A long time ago, I went ahead and played a little cute-’em-up from Konami called TwinBee, and I remember really enjoying it at the time. The game was a very basic shmup as a whole, giving a bit of a unique twist on how one goes about getting power ups and providing plenty of strange, yet enjoyable enemies to shoot down, but there wasn’t that much more to offer aside from that. Despite this, it was enough to keep me entertained back then as someone who didn’t play that many shmups, but now, it has been almost a year since I have played and reviewed that original game, and something has happened in that timespan…. I have become a shmup fanatic. I have played and reviewed many other games in the genre, and while I haven’t even scratched the surface of what the genre has offered, it is quite clear that I have more experience with them, as well as what makes a great one or a mediocre one. So, now that I have all this “experience” under my belt, I figured it was about time I returned to this series by checking out its second installment, Stinger.

I had actually been wanting to check out this game for a long time, as well as getting back to reviewing TwinBee games as a whole, but I had always put it on the backburner for quite a while. Not really sure why I did this, as I remembered having pretty good memories with the first game, and I figured I would come to enjoy the others, but I dunno, after playing games like Aero Fighters and Thunder Force IV, how exactly do you go back to something like this? Well, I figured I would find that answer out myself, playing through the game finally, and from that experience, I can certainly say that it is, indeed, another TwinBee game. It’s a good time, giving you plenty of what you loved in the original TwinBee while slightly expanding on it, but it definitely isn’t doing anything too crazy or incredible that we haven’t already seen before.

The story is fairly simple to follow and interpret, where one day at Konami HQ, aliens come out of nowhere and suddenly start to destroy the entire place, coming down and kidnapping Dr. Wily before fleeing off towards an unknown location, so it is up to TwinBee, along with his pals WinBee and GwinBee, to set out on a mission to rescue him so that he can save Konami………………… I couldn’t find the official story online, so I had to go with what was shown in the opening cutscene, and, uh, ha ha, CLEARLY it is 100% accurate, and it is the best story of all time. But anyway, the graphics are good, looking pretty much identical to that of the NES port of the original TwinBee, but it is still colorful enough with plenty of goofy enemy designs to where I don’t mind it, the music is also good, but it isn’t anything noteworthy to where I can tell you anything about any of the tracks, as it left my mind pretty quickly, and the gameplay/control is also pretty identical to that of the original game, expanded upon enough to where it does feel like a proper step-up from that original game, but nothing more.

The game is your typical NES cute-’em-up, where you take control of one of the Bees that I mentioned earlier, go through a set of seven different levels through plenty of different environments from the pyramids to the grassy plains and to the far reaches of space, shoot down whatever weird creatures come your way using either your main shots or your unlimited supply of bombs, gather plenty of different power ups from the many bells you can find that can either increase your speed or firepower, and take on plenty of bosses that are also just as weird and out-there as the enemies, but are also pretty easy if you have the right tools equipped for the job. Anyone who played the original TwinBee knows pretty much exactly what to expect from this game, and it does manage to offer several new features for the player to take on and mess around with, but it doesn’t really make the game any more fun or exciting than what had come previously.

When it comes to what has changed from the previous game, this time around, they decided to pull a Life Force and give us not only the top-down levels from the last game, but we also now have horizontally scrolling stages as well, with there not being too much difference between the two other then that one of them has you shooting and throwing bombs down at the same time, which can be helpful in some situations. These levels are pretty fun to play, but they are pretty few and far between compared to the main levels, which does kinda suck, but eh, what can ya do. Not only that, but we have new power ups to mess around with, such as a laser, which, if you know me, is something that I immediately gravitated towards and never let go of for even a fraction of a second, and as I mentioned before, we have boss fights! These aren’t anything too special, especially if you have the glorious LASER, but they can be fun to take down, and have just as goofy and ridiculous designs as the enemies in the game. Although, not gonna lie, I didn’t need the seizure that the game keeps wanting to give me before each fight, you can take that back home with you.

Other than all that though, what you see is what you get with this game, as it doesn’t do much of anything else to excite or entrance the player. It makes sense, given that this is a shooter from the 80s, but if you weren’t a fan of the original game, then you most likely aren’t gonna be a fan of this one either, because it sticks way too closely to its roots to be anything more grand or exciting. Kind of seems to be a running theme with Konami shmup sequels, since I have played so many Gradius games at this point. But hey, if you don’t mind a little simplicity here and there, then by all means, go for it, and if you have two friends nearby that have nothing better to do, have them join the game as well for some good ol’ fashioned fun.

