Thexder

aka: Thexder 88
Moby ID: 49
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Conversion (official) Included in See Also

Description official descriptions

A platform shooter from Japan, Thexder offers many levels and diverse enemies that gradually increase in difficulty. You pilot a Battletech-style robot capable of switching from a mech into a jet at any time. Your weapon auto-aims, but uses up a fixed amount of rechargeable energy; if you run out of this energy, you'll have to wait a few seconds before you can fire again. Your mech also contains a shield that can be activated to protect you from harm, but this lasts for a few seconds and uses up some of your life energy.

Spellings

  • テグザー - Japanese spelling

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Credits (PC-88 version)

14 People (7 developers, 7 thanks)

Game Design
Director
Art Director
Turbo
Thanks
Opening Music: Thexder
Ending Music: Moon Light Sonata
Presented by
  • Game Arts Co. Ltd.
Editor
Illust

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 59% (based on 14 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.8 out of 5 (based on 71 ratings with 7 reviews)

An instant classic, Thexder provided fast, continuous, and very challenging gameplay.

The Good
Graphics: The game looked beautiful on the Tandy 1000 platform compared to other games of its time. Enemies were well-animated, and no slowdown whatsoever was ever apparent, even when the screen was filled with enemies (on an 8 MHz Tandy 1000 TX)

Music/Sound: The sound effects were very simplistic, but on par with anything of its time on the PC platform. The music, on the Tandy, although consisting of only two scores, was done exceptionally well.

The gameplay was very uniquely challanging, and the environments were varied (environment types changed every 3-4 sets of levels) - from caves to metallic futuristic-type looking levels. The environment changes kept the player looking forward to the next set of levels.

The Bad
No ending sequence - the game simply restarts at level 2. After all of that hard work, no reward!

The lack of the ability to use a second joystick buton for the shield activation - accidental double-clicking of the fire button would activate the shield when its use was not desired.

The Bottom Line
My favorite "old school" game of all time, Thexder is a two-dimensional side-scrolling game that places the player in control of a "Transformer"-like robot. The player must must battle his way through different levels, each of which are structured in a manner that allows each level to be completed slowly and strategically. A very difficult game, because it does not allow for saving games, but if you have time on your hands, it is a challenge worth exploring. Should be played on a Tandy 1000 series machine, if possible.

DOS · by Ayodeji Oshinnaiye (3) · 2000

Hard. And that's all I have to say about that.

The Good
The graphics. Nicely done with the graphics cards available at the time.

The Bad
A lot. I don't know why, but I couldn't figure this game out.

First of all it's a platform game, and the PC has NEVER been good at creating decent platform games (The exception being some of the Apogee/Epic MegaGames titles). The graphics, although nice, were jerky in my opinion, and were much to be desired.

The controls were even more confusing. I still can't figure out why the game made it so difficult to shoot the robot directly in front of you, but it would hit the ones on the far side of the screen with NO problem at all.

The overall gameplay was extremely difficult. Difficult to the point where I would erease it from my hard drive and vowing on my stack of floppies, NEVER to install it again.

The Bottom Line
If you like painfully hard PC platform games, by all means this game is for you. For the casual gamer... there are better ones out there.

DOS · by Chris Martin (1155) · 2000

Are you a Robotech fan? Then play this game!

The Good
This game had great graphics (for the time) on my Tandy and played great off the floppy (we had no hard drive). I was a pretty big Robotech fan back then (hey wait, I still am), so being able to control a transforming mech was awesome. The game was challenging (I never got past the 13th level), but consistently rewarding. There was hidden stuff all over the place.

The Bad
Why oh why didn't they include a save game feature? After a certain point, it was no longer worth my while to play for an hour just to keep dying at the same level.

The Bottom Line
If you've got the skills, Thexder is a brilliant game.

DOS · by austin quinn (1) · 2001

[ View all 7 player reviews ]

Trivia

Graphics

Like all Game Arts games republished by Sierra, Thexder uses 640x200 graphics in EGA to its advantage by simulating 64 colors via dithering.

Music

The title theme for the game was Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata.

Programming

Because this game used a tile-based playfield, it ran very smoothly, even on low-powered machines. Only the tiles that changed needed to be redrawn, resulting in scrolling that was quick, even for a 4.77MHz machine.

Tandy 1000

Thexder was one of the few games that really excelled on a Tandy 1000. The game ran at 320x200 16 colors. (the Tandy wasn't quite as flexible as an EGA) and in this video mode it seemed to look cleaner and more vibrant. Also the music sounded great on the TI sound chip in the Tandy.

Information also contributed by John Hood and Tony Van

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  • MobyGames ID: 49
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Trixter.

Sharp MZ-80B/2000/2500, PC-8000 added by Infernos. Sharp X1 added by Kabushi. MSX added by Martin Smith. PC-88, PC-98, FM-7 added by Terok Nor. Amiga, Apple II, TRS-80 CoCo, NES added by Servo. Macintosh, Apple IIgs added by Игги Друге.

Additional contributors: Alaka, Fred VT, Infernos.

Game added March 1, 1999. Last modified February 19, 2024.