Past meets present: Truxton Extreme

Toaplan invented the bomb. In the now-defunct company’s first shooter, 1985’s Tiger-Heli, the limited-use bomb was introduced to the genre, with the idea being that it gave players an aggressive and exciting way to attack enemies. Instead, something unexpected happened: as players got better at Tiger-Heli, they intentionally left their bombs alone — there were scoring bonuses for not using them, for one, and second, there were bragging rights to win. If a bomb had to be used, it was purely as a defensive measure: an emergency response to save you from being downed by a bullet you couldn’t otherwise avoid, or an enemy craft you were going to crash right into. From the bomb’s very inception its future possibilities were revealed by those playing Tiger-Heli, and the industry at large took note, with later STG designed around the use or disuse of these screen-clearing wonders.Toaplan, too, began to build its games around the idea that bombs could save you from enemies and yourself, but…