Everything Toaplan, or: Tanks vs. Aircraft
Sept 30, 2006 22:09:53 GMT -5
Post by ed on Sept 30, 2006 22:09:53 GMT -5
Okay, not EVERYTHING Toaplan, not yet. I haven't gotten all the way through any of these games yet, instead preferring to start from the beginning (or pretty close) each time I played to maximize my familiarity with the game's terrain and system. But here's my thoughts on the various games from what I've played thus far.
** Tiger Heli (1985), Taito
One clue that this is a Toaplan game is that the soundtrack was eventually released on Kyukyoku Tiger: G.S.M. Taito 2, which features other games distributed by Taito but developed by Toaplan. Also, the completely un-missable theme which later Toaplan games would mine of "aircraft and the tanks that hated them" is present. Thirdly, MAME says it's of Toaplan make, so there.
Like many later Toaplan games, tank shells are very fast and are usually aimed straight at you (the exception to the rule of aimed-at-you are the large war machines, which often spit out shots carelessly). I don't play this game much because I always end up trying to get the ridiculously hard-to-get point bonuses (i.e. counting shots to make cars appear, and a red drum that you have to shoot for approximately the whole length of the screen), and that isn't my idea of fun. There's also a bizzare powerup/bomb system with tiny helicopters that glom onto your helicopter (reminds me of another classic shooter I was playing recently, which instead had a motorcycle and sidecars). They either shoot straight forwards or off to the side - makes strategizing rather tough. Bombs are carried on the side of the helicopter. If they're shot, they explode. Both bombs and tiny helicopters act as a layer of armor for this reason.
An interesting footnote in shooter history. Released on a few systems (NES comes to mind, I forget what else).
** Twin Cobra (World, 1987): The game that got me into Toaplan shmups a few months ago. Raiden borrows quite a bit from it. The detailed, almost whimsical graphics and cool soundtrack (that sounds every bit as good on the Genesis) are major draws. It has a simple powerup system - collect powerup icons (blue S icons) to power up your gun's level, and collect the glowing gem to get the weapon of the type indicated by its color:
Red: barrage of missiles. Good brute force weapon with enough spread that you need not aim too precisely at higher levels.
Green: Laser. At higher levels it seems to dish out more damage and shoots for a longer period (maybe). Good weapon against bosses.
Blue: Spread Gun! Suddenly my favorite. I've seen it at levels of three and five shots (the five-shot variation puts one forward, and two far out to either side). Good for mopping up levels in general. Not so good against helicopters, I've found.
Yellow: I stay away from this one. As you upgrade, it adds shots perpendicular to the others. There may be a specific application for it later on (such as swarms of enemies coming from either side of the screen).
This type of powerup system will be seen again. I don't believe you get a bonus for collecting shot type select icons, be they of different colors or the same.
Aside from that, the game uses the familiar Toaplan standards in level layout and system which you should assume in other Toaplan shooters:
- A lengthy, relatively safe intro stretch of low-threat targets, some of which may be hard to shoot.
- The "Space Invaders" effect - what I call "shot delay." When you've fired off a volley from the bottom of the screen without hitting anything there will be a short pause before the ship fires again. If something is getting hit or you are closer to the edge of the screen you can fire at the full rate. Usually there isn't much difference between the two, although the effect is rather pronounced at times early in Truxton II.
- No real intro for bosses; they tend to appear suddenly (only later will some games have bosses that get their own music). They are often large, grotesque tanks (in early stages) or other types of war machine.
- Powerup icons that are tricky to catch
- As mentioned in the Tiger Heli section, shots from small enemies are always aimed directly at you, whereas bosses are lousy shots (spammers).
- An awesome soundtrack by Tatsuya Uemura (Tiger Heli to Zero Wing). Of the many Toaplan games, the only I see so far that aren't scored by him are the Truxton/Tatsujin games (which sound familiar regardless).
- Gun emplacements in the Toaplan universe tend to be simple hemi-spherical metal shells with a gun in the middle.
