tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

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xxx1993

Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by xxx1993 »

Is that Yuki flying the Truxton ship?
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Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by qmish »

pmp wrote: Yeah...

Prepare to shell out 9800 yen if you want to play Tatsujin, she is exclusive to the expensive BOX version.
First Darius Collection for Switch, where half of games is only for limited edition (and one game preorder-only), now this...

:evil:
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Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by MrJBRPG »

By our surprise, we may have found out the IP holder of Toaplan games(?) based on the video trailer alone:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJ-lCCmBooE

It says that the Tatsujin game belongs to Tatsujin co. ltd along with Toaplan co ltd., which we all believed that the former went bankrupt and dissolved. Could that mean that the IP holder of all games developed and published by Toaplan are under the Tatsujin co ltd umbrella?

If so, then it would be easier to know more about the history of Toaplan developed games.
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Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by pmp »

Tatsujin might just be a holding company for the music. Which would make sense as Masahiro Yuge is listed as director for the company, and was the main guy behind Tatsujin (to my knowledge.) Yuge and a couple other old guys from TOAPLAN are also credited for working on the arrangement.
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Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by Despatche »

Toaplan never actually went bankrupt! Well, legally they might have, but the company never disappeared like most people think. It hung around in a few different forms... I think it was known as Arena for a while? Some medical-related consulting group or whatever.

Recently the owner expressed an interest in bringing the real thing back. Never really happened. There could be lots of reasons why, could even be some rumor I heard that was never true. Yet here we are with a DBCS-esque cameo. This Tatsujin company however, that's interesting. If Yuge is really a higher-up there, then there might be something to this rumor after all.

Far as I know, (most?) Toaplan employees weren't really aligned with the guy running things, and weren't surprised when they came in to work and found that the company had basically "disappeared" due to yet another crazy money-making scheme.

I am to understand that the rights to Toaplan's stuff seemed to go everywhere and the last decade has probably been spent figuring out who owns what. I am also to understand that there's a general push to bring a lot of these old names (not just Toaplan) back in big ways, and groups like M2, CityConnection, SuperSweep, etc are working to put everything together. Exa-Arcadia is likely part of this.

The STG world is getting kinda weird.

...Y'all need to respect Jaleco a little more. They did a lot of good stuff, and they stuck around for as long as they did for a reason. And here they are again, trying to bring important names back as well as they can.
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Leandro
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Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by Leandro »

To me this is THE shmup. The one which started it all. Even though it didn't
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Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by OmegaFlareX »

Toaplan did kinda invent a lot of the tropes in shmups that still exist to this day. Basically the formula was born in Flying Shark, and perfected in KT/Twin Cobra. Truxton is a very similar continuation of those features (plus or minus a few things) with a different graphical aesthetic.

I'm trying to imagine what it must've been like to play it on a shiny new MD/Genesis in 1989. Can any early adopters of that console chime in with your experience?

e: arcade-goers, too. What was it like seeing that cab for the first time and playing a few credits?
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Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by MrJBRPG »

OmegaFlareX wrote:Toaplan did kinda invent a lot of the tropes in shmups that still exist to this day. Basically the formula was born in Flying Shark, and perfected in KT/Twin Cobra. Truxton is a very similar continuation of those features (plus or minus a few things) with a different graphical aesthetic.

I'm trying to imagine what it must've been like to play it on a shiny new MD/Genesis in 1989. Can any early adopters of that console chime in with your experience?

e: arcade-goers, too. What was it like seeing that cab for the first time and playing a few credits?

How does Toaplan establish the tropes that were adapted by other levels?

Methodical pacing
Frantic action (high player speed and bullets)
Weapon choice and specific purposes
Big and enduring bosses
anything else?
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Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by mycophobia »

big instabombs in tatsujin's case
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Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by pmp »

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Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by mycophobia »

neat
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Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by FRO »

mycophobia wrote:neat
Yeah! I'm assuming this is the ship it's referencing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Truxtun_(CGN-35)
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Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by OmegaFlareX »

Is this the general Toaplan thread? Guess it could be.

I only just recently learned of a mobile port of Twin Cobra from apparently 2014? Anyone know of how some Korean company called Ideatory managed to get a license and put out a finished product? I'm also aware of the Toa compilation on that obscure KR handheld (gp canoo or something?). If it's so difficult to complete Toa ports, how do these exist?

For the record, I'm actually surprised at the decency of the TC mobile port. I was expecting it to be complete jank, but it's only partially so. The sprites and backgrounds look quite nice on a mobile screen, everything moves smoothly (my phone is a $200 model from 2016-17, so not that powerful), minus some weird animations on the enemy helicopters. The music loops are horribly off - it fades out way before the loop ends so you miss some instrumention. The autofire is ungodly slow, but it does get better once you power-up some. Touch controls, while allowing you to move around way faster and more precise than what was ever intended, are super fucking weird and I have no idea how to use bombs effectively (it's a circle on the HUD that you tap). If I had a stylus, it would be a big improvement, although I found it helpful to put my finger down right on the tail of the player heli so the hitbox is more visible. Finally, there are no sound effects from the end-of-stage bonus tally, but at least your high score seems to be saved in between sessions.

