Truxton Extreme Review
Truxton is back. It has been over a third of a century since the last release in the series, and the wait is finally over. Truxton Extreme brings the classic vertical shmup formula into the modern era on the Nintendo Switch 2.
Truxton Extreme is a 3D vertical shmup, but unlike many others, this one uses the full 16:9 horizontal space, allowing you to use the extra space to manoeuvre out of the way of enemies and their fire. As you approach the edge of the screen, there is a very slight amount of horizontal scrolling, giving you an extra bit of breathing room.
Starting out, you’ll have access to the story mode, which features comic-book-style cutscenes that tell the story of our three protagonists, known as Tatsujin.
Tatsujin in Japanese can essentially translate to mean a Masterful person, which is quite fitting considering just how much of a challenge this game can be. Thankfully, the developers put in a novice mode called Heart Starter mode, which allows you to jump right back in if you die instead of having to start back from a checkpoint.
Gameplay
There’s a total of 5 different weapon pickups you can choose to use during your playthrough, from weapons such as a homing shot to the more spread-out shots like the laser shot. Each of the different weapon shots can be powered up by collecting ‘P’ powerups, which are often found across the map, which increase the size and damage potential of each shot type. After reaching the max power for a shot type, these chips will start to award you points instead and collecting numerous in one go will give you a times multiplier which caps out at 10 and is an essential mechanic if you want to start scoring high enough to get onto the leaderboards.
Along with the P power-ups, you can often find ‘S’ power-ups, which are speed power-ups. This will allow you to increase your max speed to a maximum of 5 levels, making your character incredibly fast. Thankfully, with a tap of a button, you can either speed up or reduce your current level at will after collecting enough power-ups. For most of the game, I preferred to stick to a level 3 or 4, only dropping down slightly when the bosses are filling the screen with heavy bullet patterns and precision is key.
As you destroy enemies, you’ll fill up the EX meter, allowing for an EX shot. The EX shot is much more powerful and differs slightly depending on the weapon type. Killing enemies with the EX turns them into golden crystals that contribute to your score. It’s very reminiscent of Mushihimesama’s amber gems system. It’s worth using the EX shot as often as possible, as it recharges very quickly and helps increase your overall score.
Bombs are a Truxton series staple with their Giant ghostly skull blast clearing a ton of enemies, and they make their triumphant return here in Extreme. You are encouraged to use them often as you get quite a large stock of bombs (max of 10), and even though you only start off with 3, enemies drop them often so you’ll constantly be topping up. Not only do they do massive damage to enemies, but they cancel all bullets on screen, so it’s always worth keeping one in your stock in case you need to get out of trouble.
Enemies usually spawn in front of you, giving you fair warning of their presence, but from the third stage onwards they will occasionally spawn behind you, forcing you into the middle of the screen. A lot of these enemies leave suicide bullets, which makes level and pattern memorisation vital if you want to clear the game, especially with just how long some of these levels are.
With all the confusion of bullets flying everywhere along with enemies on screen, it’s often easy to accidentally pick up the wrong type of weapon. This happens often (to me, at least) and can really ruin your day if you have a particular favourite. I mainly prefer to stick with the Homing shot or the forked lighting weapon for their bigger reach, covering a large portion of the screen, so it can be quite jarring when you are suddenly switched to a linear shot type. Thankfully, much like bombs, weapon drops happen often, and there’s always a couple of weapon drops before the end-of-level boss, allowing you to go in with your chosen loadout.
The bosses themself are great, a real challenge. They are quite large but not on the same level as an R-Type boss and tend to fill the screen with waves of projectiles within seconds. I found myself often blasting through a lot of my bomb stocks on the bosses just to absorb their curtains of rapidly falling bullets.
The only criticism I have in regard to levels themselves is that they are quite long, around about twice the length of, say, a standard CAVE shmup, infact some of them take over 10 minutes to clear! While this is great in some regards, it makes going for a 1CC incredibly tedious, and it’s quite repetitive having to clear each map with all three characters for the story mode.
As you play through the game, you’ll unlock additional modes like the arena mode, which is a 2-minute caravan score attack and a lot of fun, along with a harder classic arcade mode for all of you brave enough to try and get a 1CC or score for the online leaderboards.
The Arena mode is insanely addictive, and I found myself playing it over and over, even reaching the top of the leaderboard, albeit briefly.
In terms of presentation, Truxton Extreme looks great! I’m much more of a pixel-preferring kind of a guy, but the 3D art style is done very well here, and all the enemies and bullets on screen are always highly visible, which is something I often find 3D shmups struggle with. It’s worth noting that the OST is great also, and it feels fitting with the series and previous entries, which can always be a bit of concern when there have been decades between releases.
Conclusion
Truxton Extreme faced the hard task of resurrecting a dormant cult classic, and it totally pulled it off, seamlessly blending classical mechanics with modern quality-of-life improvements. The transition to 3D, which can be a stumbling block for many of its contemporaries, has been handled exceptionally well with clear onscreen visibility at even the most hectic of times.
The gameplay is very addictive, and the mix of weapon power-ups, the EX meter, and the massive screen-clearing bombs means you are always kept engaged during each level and boss fight.
The exceptionally long levels make for tedious 1CC attempts, and occasionally the sheer amount of power-ups on screen can lead to an unwanted weapon swap, but that’s pretty much all the criticism I have. Truxton Extreme is exceptionally good, and you can really tell the developers put in the time and effort to make something that pleases fans of the original Truxton series while modernising the gameplay enough not to overwhelm newcomers.
8.5
Nintendo Switch 2 review code kindly provided by Overload PR