Or, as my backronym addled brain would tell me: Truly Hard, Early eXceptional DOS-era Evil Robodungeon. 1 mecha, 2 transformations, 15 complex levels, and infinite loops. Better start jetting and blasting.
Thexder was to PC-88 what Super Mario Bros. was to NES. Game Arts hit the motherlode when releasing their debut, a PC-88 action dungeon-crawler modeled after Atari's vector game Major Havoc. 1985 saw a major upswing in adoption of the PC-88, then NEC's beefiest 8-bit home computer. (Hey, guess which platform isn't associated with Thexder on IGDB yet? That's right, the one it was originally made for! Go team! /seething) With a new upgraded model on the horizon, these ex-ASCII programmers formed Game Arts with hopes of making an arcade classic for the home player. Hibiki Godai and Satoshi Uesaka's final game ended up becoming the PC-88's killer app, selling the faster mkIISR models in droves.
Suffice to say, both Square and Sierra On-Line were impressed enough to make their own ports, the former to MSX and Famicom while the latter brought Thexder overseas to IBM-compatible PCs. The DOS port thankfully rebalances the often harsh difficulty of the original. You take less damage and have an easier time collecting health & power-ups, that's for sure. While Thexder '85 is quite fun and beatable, it's also as brutal as you'd expect for an early foray into multi-stage mecha action with stats and memorization. Game Arts clearly wanted their players to clear at least the first loop, but it's tough going until you know some secrets and enemy patterns. I've beaten the DOS version a couple times now, so try that first if you want a faithful but accessible experience.
The whole appeal of Thexder comes from its mech-to-plane dynamics, where you swap between forms to use either the former's auto-targeting laser or the latter's speed and smaller size. Both modes let you navigate each techno-industrial maze while eliminating hordes of varied enemies, plus nabbing repair pick-ups along the way. Early stages ease you into the mechanics about as well as Nintendo's own games from the time, all before changing scenery and heading into caves full of nastiness. I always get a palpable sense of "where the hell is this mission taking me?" the closer I get to the end, even knowing the few boss encounters due to arrive. Having to weigh tradeoffs between your forms, plus carefully proceeding through hazardous areas you may or may not know, adds a satisfying tension to Game Arts' labyrinths. It may be a ruthless one to start with, but clearing it remains fulfilling, like defeating the Tower of Druaga which players would have been familiar with at the time.
It's awesome to see how effectively the team adapted Major Havoc into a richer adventure. The evolution from 1984's few screens' worth of level design, to Thexder having 4x that amount a level on average…games were improving so damn fast in that era. What might seem quaint or downright hostile was innovative back then, and shows its cleverness even today.
With a catchy musical theme and colorful, fluid scrolling visuals at a time when the PC-88 lent itself best to static adventure and sim./strategy titles, Thexder stood out. It proved that talented developers could squeeze anything out of NEC's hobbyist system, from intense arcade-style titles like this to more elaborate sagas like Ys or Uncharted Waters. And it gave new system owners the meaty, multi-playthrough software they needed at a time when Nintendo's Famicom and the arcades were far eclipsing Japanese PC games in immediate appeal. The era of simplistic, monochrome PC-8001 games was out; the FM-synth wielding, level-scrolling PC-88 releases were coming hard and fast. Game Arts led the charge with Thexder, Cuby Panic, and Silpheed, all of which earned their classic status in the midst of the J-PC gaming golden age.
Thexder was to PC-88 what Super Mario Bros. was to NES. Game Arts hit the motherlode when releasing their debut, a PC-88 action dungeon-crawler modeled after Atari's vector game Major Havoc. 1985 saw a major upswing in adoption of the PC-88, then NEC's beefiest 8-bit home computer. (Hey, guess which platform isn't associated with Thexder on IGDB yet? That's right, the one it was originally made for! Go team! /seething) With a new upgraded model on the horizon, these ex-ASCII programmers formed Game Arts with hopes of making an arcade classic for the home player. Hibiki Godai and Satoshi Uesaka's final game ended up becoming the PC-88's killer app, selling the faster mkIISR models in droves.
Suffice to say, both Square and Sierra On-Line were impressed enough to make their own ports, the former to MSX and Famicom while the latter brought Thexder overseas to IBM-compatible PCs. The DOS port thankfully rebalances the often harsh difficulty of the original. You take less damage and have an easier time collecting health & power-ups, that's for sure. While Thexder '85 is quite fun and beatable, it's also as brutal as you'd expect for an early foray into multi-stage mecha action with stats and memorization. Game Arts clearly wanted their players to clear at least the first loop, but it's tough going until you know some secrets and enemy patterns. I've beaten the DOS version a couple times now, so try that first if you want a faithful but accessible experience.
The whole appeal of Thexder comes from its mech-to-plane dynamics, where you swap between forms to use either the former's auto-targeting laser or the latter's speed and smaller size. Both modes let you navigate each techno-industrial maze while eliminating hordes of varied enemies, plus nabbing repair pick-ups along the way. Early stages ease you into the mechanics about as well as Nintendo's own games from the time, all before changing scenery and heading into caves full of nastiness. I always get a palpable sense of "where the hell is this mission taking me?" the closer I get to the end, even knowing the few boss encounters due to arrive. Having to weigh tradeoffs between your forms, plus carefully proceeding through hazardous areas you may or may not know, adds a satisfying tension to Game Arts' labyrinths. It may be a ruthless one to start with, but clearing it remains fulfilling, like defeating the Tower of Druaga which players would have been familiar with at the time.
It's awesome to see how effectively the team adapted Major Havoc into a richer adventure. The evolution from 1984's few screens' worth of level design, to Thexder having 4x that amount a level on average…games were improving so damn fast in that era. What might seem quaint or downright hostile was innovative back then, and shows its cleverness even today.
With a catchy musical theme and colorful, fluid scrolling visuals at a time when the PC-88 lent itself best to static adventure and sim./strategy titles, Thexder stood out. It proved that talented developers could squeeze anything out of NEC's hobbyist system, from intense arcade-style titles like this to more elaborate sagas like Ys or Uncharted Waters. And it gave new system owners the meaty, multi-playthrough software they needed at a time when Nintendo's Famicom and the arcades were far eclipsing Japanese PC games in immediate appeal. The era of simplistic, monochrome PC-8001 games was out; the FM-synth wielding, level-scrolling PC-88 releases were coming hard and fast. Game Arts led the charge with Thexder, Cuby Panic, and Silpheed, all of which earned their classic status in the midst of the J-PC gaming golden age.