Overall, despite the lack of any major change, Stinger is still a good shmup at the end of the day, and a natural evolution for the TwinBee series as a whole, adding just enough to where it does feel like an upgrade to the previous game, while still keeping the main gameplay and charm of the original intact. I would recommend it for those who were fans of the original TwinBee, as well as those who are fans of shmups in general, but for everyone else, there are definitely plenty of better options out there that you could choose from instead. But either way, I am just glad to finally get this game out of the way, and now that I am back, I guess I will have to check out the rest of the games at some point in the future. It’ll go right alongside Gradius as the series that I will never shut the fuck up about, despite having covered over a dozen games from it at this point… I think.

Game #571

Angel_Arle Twinbee reviews
Part 1: TwinBee for Arcade
Bonus: Twinbee for Famicom
Part 3: TwinBee 3: Poko Poko Daimaō for Famicom
Part 4: TwinBee Da!! for GB

Twinbee on the Famicom was a success at the time though granted many Famicom games in that era were making bank but with fans in the Arcades and Famicom, it was time to take the next step. Konami made some FDS games early in the console's life and one of them was Moero TwinBee: Cinnamon Hakase o Sukue! (translated as Burnin’ Twinbee: The Rescue of Dr. Cinnamon!) made 11 months after Twinbee made its Famicom debut. This one stayed on consoles so it’s time now to see what Konami did to improve on the formula with a different market on their hands.

While this is a sequel, the plot takes place a hundred years after the original game now starring the grandchildren of the protagonists of the previous game. The three are named Squash, Whip, and Mellow. Sadly not only heroes can exist as the grandchild of King Spice named Gattlantis seeks a plan to kidnap Dr. Cinnamon and succeeds with doing so. It’s up to the three to pilot Twinbee, Winbee, and the new Gwinbee and save Dr. Cinnamon and keep Donburi Island and the entire universe from safety. Now you might be wondering how the hell did Dr. Cinnamon stayed alive for 100 years, well the wiki states he was placed in a cryogenic sleep after the first game, okay. That’s oddly specific to do after your Island got saved.It should be noted this game does actually have an intro showing Dr. Cinnamon getting kidnapped along with dialogue from the three pilots.

Right off the bat you’ll recognize something new starting the game and that is the game is part horizontal shmup. For three of the stages, you’ll be going through them horizontally instead of vertically. It’s very similar to how Gradius’ spinoff game Salamander did the same thing for its game having both horizontal and vertical. Vertically scrolling stages work like how they did in the previous Twinbee game where you’ll be shooting and bombing many targets and grabbing bells from clouds you shoot. There’s a boss at the end of each stage and you’ll be going through 7 stages in total this time. Before we go over the two types of stages in deep, I’ll explain the more basic stuff that both sections go through.

Bells have returned and are almost identical to last time. Blue bells are speed ups and you can grab up to 16 of them, white bells give you a double shot, a flashing pink one gives you those shadow ships that follow your movement, and the flashing blue one gives you a barrier. New to the bells are the pink ones which give you a new laser weapon which has good firepower but can be hard to hit bells with at times at least for me. There’s also items to collect on the ground from bombing enemies. The first are money bags which give points. There’s also hidden items that give more points with some even referencing other Konami properties like Goemon, Akumajou Dracula, and Antarctic Adventure. A cross will give you an extra life though why is it a cross? The L and R item add another bullet to your shot, it can go left or right for the vertical stages and up or down for the horizontal stages. Collect both to now obtain a shot that shoots behind you. The Moon gives you a 3-way spread shot while the star gives you a 5-way spread shot. Be mindful that those shots can’t be obtained if you have the shadow ships. You can find an icon of Dr. Cinnamon’s head that takes you to a bonus stage that helps you get more points meaning more extra lives. There’s also the ? which contains many possible outcomes. The first is a skull meaning it did nothing, all enemies can be destroyed or turned into bells. Best one to get is the invincibility which lets you hit any enemies to gain points though enemies sometimes will be afraid of you and try to flee. Also one tip is try to back off before the song is about to end because for some reason it ends before the song actually ends which is stupid.

