Trax

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North American box art.

Trax is a scrolling tank shooter developed and published by HAL Laboratory for the Game Boy 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.

Personal

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 feel it had real potential, but it ends far too soon. I've never played it in multi-player mode, so perhaps I'm missing out in that regard.

Status

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

Review

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4 5 5 5 3

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 decent graphics and sound for a Game Boy game. Nothing amazing, but above average for the low-quality hardware. Hirohiko Takayama's music is quite fitting for the genre.
  • 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

Documentation

Videos

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

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