Toaplan’s ten years of making games has left a huge legacy. After defining a string of 2D shooters, the team ushered in the era of bullet hell with their 1993 triumph Batsugun. After Toaplan closed its doors for the last time, former employees would go on to find or hold senior positions at many of the shooter genre’s foremost studios, such as Takumi, Gazelle, Raizing/Eighting, and the mighty Cave.
Despite these contributions, Toaplan’s most famous creations are ones they probably wouldn’t be proud of. The infamous mistranslation of “all your base are belong to us” in the European Mega Drive port of their game Zero Wing has transcended studios, genres, and even the medium of video games to become a pop culture touchpoint.
In recent years, though, some of the studio’s games have returned, and developer and publisher M2 has ported some Toaplan shooters as part of its ever-impressive “ShotTriggers” series. Now retro specialists Bitwave Games have joined in, bringing Toaplan Arcade Shoot ‘Em Up Collection Vol.1 to PC users.
The series here explores a four-year period in the Japanese studio’s mid-term history, chronicling the period when Toaplan’s team explored the fundamentals of what would become Bullet Hell. This means you won’t find dense bullet clouds or highly complex scoring systems here. Instead, you can trace how between 1987 and 1990 Toaplan’s developers began to move away from the conventions of more traditional shooters and push the format into new, more dynamic territory.
Available as a Steam bundle – and as a single game without saving the full series – Bitwave’s first Toaplan volume features the indomitable military shooter Twin Cobra, a never-before-ported run-and-gun shooter hybrid Out Zone, the gorgeously realized classic Truxton, and Zero Wing, the horizontal scroller that spawned MEME.
Fundamentally, the port is powerful enough to rival the speed and performance of the arcade original. Running the digital versions of Out Zone and Bitwave on my cherished arcade PCB, you’d have to be very picky to notice a meaningful difference. The best players, one second is enough time for various strategic games? Maybe they feel small changes more than the other 99% of players. But based on the hardware available, these are tight, precise ports.
And the spread of the game? Each brings a lot to admire.
Truxton’s sci-fi vertical bristles are of high quality and the original team clearly put a lot of attention and craftsmanship into them. Its playing is lively and dramatic, and each credit feels like its own unique journey. The pixel art here is particularly brilliant, brought to life through captivating vehicle and environment design, rich tonal personality, and dizzying displays of visual technology of the time like parallax scrolling. In fact, the build quality of the Truxton is so high, it’s hard to believe it came out as early as 1988. It’s really not bullet hell, but playing Truxton is about realizing how much it influenced the later performance and playstyle of Cave and his contemporaries in the genre. It’s also a fairly challenging entity, though it’s so much fun to play that you’ll still likely have a good laugh even as it repeatedly sends you back to the game over screen.
Meanwhile, Zero Wing is likely to benefit from the success of arcade icons like R-Type and Gradius. With its horizontal scrolling and sometimes claustrophobic level design, it’s certainly influenced by the conventions set by “horis” before it, but it has enough personality and pace to make it feel more than a spinoff. Zero Wing might be the closest to an R-Type, but it moves and plays with an energy more like a later vertical scrolling 2D shooter. The intention when the game started was that it would remain an internal project on which new hires could grind their teeth and learn the Toaplan way. It’s a bit long – yes, eight stages is starting to feel like a torture in this genre – but it’s so fun and dynamic to play that it’s easy to forgive those modest mistakes.
Then came the Twin Cobra in 1987. This is the oldest game in this volume, and certainly the most traditional. Twin Cobra follows the famous military superstition from Capcom’s popular 1942 game, but with a slight increase in speed and bullet count. Frankly, it hasn’t aged as much as its compilation companion, and it’s still pretty relentless. Not that Twin Cobra is a bad game, or anything like that. In tone, design and spirit, it feels more familiar. In an era of dozens of shooters focused on tanks, jet fighters, and heavy bombers, if you want to nostalgic for the military shooters of the ’80s, Twin Cobras at least brings a little more oomph.
The bright spot, though, has to be the outer zone. This brilliant creation offers something very special when it comes to breaking the rules of dispersion that make up the strict shmup design template. Out Zone puts you in the boots of a cyborg soldier and is part 2D shooter, part run and shoot. It scrolls vertically, but if you do, the scrolling stops. Some weapons shoot in multiple directions, and there are many hazards on the ground, such as pits that are easy to fall into. The strategy of the game is to match the ideal weapon behavior to the surrounding environment. You might want a multi-directional shooter when enemies are coming from behind a labyrinthine area, or a stationary forward spread shot when you need to go around obstacles while keeping your arsenal facing upwards. There’s also an energy conservation mechanic that keeps you on your toes and pushes forward so you don’t run out of the power you need to keep going.
Out Zone brings plenty of energy and character, and a presentation that matches much of what Truxton has to offer. And it’s never been officially released outside of arcades before, which really adds to the pack’s appeal.
Now, the presence of mostly retro products in its class inevitably inspires a consistent voice to emphasize options like emulation and the Raspberry Pi. Which brings us to Toaplan Arcade Shoot ‘Em Up Collection Vol.1’s additions on top of the game itself. Every shooter gets online leaderboards, adjustable gameplay and display settings, and some “assist” like reducing or highlighting hitboxes. There’s even a rewind button for those who aren’t burdened by the self-imposed rules of spending too long in an arcade game.
While the menus can be a bit cumbersome – and reassigning buttons for joysticks somewhat confusing – Toaplan Arcade Shoot ‘Em Up Collection Vol.1 finally delivers four excellent, unique shooters with all the necessary modernization and life expected these days quality function. Or three great shooters and one who is a bit behind with age.
The problem is, the standard set by the M2 now leaves shooters with pretty high standards. In addition to the game’s own difficulty setting, Bitwave’s effort also includes “normal” and “hard” variants. But without the overhauled “arrangements” like the M2’s ShotTriggers line, the scanlines, data display and related features are a bit basic. In other words, it falls short of the M2’s stunningly high-quality work when it comes to modernization.
However, Bitwave managed to bring four important and sometimes overlooked gems that have played pivotal roles in arcade history to Western gamers. The capacity for fun and excitement inside is enormous, and it’s just one of those games that gets tiring over time. A single release that includes all the games and some of the background and history that connects them would be more appealing than a bundle, but the four titles work well together as a cohesive whole.
Are all these games yours? Everyone should try Truxton and Out Zone. If you’re interested in the history of arcade games or 2D shooters, this bundle does a good job of capturing the 2D shooter genre’s journey from its minimalist origins to the extremism of a true bullet hell; a chapter of game design that’s often ignore.
