Developer: Konami Publisher: Konami Release: 03/11/88 Genre: Shooter
My opinion of the TwinBee series changed with Detana TwinBee on the Turbo Grafx. After hating Stinger I was ready to write off the series completely. But in reality Stinger was a weird one off that I am sure everyone would rather forget. After that great TG-16 game I would later discover Pop ‘n TwinBee, one of my favorite shooters of all time. My newfound appreciation for Konami’s series led me to revisit the NES games and unfortunately I still do not like them. But at the very least you can see the seeds of future greatness as early as this first title. TwinBee is a novelty at best in this day and age.
As the name suggests TwinBee is a port of the 1985 arcade game. TwinBee is the first of the cute em ups, cute takes on the otherwise serious shooter genre. While the name sounds frilly these games were usually just as hardcore with the likes of Deathsmiles and Mushihime showing shooter fans their limits. TwinBee is not that thankfully however. The game clearly takes after Xevious but rather than cold Sci-Fi it puts a happy face on its shooting action. As a port the NES version is slightly above average. But as a game overall it is not very compelling next to its contemporaries.
The Xevious comparison is readily apparent as soon as the game begins. Both ships have two attacks: a normal attack for aerial enemies and bombs for ground targets. Unlike Namco’s game you do not have to manually aim every time. As long as you are relatively close to an enemy your bombs will automatically lock on. The difference is you drop bombs using your arms and they can be destroyed. When shot you lose your limbs rather than instant death. The first time an ambulance will appear and catching it will restore them. But the second time you lose them until death. Without the ability to bomb ground targets it is easy to get overwhelmed, making deft flying an important skill.
While those mechanics are solid they are not why we remember TwinBee. For its time the series was innovative with its bells. Rather than collecting power-ups like a standard shooter instead they come from bells residing in clouds. The difference is you juggle the bells to switch colors for the desired weapon. There are only four in this game: speed, a double shot, shadow clones, and a barrier. On average you need five shots to cycle through each color which is a lot. Juggling the bells while dealing with enemies on two fronts is what gives TwinBee a unique flavor among the shooter crowd. It is easy to screw up which is why there is rarely a moment when there are no clouds available. There are also a few other weapons from bombs such as triple shot, screen clearing star and the big cube but these are rare.
I will admit when I first encountered the bell system in Stinger I hated it. I was not willing to meet the game halfway and accept that it was different. The horizontal scrolling levels did not help either. But now that I am familiar with the series I can appreciate what it is doing here. The bell juggling adds a layer to the action that was missing from Xevious with its often long pauses in action. I do think the number of shots necessary to obtain power-ups is a bit ridiculous but they were still learning at this point. TwinBee has no end so you are playing this for score. Collecting consecutive yellow bells increases the point bonus up to 10,000. Keeping four or five bells going to keep that streak alive takes skill, especially as the difficulty ramps up considerably per level.
Like many of its contemporaries TwinBee can be hard. It was an arcade game after all. You only have a single to master juggling before it ramps up. The waves become more consistent and aggressive and ground targets more frequent. Once you die the inevitable spiral begins as it takes so long to power up. Achieving high scores has an element of luck to it which makes it less than favorable for score hounds. As much as I like the series now this first title is still only okay at best in my book.
In Closing
TwinBee is a solid port of the arcade. But the arcade was only average at best. That means for all of its charm and innovative mechanics it is still only mildly interesting. It was fun taking a look back at where the series started but I will likely never play this game again.
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Author: 360 Technology Group