e: haha, there might not be any extends at all. Got to the end of stage 3 and nothing.
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Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by mycophobia »

OmegaFlareX wrote:Is this the general Toaplan thread? Guess it could be.

i'll allow it :D
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Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by BrianC »

There are also those Snow Bros. iOS and Android games from some company named ISAC Entertainment.
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Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by Turrican »

OmegaFlareX wrote:For the record, I'm actually surprised at the decency of the TC mobile port. I was expecting it to be complete jank, but it's only partially so.
What is it exactly about Twin Cobra that makes it work seemingly on everything?
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Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by mycophobia »

ran into a weird Truxton 2 bug:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPRsLfSnbvA
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Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by MJR »

Chiming in with my love of Truxton:
I saw the coin-op when it came around in late eighties, and the impression it made lasted forever. Graphics seemed incredibly detailed, palette deep and colorful, animation smooth, the huge bosses and screen-size lasers were out of this world. I played it whenever I could, but was never much good at it - it was just too hard for me.

When the megadrive version arrived, I bought the imported version with much joy. Gone was the parallax scrolling, palette and animation was compromised, spread gun wasn't the same, and highscore music I loved so much was gone, but it was still Truxton! Contrary to the awful amiga ports of the time, the megadrive arcade conversions felt incredibly faithful. I managed to beat it, and was delighted to see the ending animation (which, as I later learned - was exclusive to the home ports).

Fast forward to 2010, and I was finally able to secure the arcade board for 100€ price, and I have been playing it on and off ever since. Since there is no autofire, it is a bit of hand-killer, so I can't play it too much, and the difficulty is killing me like it did back in the day. But the FEELING is still there.

There is something especially pleasing about the visual and aural design of this game; everything seems to be just right - the ship and enemies feel like miniature toys, amount of detail and rendering is just right - not too cartoon like, but not too realistic or detailed either. The music has very unique feeling, especially the highscore music, which I love to bits. It was a revelation to find that the programmer of the game had made the music.

I would love to see a modern remake of Truxton, with realtime 3D graphics and advanced PBR shading, but with exactly the same toy-like visual design. I truly believe it would be lovely to behold. Many modern shmup developers did the mistake of pursuing realism with ships - I don't buy into that style at all. I like my shmups best when the ships look like collectable, colorful toys. Obviously it was the best way to go when resolutions and palette was limited, but in my mind it also established certain atmosphere that was ruined when graphics moved into more realistic style.
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Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by Mills »

Just a thought with the whole space theme with Tatsujin/Thruxton, I am kinda surprised that no developers out there has tried to develop a title around STAR WARS, especially when the space battles are usually the most entertaining part to watch.
Maybe something has been done in the past that I have missed.

There have been a few titles that produced decent space battle themes with nice creative visuals like the Donpachi series and a few others like Xerex which had creative backdrops.
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Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by MJR »

Mills wrote:Just a thought with the whole space theme with Tatsujin/Thruxton, I am kinda surprised that no developers out there has tried to develop a title around STAR WARS, especially when the space battles are usually the most entertaining part to watch.
Maybe something has been done in the past that I have missed.
Interestingly, Star Wars has been one of the earliest licensed film titles in world of videogames, but never as 2D-shoot'em up. The early Atari 3D coin-op was so much ahead of its time and such an immersive experience that no one ever even tried to go back into 2D ever since. Instead they tried to recreate or better that classic Death Star trench run in 3D.

Only exception is Return of the Jedi, which had the trench run done in 2D (and not very well). Platforming titles made for Super Nintendo are different thing though.

Anyway, I also suspect that Lucasfilm was quite selective on to whose developers they wanted to license their property. Atari was the only one who had the license, and ever since Lucasarts was set up, it handled all the Star Wars games. Now it is handled by EA.
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Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by Mills »

Yeah I remember the 3D coin-ups that great for the time, but I was hoping for some 2D shooting dogfighting action against multiple enemies and bullet-hell like Dondonpachi but with the backdrop graphics of Viper Phase1.

This is not too bad but still in development phase
https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... y.Tatsujin
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Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by Mandarake86 »

Anyone owns a copy of Tatsujin Of for FM-TOWNS?
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Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by FRO »

MJR wrote:
Mills wrote:Just a thought with the whole space theme with Tatsujin/Thruxton, I am kinda surprised that no developers out there has tried to develop a title around STAR WARS, especially when the space battles are usually the most entertaining part to watch.
Maybe something has been done in the past that I have missed.
Interestingly, Star Wars has been one of the earliest licensed film titles in world of videogames, but never as 2D-shoot'em up. The early Atari 3D coin-op was so much ahead of its time and such an immersive experience that no one ever even tried to go back into 2D ever since. Instead they tried to recreate or better that classic Death Star trench run in 3D.

Only exception is Return of the Jedi, which had the trench run done in 2D (and not very well). Platforming titles made for Super Nintendo are different thing though.

