Trax

North American box art.

Trax is a scrolling tank shooter developed and published by HAL Laboratory in Japan in 1991, and published by Electro Brain in the USA and UK later that year. It has a single-player story mode and a multiplayer competitive mode.

I never played this game when it was popular. Instead, I saw it on a list of the best Game Boy games and played it in an emulator. I found the game to be quite enjoyable, and it had real potential, but it ends far too soon.

Status

I do not own the game, but I beat it on 2017-11-26.

Review

• Overall: 3/10
• Best Version: Game Boy

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

• Scrolling shooters are usually so frustratingly difficult, I don't bother with them, but this one was enjoyable the whole way through.
• The game has pretty decent graphics and sound for a Game Boy game.
• The animation, especially for the bosses, is cute and fun.
• Movement is nicely responsive.
• The weapon power-ups vary in style, and none of them are bad.

Bad

• Games that require turret rotation, but lack a rotating joystick, are always difficult to maneuver, but this one is made even worse because you can only turn your turret clockwise. I know this is a limitation of the Game Boy's two-button controls, and they try to justify it in the manual, but it makes the game less-playable. This would probably be better made on the GBA.
• The game is far too easy. I beat it the very first time I played it.
• It would have been nice to allow the weapons to be upgraded to multiple levels.

Ugly

• The game is far too short. There are only 4 levels, so you can beat it an about 15 minutes. Had I paid money for this I would have felt ripped off.

Media

Box Art

• 

  The original Japanese box has the game's ball-shaped tank bounding through a battlefield. The art accurately captures the game, and the cartoon logo and lettering are great.

• 

  The art used in Western countries is essentially the same, only less interesting, and with cheesy comic sound effect bubbles that don't exist in the game.

Documentation

• 

  Game manual.

Videos

• youtube.com/watch?v=2cE88s1WAJM - Longplay.

Titles

Language	Native	Transliteration	Translation
English	Trax
Japanese	突撃！ポンコツタンク	Totsugeki! Poncotsu Tank	Charge! Junk Tank

Links