Like the previous game you can do co-op with a friend but even better is that the game now supports 3 player action. What’s more fun than 2 players? Well 3 players of course! Sadly though, as per usual, I don’t have anyone to play with so I couldn’t experience it myself but it still does have a unique attack if you pair up with one of your friends like the previous game. I’m not sure if all three though have one unique attack as I couldn’t find an answer. There’s also a cheat for the players to steal lives from each other so you can use that if one player is not as good as someone else to keep everyone alive as like the first game, no continues.

Let’s begin the discussion on those horizontally scrolling stages first. First off is the shot and bomb are now on the same button and bombing now lacks a target reticle. I’m not really keen on how bombing works in this mode because a lot of times I’m not even realizing I’m hitting things until I look down. You also now have a new heart projectile that goes up and can’t hurt any enemies. You might wonder what’s the point but that’s where the bells come in. You see, bells still bounce upwards meaning it can be hard to hit them without this weapon but this also becomes a big problem if you want to also collect said bells as you’ll likely have to go in and get them quickly while enemies are coming at you. You also can’t lose your arms in these levels or at least it never happened to me so one hit is bye bye without a barrier. Honestly the biggest problem with these levels is just that they aren’t that interesting especially with the big blue or black background accompanying them. The reason something like Gradius works was because it had obstacles and stuff that wasn’t even just enemies like tight spaces, volcanoes and even moai statues spitting projectiles. In this it’s just fighting enemies and while it’s okay, it just isn’t as fun. Only stage 3 even has the enemies you bomb shooting at you too which means there isn’t too much to worry about. Stage 7 in general is also too easy and lacks the bombing part all together, though at least Konami Man makes a cool appearance helping you by giving bells. I also haven’t mentioned yet that if you die once, a Twinbee angel will appear and you can collect it to grab all of your power ups which is great especially since you’ll want to have everything for the last few levels but since it goes up, it’s easy to not get on these levels. This game really just needed a 2nd draft for ideas on these stages because they are less interesting then the vertically scrolling stages and even have big game design flaws in them that can really ruin your run.

Now we get to those vertically scrolling ones and these are some good stages. These are the ones that not only have the better challenge but improve on the formula. What makes it shine are the new environments as you are not only on Donduri Island this time in fact none of the stages take place there, only the first horizontal one does. You’ll be going through places like the Urarufusuku Country which is a snow country and the Zamabi Kingdom which takes place in a country in South America and features some nice bluish colors and even water. While the horizontal stages had unique ones too like the church setting and desert, the vertical ones make them shine better. It’s a big improvement over what the first game on Famicom was doing. While mechanically they are about the same and do have the same mechanics as the Famicom game meaning stuff like losing both arms in one hit is a thing again. The only complaint I really have is, the weapons and items aren’t too balanced as it felt the most optimal to use the spread weapons and a barrier. The game becomes a lot easier once you have both of those as I only lost my barrier one time in one of my playthroughs of the game. Still though thanks to the new visuals and the still creative enemy designs, it does feel like a step up from the first game. I do find it odd though that at first they do these stages in turns like horizontal -> vertical -> horizontal, but then they just throw the rest of the vertical stages at you in a row and it doesn’t help that last horizontal stage is a lot less challenging then stage 6 which is easily the hardest stage in the game especially if you don’t have the best setup. I will add that I do really love how the last section of stage 6 has you going into space as that’s where the final stage is located. Great way to transition into how you got there.

Bosses are a lot better in this game because they feel like they have a lot more thought put into them. They have very wacky designs like a watermelon, an octopus, a faucet, and even the literal sun. While they are still easy to kill if you have the right set up, they have better patterns and it just has more thought put into them. There isn’t too much to say about them but just don’t get too reckless and also remember that a barrier will not protect you from contact damage. Even Gattlantis himself is pretty easy as long as you keep a safe enough distance and play it a little safe, he goes down in like 10 seconds. Makes me wonder how easy they would be if you did multiplayer. It should also be said that once Gattlantis is dead and the ending is over, you can do a 2nd loop with some new enemies and a tougher journey to save the doctor. I didn’t do this 2nd loop so I can’t say how hard it is but nothing changes ending wise if you manage to do it.

The game looks pretty good for a 1986 game and I’d argue it still looks good to this day. My only real gripe with it is it can be hard to see what’s what with the backgrounds and sprites sharing similar colors. Though I did eventually get used to it as I got better at the game. The game does have to load levels but they’re not long. The game’s performance is also pretty good even if it has some sprite flickering at times but it’s nothing I really noticed or cared about. It might be worse in multiplayer but I wouldn’t know, sorry. The music by Kiyohiro Sada is good but there’s only a couple songs once again and most of the time I got to hear the power up music which sounds good but I wish there was more. I do like how the final stage not only has a unique theme but even a power up theme that sounds similar to it. It’s like the game is telling you this is the last power up so get over there and defeat Gattlantis! I also love the music that plays before you arrive at a boss, it’s really addicting and gets in my head.