Anyway, I also suspect that Lucasfilm was quite selective on to whose developers they wanted to license their property. Atari was the only one who had the license, and ever since Lucasarts was set up, it handled all the Star Wars games. Now it is handled by EA.
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Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by BrianC »

Parker Bros. had the license for home Star Wars games pre-NES. Even the port of the Atari arcade game to Colecovision, Atari 800, and Atari 2600 was done by Parker Bros (licensed from Atari, of course).
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Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by mycophobia »

some mildly interesting tidbits about Tatsujin Ou and its difficulty. nothing big or anything I'm just hard up for info about the game's development and why exactly they made it so hard. Machine translated and slightly cleaned up; I don't understand Japanese so hopefully I'm not drastically misrepresenting anything here.

selected from https://www26.atwiki.jp/gcmatome/pages/2446.html :

難易度は2周目で打ち止めとなる。
The difficulty level stops increasing at the second loop.

1周の難易度は『イメージファイト』の2周目と同じ難易度と言われている。当時の最先端のシューターですら、1周攻略に2ヶ月もかかったと言われる。
The degree of difficulty of one loop is said to be the same degree of difficulty as the second loop of Image Fight. It is said that even the best players at the time took two months to clear a loop.

初の2周完全突破までは1年もかかったと言われた。如何にこのゲームの難易度が凄まじかったか伺える。
I have heard that it took a year to clear two loops. I can see how difficult this game was.

この上のスコアアタックとして、1000万点クリアを達成するプレイヤーが出現するまでには8年かかった*2。
Concerning score attack, it took 8 years for a player to score 10 million points.

難易度は2周目で最高になるため、3周目以降は2周目と同じ攻略が通じる。が、難易度の高さと展開の遅さから集中力の維持が難しいことを踏まえると、1000万点達成がどれだけの偉業であるかは想像に難くない。
Difficulty is highest in the second loop, so the strategy for the second loop works for the third loop. However, because of the difficulty level and slow pace, it is difficult to maintain concentration, and it is hard to imagine how much of an achievement 10 million points is.

[[not sure what to make of these, left as-is
当時、ACではシューティングゲームが対戦格闘ゲームに押されがちだったことを踏まえた配慮と思われる。
At that time, it seems that considering that the shooting game tended to be pushed by the fighting fighting game at AC

とはいえ、連射前提の為にゲーム自体の難易度も上がってしまっているのだが。
However, although the degree of difficulty of the game itself has also been raised for the premise of continuous fire.
]]

当初、本作はそれ程難易度が高くなかった。しかし、ロケテストでこの作品をプレイしたプレイヤー達が「こんな簡単なゲームじゃTATSUJINの続編として認めない」という趣旨の台詞を述べたのを受け、開発者が難易度を大幅に上げたという…。
Initially, the game was not so difficult. However, the players who played it in the location test made remarks such as "I will not accept such a simple game as a sequel to TATSUJIN", and the developers greatly increased the difficulty ....

この噂が真実かどうか不明だが、開発者が初心者への配慮と続編タイトルとして高難易度を望むプレイヤーとの兼ね合いをどうつけるかで苦しんだことが伺える。
Although it is unknown whether this rumor is true or not, it can be said that developers suffered with balancing the game for beginners and for players who want high difficulty in a sequel.

海外では『TRUXTON II』の名称でリリースされた。
敵の耐久力の低下、敵弾数の減少といった調整がなされており遊びやすくなっている。「日本版も最初からこっちの仕様で出せばよかったのに……」という意見は当時でも言われてたくらいである。それでもやはり5面以降の難易度は相当高い。
Overseas it was released under the name "TRUXTON II".
The decrease of enemy durability and reduction of enemy bullets made it easier to play. At the time the opinion was that "the Japanese version should have been like this from the beginning ..." Nevertheless the degree of difficulty after the 5th stage is quite high.
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Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by OmegaFlareX »

mycophobia wrote:[[not sure what to make of these, left as-is
当時、ACではシューティングゲームが対戦格闘ゲームに押されがちだったことを踏まえた配慮と思われる。
At that time, it seems that considering that the shooting game tended to be pushed by the fighting fighting game at AC

とはいえ、連射前提の為にゲーム自体の難易度も上がってしまっているのだが。
However, although the degree of difficulty of the game itself has also been raised for the premise of continuous fire.
]]
Something about competing with fighting games at the time, which we all know now was an uphill battle destined to fail.

2nd sentence is praise for the built-in autofire. I guess if the arcade operator wanted to be *really* mean they can disable that via dispswitch.
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Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by Despatche »

Also, friendly reminder that Tatsujin Ou is really a two-loop game and you should probably stop playing after 2-6.
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Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by Shepardus »

Despatche wrote:Also, friendly reminder that Tatsujin Ou is really a two-loop game and you should probably stop playing after 2-6.
Don't worry, everyone here stopped long before that.
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Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by garrz32 »

Shepardus wrote:
Despatche wrote:Also, friendly reminder that Tatsujin Ou is really a two-loop game and you should probably stop playing after 2-6.
Don't worry, everyone here stopped long before that.
:lol: :lol:
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Re: tatsujin/truxton appreciation thread.

Post by davidwhangchoi »

for mycophobia.

this came in the mail today
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