- Save bombs. You'll be rewarded one way or another.
Twin Cobra was released for the FM Towns. I hope to get a copy soon.
** Flying Shark (World, 1987): Rather simple compared to many other games, with only one type of weapon to power up. As with Tiger Heli, strafing side to side constantly is pretty much a necessity. Shoot the formations of red planes for a powerup (try to get it as close to you as possible and don't shoot a plane at the edge of the screen, since the powerup icon has a tendency to bounce off the screen and disappear). Yellow formations of planes will appear with frequency as well - shoot them all and a 1000 point bonus is awarded when the last one is shot. Rarely (I estimate it at about 1/20 chance, maybe more) the yellow formation is replaced by a silver formation. A flashing light/dark blue 1up icon is released when you shoot these! Oh, how foolish you will feel if the 1up floats offscreen. Look for ricochets on terrain features or buildings - they may conceal tanks. Also make every effort to grab bombs, as if they go unused you get a bonus for every bomb left on your ship. If memory serves, it's 3000 per bomb, so you get 15K for 5 bombs. Sadly, the extras are taken and you start each new level with only three bombs.
I like this game because it's not too hard. Grabbing all the shot powerups and smart use of bombs are the keys to success, and since you don't need to wait for a shot icon to cycle you can grab shot icons at your convenience. The abundance of tans and dingy greens might put some off, but I think it looks quite nice with lots of little details in levels. Great music too. Save bombs for an end-of-level bonus. I can get to the end of the fourth level pretty much every time in this game, although I haven't progressed further (I've reached Area 45 twice). Was released for X68000, and whenever I get my Pro I will probably play my copy all the time.
** Truxton/Tatsujin (1988, "Master")
Great game that got released on Genesis and PC-Engine in what I feel to be an improved fashion (autofire, aka ren-sha, is on by default in these versions, in contrast to the arcade game).
It's either quite ugly or very endearing graphically, with lots of round, bulbous enemies. Also has a brilliant battle plan from the aliens (smash an asteroid into Earth - I guess Toaplan really believed all that SDI stuff was gonna take off, although it may yet).
Like Twin Cobra, playing the arcade version without autofire can seem a chore. There actually isn't a whole ton of difference between the arcade and Genesis version except that you have a rather unsightly blank box to the right side on the Genesis version.
Toaplan really is coming into their own with this one. There are lots of sub-bosses to pass and lots of very interesting little skirmishes take place. A potential downside is that there are many tedious, long stretches as well (they do break up the pace though, which is nice).
Truxton has a crazy powerup scheme. Pick up five P icons to advance the level of your weapon (if you die, any Ps that hadn't been used will be kept, although your weapon is lost). Then pick up a colored shot icon to advance the power of your weapon. Thankfully all the types of shot have an obvious appeal.
Red (fan shot) is good for hitting lots of low level enemies (at least a few times - some enemies with a slim profile will require you hose them down for a few seconds which isn't that good), but requires you to get close to bigger targets in order to maximize the number of hits (minimize wastage/misses). When upgraded, you get a larger cone of fire (seems to be the same angle for the second level).
Green (laser) is a good choice. Fast and dishes out lots of damage. At the second level you get three lasers; at the third, you get two rotating buddies on the side that shoot out lasers as well, giving you a bit of security to the side.
Blue (homing energy beams) is a great choice, and autofire no matter what platform. Maybe less damage potential than the other two, but you can fly circles around enemies while the lasers stay locked on (although they'll switch from one large target to another without your asking). Fun to use. In Truxton it'll only home in on big enemies. The rest of the time it acts like a giant funnel of colorful, wintry-looking death. My favorite weapon in the game in terms of asthetics.
Also, the Truxton Bomb is awesome. Use it. It's fun(ny). I don't know if you get any bonuses from saving them, although I don't use them myself (because I'm trying to find out).
