Truxton

Truxton is a vertically scrolling shoot-'em-up developed by arcade legends Toaplan . Set in a distant future, the alien Gidans led by the evil Dogurava have invaded the planet Borogo aboard five gargantuan asteroids and destroyed nearly all of its defense force . You pilot the "Super Fighter," the last remaining warship, on a desperate mission to overthrow the invaders across five increasingly hostile levels . Your ship is armed with a standard shot and a limited supply of bombs that erupt into giant screaming skull-shaped energy fields, erasing enemy bullets upon use . Three upgradable weapons appear as colored pickups: red fires a spreading Power Shot, green unleashes a penetrating forward Tatsujin Beam, and blue fires a Thunder Laser that auto-aims at nearby enemies . The game is infamous for its brutal difficulty, fast bullet speed, large hit detection, and enemies that swarm from all directions including below the screen .

Arcade

Released by Toaplan in October 1988 and published by Taito in Japan and Midway in North America, Truxton became Toaplan's first game to display their logo on the title screen . The music, composed by Masahiro Yuge, is widely celebrated among shooting game enthusiasts . The game runs on a 68000 CPU at 10 MHz and features five stages, each split into an outer space approach and an asteroid interior segment . Colored levers throughout the game grant an extra life if destroyed with the matching weapon color . Considered one of Toaplan's first truly great shooters, Truxton was initially thought to be one of the hardest games ever created, before the era of danmaku and tiny hitboxes . The arcade version has no ending—after defeating the final boss, the game simply restarts on the next loop at higher difficulty .