Truxton II

Truxton II (Tatsujin Oh or 達人王 in Japanese) is a vertical scrolling shooting game for arcades released by Toaplan in 1992. The game's catchphrase is "Go beyond the masters and become a king." It was licensed to Romstar for US distribution. It is the sequel to Truxton.

Gameplay
This is a 6-sided game that loops to the next round after clearing it, with enemy bullet speed, bullet density, and enemy durability increasing on the second round (no change after that).

The second round increases the enemy bullet speed, bullet density, and enemy durability (there is no change after that). While your ship's hit detection is as large as it looks, the enemy durability is high, and the enemy barrage is surrounded by enemy formations that track your ship at high speed. If you make a mistake, you'll be sent back to the last resurrection point you passed, so if you want to clear a round, you'll need to have the knowledge and skill to overcome a single mistake, and in the latter half of the stage, you'll need to build a resurrection pattern. The latter half of the game requires you to build a resurrection pattern. In addition, each stage is known for its long duration, taking 7 to 8 minutes to clear even the shortest stage, and requires sustained concentration.

This "no beginner allowed" finish could be said to be the pinnacle of high difficulty shooters of the time, and even on the first lap, it was extremely difficult to just clear a stage, let alone clear a stage with no misses or one coin.

The title of the Japanese version is "TRUXTON II" and the difficulty level has been lowered. The board is the same as the Japanese version, and is identified by jumpers on the board.

The game shares the same speed-up and power-up system (red: napalm shots in up to six directions, blue: homing lasers, and green: wide shots in front of you) and bombs as the previous Truxton, but the homing lasers that were so powerful in the previous game have become less useful due to the increased durability of the enemies. The game can be played by two players at the same time, and you can join in the middle of the game, but if one of the two planes runs out of power and disappears from the screen at the same time, the other one will return and be resurrected even if it still has power left. You can join in the middle of the game.

The audio output is monaural, but the game is programmed in stereo, and you can hear the stereo sound in "Toaplan Shooting Chronicle" released in November 2011.

The 10 millionth point was achieved in the March 30, 1999 issue of Gamestop. It was reached on the second side of the eighth lap. The fact that it took eight years for a top player to reach 10 million points in a looping game is proof of the high level of difficulty.

Ports
Truxton II was ported to the FM Towns by Bing. As of 2020, this is the only FM TOWNS version that has been ported.