On a related note, you can fully power up your ship's speed rather early (well, it's like five minutes in, but you're still only level two for shots). The ship moves like greased lightning - almost too fast to handle - but from this point on any speed (S) icon you pick up will give you 5000 points for free. That's awesome.
** Hellfire (World, 1989).
Odd game. One button fires, the other selects the shot type. In order, they should be:
Forward
(tap once) Backwards (you need this early on - those gun turrets need two shots at the lowest level)
(tap twice) Up and down - good for shooting sections of flooring
(tap thrice) Four-way: shoots towards all diagonals.
Hellfire (first horizontal shooter in this list) gives you impressive-looking firepower quite early on. The shot switching is less of an annoyance than you might think - certainly not too terrible when you take into account the shot-catching antics of Flying Shark and Twin Cobra. I'd even call it fun (although getting out the wrong type of shot is no fun). Hellfire is a mixture of ugliness/good looking stuff, good music, and some other strange themes (the next level should be an Egyptian stage). Oddness.
** Zero Wing (1989): Famous/Infamous horizontal shooter. I don't like it that much (the Mega Drive version is even stranger, with odd characters showing up at one point). I might be way off base because my R-Type knowledge is very lacking, but I think it borrows a good bit from that venerable series, i.e. the tractor beam system.
You can tractor in many types of enemy ship, disabling them in the process. Bigger ones (like the blue ones which fire big lasers on the first level) will drag you down, so don't grab more than you can carry. Ships can be fired off to damage whatever's in the way, or they can absorb one shot for you (I'm actually not clear yet if you get points for this, although I hope so). You can also grab a wierd ring in two halves - it'll absorb a good deal of shots, and when destroyed or flung it makes a nice O-shaped explosion.
The weapon powerup system has been streamlined. Pick up multiples of a shot type to increase your shot power. Early on (at least), the laser takes the lead for sheer volume of damage and quickness. The red shot is kinda slow and doesn't seem to do much damage, whereas the homing shot is essentially the same but will move a few inches up or down the monitor in a half-hearted attempt to hit the enemy.
Great music once again, although the game is ugly - the spectacle of your helper cannons bouncing allong the terrain or ejecting mountains of corkscrew homing missiles doesn't much impress me. Also, I HATE the first boss. From this point onward the first boss in Toaplan games tends to be very tough. Although this guy's a piece of cake compared to the first boss in Truxton II...
** Horror Story/Demon's World (different level order and intros in different versions, 1989/1990)
Oops, this is a platformer! I bought the PC-Engine version (Super CD-ROM^2) a while back. A bit of a mess. Gets very hard later on. Falls into the trap of having you do tough things (i.e. killing enemies by jumping on their heads) to get point bonuses - so there's really two ways of playing it: one, lazilly, two, always trying to get maximum points. Either way, it's a tough game.
** Out Zone (1990)
Difficulty varies greatly between versions. I'll spend more time describing this one later - it's one of my favorite games, but I've spent more time on this than I had wanted to for today.
SAVE BOMBS! If you collect roughly 10 bombs without using any you start getting instant 5000 point bonuses upon any others you pick up. Not sure if you have to collect ten again if you use one before getting the bonuses (that seems wrong, though).
My main quarrel with the game (and indeed with many top down games) is that there isn't a way to straft all the time. Out Zone does go a step farther than any other one-joystick game I'm aware of, though, with the shot type selector - you can get a harness that attaches a spread gun to you and causes you to walk sideways instead of turning (although this can be troublesome if there are enemies off to the side, and sure enough there is a situation like that in the very first level).
You get points for every shot icon you pick up, so always get them.
The game's a nostalgia trip for Toaplan enthusaists, with elements from previous games making repeat appearances. For example, one of the secret powerups is the six-plane formation from Flying Shark. The game is also one of the best-looking that Toaplan ever made, and the frontend is brilliant too, with the image of the blue player character joined by a slightly different looking character in a red suit if you put another credit in, an area counter (same as Flying Shark, again), and even the ability to hear different intro music if you "shoot" past the intro cutscene.
