginia, USA

Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by OmegaFlareX »

Metalsludge wrote:Can Tatsujin Ou cause madness? :wink: I know it's just me, but... something about Tatsujin Ou always gave me the creeps.

The often cheery music and colorful graphics don't quite cover the way the game feels kind of coldly relentless. It's run time for even one loop is nearly twice as long as that of most modern shmups, so the game requires endurance, with no official notification of having reached new stages, and more enemies flying at you even right after defeating a boss. The difficulty seems designed to annihilate the player even more than usual, the alien landscapes and enemies can feel a bit eerie, skulls are the game's symbol, and that screaming face in the bomb...

If I ever wrote a horror story featuring a shmup, it would probably include something inspired by Tatsujin Ou.
No, not just you, Ou is definitely a creepy-ass game. The happy music in stage 5 is a direct contrast to the terrifying environment and enemies.

You can tell when there's a new stage when the music changes! Same with the first Tatsujin and Vimana.
gameoverDude wrote:Sounds like that bit in Giga Wing Generations stage 4 on the flying fortress, with the flipping blocks that reveal sniper turrets. They fire a few shots then turn over.
I've never played GWG so it probably didn't come from that. Raiden possibly? I bet there's dozens of shmups I'm not thinking of that feature similar targets.
User avatar
bottino
Posts: 162
Joined: Thu Feb 01, 2018 10:05 pm
Location: Brazil

Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by bottino »

I'm fairly proficient at Tatsujin/Truxton MD ( not so much with the arcade version, I'm afraid ), but I could never find a reliable strategy to beat the final boss at max ranking; he's way to close to your ship, his shots are very fast and there's not much room to maneuver.

I can only safely deal with him at the lowest ranking ( fortunately, there's a very convenient checkpoint just before the boss and recovering there is fairly simple ).
User avatar
mycophobia
Posts: 751
Joined: Thu Sep 22, 2016 4:08 pm
Contact:

Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by mycophobia »

random observation. Tatsujin and Tatsujin Ou have the same extend rate by default (70,000 & every 200,000), and both score roughly the same amount for one loop (~1.3-1.4 mil), however the length of one loop of Tatsujin, assuming no miss, is about 30 minutes, whereas Tatsujin Ou goes for about 50. Ou also has less bonus 1-ups and, iirc, will flat out not award one if you already have six lives in stock.
User avatar
OmegaFlareX
Posts: 884
Joined: Tue Jan 25, 2005 10:15 pm
Location: Virginia, USA

Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by OmegaFlareX »

I think the only 1-up items are the ones you get from bombing those colored pod things on the ground if you have the appropriate weapon. There's 1 green in stage 3, 1 blue in stage 4, and 2 red in stage 5.
User avatar
pmp
Posts: 81
Joined: Wed Nov 29, 2017 7:45 am

Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by pmp »

Image
https://gameparadise2017.com/add.html

Yeah...

Prepare to shell out 9800 yen if you want to play Tatsujin, she is exclusive to the expensive BOX version.
Post Reply