Moero Twinbee is an oddity in the franchise. It tried to be different by doing what some of Konami’s other shmups did…which was going right. Now despite what I’ve all said, I do in some ways like this one more than the first game. It’s weird, I think it falters but I don’t think it should ignore what it tried to do to advance the franchise forward. They could have played it safe but like many games of the era it tried to be different. If the horizontal stuff was better I’d probably say it’s good but at best it’s a game with good vertical levels and boring horizontal levels. Don’t let its negatives remove the fact it did have some feats like finally having a story in the game itself, new additions like new power ups and bonus stages, a lot more varied locations and even a 3 player mode that no other game even tried doing after this. For that I respect it even if it’s barely above what I think of the first game. There was one more attempt for the series on the Famicom and I’ll be looking at that next time so look forward to that!

BONUS SECTION!

While we’re here, how about I talk about the US release and the later Famicom cartridge release of this game. So, in the US we barely ever got Twinbee but the most notable one had to be the NES version renamed to Stinger. The game is mostly the same but now a couple of things have changed. Since it’s a cartridge game you don’t have to worry about changing sides or loading times. The intro and ending text with the three characters has been removed but the other story bits like Cinnamon getting kidnapped and thanking you have been kept. The ending was rewritten so you can be called the greatest stinger, wow I’m so cool. I noticed the scrolling in the vertical at the very bottom looks a little glitchy and I don’t think it’s my ROM this time. It wasn’t there in the FDS version. The money bags also aren’t the right color in some stages which again is a very weird error, maybe it’s some limitation going to cartridge I’m unaware of. Again if it’s just my ROM, my apologies for the misinfo. The biggest change was the game now only supports two players and Winbee was cut from the game. Oddly all three are still on the cover. The reason was this was because at the time, an adapter to play with more than 2 people didn’t exist in the US yet. Otherwise though it’s the same game in pretty much every way, they didn’t even remove the Konami characters that never got games over here. If you have an NES, this isn’t a bad way to play the game but if you’re playing on emulators, it’s probably best to play what I’m gonna talk about next.

In 1993, Konami rereleased three of their FDS games onto cartridge format. One of them being this game and it marked the final game Konami ever released for the Famicom. The game is mostly the same compared to the NES version with them adding back the stuff removed like the story and 3 player mode. The game also now has an easy mode. I couldn’t find every change listed but from what I saw you now have 5 lives from the start, enemies are less aggressive and the ground enemies don’t shoot at you until stage 5. This means you never have to worry about the ground enemies on horizontal stages. That said though, I’m surprised it’s not more generous with something like more ambulances or having the Twinbee angel always spawn upon death. You still do need to try though I should point out I had a barrier the whole game and never lost it once so this might be the difficulty for you if you’re not great at the game. Otherwise it’s basically the same thing, this release was probably meant for people who had the Famicom as a hand me down or got one for cheap in those late years. I would say it’s probably best to play this version nowadays if you’re using an emulator. It even has a fan translation for those wanting to read the small amount of dialogue. The last thing I have to add is did you know this came out the same day as Pop’n Twinbee for the Super Famicom? It’s crazy to think about.

Didn't expect to beat 2 twinbee games in one night but hey some days it be like that, plus this game is generous enough to give infinite continues so yea. Doesn't mean this game was a breeze to clear even with said infinite continues, this game still brings in the heat especially at level 6. This is one of those shmups where the best place to be is in the dead center of the screen rather than the bottom/left side of the screen. Enemies come in quickly from all 4 screen edges so straying too far from the middle is an easy way to die. Speed powerups are also vital in this game as enemies move quickly and can kill easily if you are too slow. This game even supports THREE player co-op over the first games 2 so that's something. There are also horizontally scrolling levels which makes this game feel more like Salamander than twinbee. The bosses are also a bit on the easy side, really serving more as speed checks over real tests of skill cuz moving quickly pretty much makes most bosses a cakewalk. besides all of that, it's still the same twinbee gameplay we all know and love. This is certainly the only game series where I can say something like "ah, going above the TVs puts me in a disadvantageous position, I should shoot from below" and genuinely mean it.