** Skip forward a few years to 1992 and Truxton II (Out Zone's sequel, FixEight, was also released this year, but it's generally considered to be not as good as its predecessor).
Great game! I won't dwell on it too much, but it's among the best looking and sounding games Toaplan made (this one was composed by Masahiro Yuge). The sound effects make me giddy with glee!
The weapon system is essentially the same as Twin Cobra but with some important revisions. Powerup icons are the same, with a shot type gem that changes between the types of shot. It's much easier to catch them now, as they simply bounce diagonally off the invisible playfield walls.
The unique and beautiful space backdrop in the first level actually has strategic importance; it helps me remember where enemies will appear and where I need to line up to catch them before they appear. The first level avoids the boredom of the original Truxton/Tatsujin's drawn out intro battles by throwing some interesting combinations of enemies at you in a very predictable pattern (although with a few twists) and making everything move along the screen quite quickly.
The bomb has been revamped, and the interesting block-fill pattern screen wipe effect has been improved for this game as well.
The first boss is also insanely hard (at least for me). Amusing too. The bursting tanks of the original Truxton make an appearance...one definitely gets the feeling they're at home playing this game.
** 1993+ ?
Toaplan apparently was dissolved in 1994. In 1993 and 1994 Raizing hit the scene with the games Mahou Daisakusen (Sorcerer Striker) and Shippu Mah...etc. (Kingdom Grandprix). Fun stuff. M.D. in particular reminds me of a traditional Toaplan shooter, but with Raiden-level graphics (and beyond).
** I also played a bit of Twin Hawk (Japanese Mega Drive). I'm not sure if this relates to an arcade release. Probably safe to assume it didn't arrive in Germany as enemy tanks have a little modern German flag on them. Quite ugly, and it seemed to have intermittent slowdown problems on one playthrough after I used a bomb. That said, it's a blast to play, with a simple powerup system and an intriguing bomb system: a small squadron of six planes fans out across the screen, shooting when you do. Alternatively, you can hit the bomb key again and unleash a huge explosion. Your helper pilots are very motivated, often flying right into the enemy who shot them down.
** Tiger Heli (1985), Taito
One clue that this is a Toaplan game is that the soundtrack was eventually released on Kyukyoku Tiger: G.S.M. Taito 2, which features other games distributed by Taito but developed by Toaplan. Also, the completely un-missable theme which later Toaplan games would mine of "aircraft and the tanks that hated them" is present. Thirdly, MAME says it's of Toaplan make, so there.
Like many later Toaplan games, tank shells are very fast and are usually aimed straight at you (the exception to the rule of aimed-at-you are the large war machines, which often spit out shots carelessly). I don't play this game much because I always end up trying to get the ridiculously hard-to-get point bonuses (i.e. counting shots to make cars appear, and a red drum that you have to shoot for approximately the whole length of the screen), and that isn't my idea of fun. There's also a bizzare powerup/bomb system with tiny helicopters that glom onto your helicopter (reminds me of another classic shooter I was playing recently, which instead had a motorcycle and sidecars). They either shoot straight forwards or off to the side - makes strategizing rather tough. Bombs are carried on the side of the helicopter. If they're shot, they explode. Both bombs and tiny helicopters act as a layer of armor for this reason.
An interesting footnote in shooter history. Released on a few systems (NES comes to mind, I forget what else).
** Twin Cobra (World, 1987): The game that got me into Toaplan shmups a few months ago. Raiden borrows quite a bit from it. The detailed, almost whimsical graphics and cool soundtrack (that sounds every bit as good on the Genesis) are major draws. It has a simple powerup system - collect powerup icons (blue S icons) to power up your gun's level, and collect the glowing gem to get the weapon of the type indicated by its color:
Red: barrage of missiles. Good brute force weapon with enough spread that you need not aim too precisely at higher levels.
