But today... today we are here to talk about Trax.
Trax released for the Game Boy in 1991, a year before the first Kirby game debuted, but right away the similarities are immediately obvious. The spherical hero, the solid black projectiles, the four-pointed explosions - it's all classic HAL Laboratory. But what sets this game apart from it's brethren is the gameplay.
In Trax, you play a tank that can fire in eight directions. The A button rotates your turret and the B button fires. It's nowhere near as convenient as the twin analog sticks of Robotron or Geometry Wars, but for the Game Boy it was pretty clever. Various power-ups appear along your way, with a lot of them the shmup variety that toggle through different types before you pick it up. There are four levels, each with mini-bosses and a gigantic boss at the end.
All that would still just be a pretty standard game though. What really makes Trax worth your time is the sheer insanity of this game. Bosses are huge. Levels take place in Japanese villages and valleys, and nearly everything on the screen is destructible. You fight tanks that look just like you. You fight tanks that look just like you but are so big they can't even fit on the screen. There's cut screens, showing beaten bosses chasing after you or blowing up. My favorite is the first mini-boss - a helicopter with hands who throws his propeller at you like a boomerang. It's the kind of creativity you'd expect in a game like Intrusion 2, except in pixelated black and white glory.
So there you have it. It's a shame HAL has never returned to Trax... the tank's only other appearance was as a mini-boss in Kirby Super Star (tucked away in the Meta Knight level). Too bad... the world could use more games like Trax.
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