Green: Laser. At higher levels it seems to dish out more damage and shoots for a longer period (maybe). Good weapon against bosses.
Blue: Spread Gun! Suddenly my favorite. I've seen it at levels of three and five shots (the five-shot variation puts one forward, and two far out to either side). Good for mopping up levels in general. Not so good against helicopters, I've found.
Yellow: I stay away from this one. As you upgrade, it adds shots perpendicular to the others. There may be a specific application for it later on (such as swarms of enemies coming from either side of the screen).
This type of powerup system will be seen again. I don't believe you get a bonus for collecting shot type select icons, be they of different colors or the same.
Aside from that, the game uses the familiar Toaplan standards in level layout and system which you should assume in other Toaplan shooters:
- A lengthy, relatively safe intro stretch of low-threat targets, some of which may be hard to shoot.
- The "Space Invaders" effect - what I call "shot delay." When you've fired off a volley from the bottom of the screen without hitting anything there will be a short pause before the ship fires again. If something is getting hit or you are closer to the edge of the screen you can fire at the full rate. Usually there isn't much difference between the two, although the effect is rather pronounced at times early in Truxton II.
- No real intro for bosses; they tend to appear suddenly (only later will some games have bosses that get their own music). They are often large, grotesque tanks (in early stages) or other types of war machine.
- Powerup icons that are tricky to catch
- As mentioned in the Tiger Heli section, shots from small enemies are always aimed directly at you, whereas bosses are lousy shots (spammers).
- An awesome soundtrack by Tatsuya Uemura (Tiger Heli to Zero Wing). Of the many Toaplan games, the only I see so far that aren't scored by him are the Truxton/Tatsujin games (which sound familiar regardless).
- Gun emplacements in the Toaplan universe tend to be simple hemi-spherical metal shells with a gun in the middle.
- Save bombs. You'll be rewarded one way or another.
Twin Cobra was released for the FM Towns. I hope to get a copy soon.
** Flying Shark (World, 1987): Rather simple compared to many other games, with only one type of weapon to power up. As with Tiger Heli, strafing side to side constantly is pretty much a necessity. Shoot the formations of red planes for a powerup (try to get it as close to you as possible and don't shoot a plane at the edge of the screen, since the powerup icon has a tendency to bounce off the screen and disappear). Yellow formations of planes will appear with frequency as well - shoot them all and a 1000 point bonus is awarded when the last one is shot. Rarely (I estimate it at about 1/20 chance, maybe more) the yellow formation is replaced by a silver formation. A flashing light/dark blue 1up icon is released when you shoot these! Oh, how foolish you will feel if the 1up floats offscreen. Look for ricochets on terrain features or buildings - they may conceal tanks. Also make every effort to grab bombs, as if they go unused you get a bonus for every bomb left on your ship. If memory serves, it's 3000 per bomb, so you get 15K for 5 bombs. Sadly, the extras are taken and you start each new level with only three bombs.
I like this game because it's not too hard. Grabbing all the shot powerups and smart use of bombs are the keys to success, and since you don't need to wait for a shot icon to cycle you can grab shot icons at your convenience. The abundance of tans and dingy greens might put some off, but I think it looks quite nice with lots of little details in levels. Great music too. Save bombs for an end-of-level bonus. I can get to the end of the fourth level pretty much every time in this game, although I haven't progressed further (I've reached Area 45 twice). Was released for X68000, and whenever I get my Pro I will probably play my copy all the time.
** Truxton/Tatsujin (1988, "Master")
Great game that got released on Genesis and PC-Engine in what I feel to be an improved fashion (autofire, aka ren-sha, is on by default in these versions, in contrast to the arcade game).
It's either quite ugly or very endearing graphically, with lots of round, bulbous enemies. Also has a brilliant battle plan from the aliens (smash an asteroid into Earth - I guess Toaplan really believed all that SDI stuff was gonna take off, although it may yet).
Like Twin Cobra, playing the arcade version without autofire can seem a chore. There actually isn't a whole ton of difference between the arcade and Genesis version except that you have a rather unsightly blank box to the right side on the Genesis version.
Toaplan really is coming into their own with this one. There are lots of sub-bosses to pass and lots of very interesting little skirmishes take place. A potential downside is that there are many tedious, long stretches as well (they do break up the pace though, which is nice).
Truxton has a crazy powerup scheme. Pick up five P icons to advance the level of your weapon (if you die, any Ps that hadn't been used will be kept, although your weapon is lost). Then pick up a colored shot icon to advance the power of your weapon. Thankfully all the types of shot have an obvious appeal.
Red (fan shot) is good for hitting lots of low level enemies (at least a few times - some enemies with a slim profile will require you hose them down for a few seconds which isn't that good), but requires you to get close to bigger targets in order to maximize the number of hits (minimize wastage/misses). When upgraded, you get a larger cone of fire (seems to be the same angle for the second level).
Green (laser) is a good choice. Fast and dishes out lots of damage. At the second level you get three lasers; at the third, you get two rotating buddies on the side that shoot out lasers as well, giving you a bit of security to the side.
Blue (homing energy beams) is a great choice, and autofire no matter what platform. Maybe less damage potential than the other two, but you can fly circles around enemies while the lasers stay locked on (although they'll switch from one large target to another without your asking). Fun to use. In Truxton it'll only home in on big enemies. The rest of the time it acts like a giant funnel of colorful, wintry-looking death. My favorite weapon in the game in terms of asthetics.
Also, the Truxton Bomb is awesome. Use it. It's fun(ny). I don't know if you get any bonuses from saving them, although I don't use them myself (because I'm trying to find out).
On a related note, you can fully power up your ship's speed rather early (well, it's like five minutes in, but you're still only level two for shots). The ship moves like greased lightning - almost too fast to handle - but from this point on any speed (S) icon you pick up will give you 5000 points for free. That's awesome.
** Hellfire (World, 1989).
Odd game. One button fires, the other selects the shot type. In order, they should be:
Forward
(tap once) Backwards (you need this early on - those gun turrets need two shots at the lowest level)
(tap twice) Up and down - good for shooting sections of flooring
(tap thrice) Four-way: shoots towards all diagonals.
Hellfire (first horizontal shooter in this list) gives you impressive-looking firepower quite early on. The shot switching is less of an annoyance than you might think - certainly not too terrible when you take into account the shot-catching antics of Flying Shark and Twin Cobra. I'd even call it fun (although getting out the wrong type of shot is no fun). Hellfire is a mixture of ugliness/good looking stuff, good music, and some other strange themes (the next level should be an Egyptian stage). Oddness.
** Zero Wing (1989): Famous/Infamous horizontal shooter. I don't like it that much (the Mega Drive version is even stranger, with odd characters showing up at one point). I might be way off base because my R-Type knowledge is very lacking, but I think it borrows a good bit from that venerable series, i.e. the tractor beam system.
You can tractor in many types of enemy ship, disabling them in the process. Bigger ones (like the blue ones which fire big lasers on the first level) will drag you down, so don't grab more than you can carry. Ships can be fired off to damage whatever's in the way, or they can absorb one shot for you (I'm actually not clear yet if you get points for this, although I hope so). You can also grab a wierd ring in two halves - it'll absorb a good deal of shots, and when destroyed or flung it makes a nice O-shaped explosion.
The weapon powerup system has been streamlined. Pick up multiples of a shot type to increase your shot power. Early on (at least), the laser takes the lead for sheer volume of damage and quickness. The red shot is kinda slow and doesn't seem to do much damage, whereas the homing shot is essentially the same but will move a few inches up or down the monitor in a half-hearted attempt to hit the enemy.
Great music once again, although the game is ugly - the spectacle of your helper cannons bouncing allong the terrain or ejecting mountains of corkscrew homing missiles doesn't much impress me. Also, I HATE the first boss. From this point onward the first boss in Toaplan games tends to be very tough. Although this guy's a piece of cake compared to the first boss in Truxton II...
** Horror Story/Demon's World (different level order and intros in different versions, 1989/1990)
Oops, this is a platformer! I bought the PC-Engine version (Super CD-ROM^2) a while back. A bit of a mess. Gets very hard later on. Falls into the trap of having you do tough things (i.e. killing enemies by jumping on their heads) to get point bonuses - so there's really two ways of playing it: one, lazilly, two, always trying to get maximum points. Either way, it's a tough game.
** Out Zone (1990)
Difficulty varies greatly between versions. I'll spend more time describing this one later - it's one of my favorite games, but I've spent more time on this than I had wanted to for today.
SAVE BOMBS! If you collect roughly 10 bombs without using any you start getting instant 5000 point bonuses upon any others you pick up. Not sure if you have to collect ten again if you use one before getting the bonuses (that seems wrong, though).
My main quarrel with the game (and indeed with many top down games) is that there isn't a way to straft all the time. Out Zone does go a step farther than any other one-joystick game I'm aware of, though, with the shot type selector - you can get a harness that attaches a spread gun to you and causes you to walk sideways instead of turning (although this can be troublesome if there are enemies off to the side, and sure enough there is a situation like that in the very first level).
You get points for every shot icon you pick up, so always get them.
The game's a nostalgia trip for Toaplan enthusaists, with elements from previous games making repeat appearances. For example, one of the secret powerups is the six-plane formation from Flying Shark. The game is also one of the best-looking that Toaplan ever made, and the frontend is brilliant too, with the image of the blue player character joined by a slightly different looking character in a red suit if you put another credit in, an area counter (same as Flying Shark, again), and even the ability to hear different intro music if you "shoot" past the intro cutscene.
** Skip forward a few years to 1992 and Truxton II (Out Zone's sequel, FixEight, was also released this year, but it's generally considered to be not as good as its predecessor).
Great game! I won't dwell on it too much, but it's among the best looking and sounding games Toaplan made (this one was composed by Masahiro Yuge). The sound effects make me giddy with glee!
The weapon system is essentially the same as Twin Cobra but with some important revisions. Powerup icons are the same, with a shot type gem that changes between the types of shot. It's much easier to catch them now, as they simply bounce diagonally off the invisible playfield walls.
The unique and beautiful space backdrop in the first level actually has strategic importance; it helps me remember where enemies will appear and where I need to line up to catch them before they appear. The first level avoids the boredom of the original Truxton/Tatsujin's drawn out intro battles by throwing some interesting combinations of enemies at you in a very predictable pattern (although with a few twists) and making everything move along the screen quite quickly.
The bomb has been revamped, and the interesting block-fill pattern screen wipe effect has been improved for this game as well.
The first boss is also insanely hard (at least for me). Amusing too. The bursting tanks of the original Truxton make an appearance...one definitely gets the feeling they're at home playing this game.
** 1993+ ?
Toaplan apparently was dissolved in 1994. In 1993 and 1994 Raizing hit the scene with the games Mahou Daisakusen (Sorcerer Striker) and Shippu Mah...etc. (Kingdom Grandprix). Fun stuff. M.D. in particular reminds me of a traditional Toaplan shooter, but with Raiden-level graphics (and beyond).
** I also played a bit of Twin Hawk (Japanese Mega Drive). I'm not sure if this relates to an arcade release. Probably safe to assume it didn't arrive in Germany as enemy tanks have a little modern German flag on them. Quite ugly, and it seemed to have intermittent slowdown problems on one playthrough after I used a bomb. That said, it's a blast to play, with a simple powerup system and an intriguing bomb system: a small squadron of six planes fans out across the screen, shooting when you do. Alternatively, you can hit the bomb key again and unleash a huge explosion. Your helper pilots are very motivated, often flying right into the enemy who shot them down.
