Pop'n TwinBee is very cute. Unlike Parodius, Harmful Park and all that ilk, the priority seems to be on bright, appealing presentation over filling a shooter with a bunch of mad shit. It's a really pretty little game, and a very fitting mid-transition point in Konami's history between their cartoon licences and Tokimeki Memorial. It's from the era when 2-player co-ops were really targetted at couples, and they wanted to make something that would appeal to girls more than Contra and Commando.

I'm not a big vertical shooter guy, but there's a lot of shared lineage with personal favourite, Parodius. The series staple of juggling bells until they turn the desired colour is straight out of TwinBee. TwinBee's much more restrained and less funny, though. There's not a lot to laugh at, though shooting a procession of parading babies is pretty good. Cuteness is the focus, and the little animated interstitials between levels are especially nice. Like the animations they'd play at either side of the ads in early 90s anime. The vintage is definitely part of the charm.

The game plays a little like Xevious, with the ability to both shoot in front of you, and bomb targets on the ground. Pop'n seems to forget about this for long stretches, though charitable players might suggest this adds to the game's sense of variety. There's stackable power-ups, including clones of your ship, much like the "Option" from Gradius. It's got enough going on to keep you interested.

The biggest knock against the game are the few duff levels. One has you flying over an airship, targetting turrets with bombs. It seems to go on forever, as you fly aside it, without much change to the background. There's no real checkpoint system either, and if you die on the boss after a level that might have gone on for ten minutes, you'll have to go right back to the start to try it again. I didn't actually finish the game, because I died twice on the last boss, so I just turned my SNES off and watched the explosion on YouTube.

Pop'n TwinBee is available on Nintendo Switch Online, and I'd recommend that anyone interested try it there, as the ability to make your own saves could really be a godsend for some of the longer levels. It is a game that looks really great on a CRT, though. There's some really nice waving and transparency effects on the underwater level that I don't think can be captured nearly as well on a modern display. That old Konami vibrance really shines here. A nice summer evening, drinking beer and playing the SNES.

What's Pop'n? Twinbee is Pop'n!!!! It's amazing what a bunch of flair and accessibility can do to the appeal of Shoot'em Ups to those unfamiliar with the genre. You can even consider this more like baby's first shmup, which in a lot of ways is an honor. While I certainly didn't consider myself a fan of JRPGs at the time, Paper Mario was a gate way the same way Pop'n Twinbee feels to me and Shmups. The fact they have all these nice little eye catchers at the end of their stages mixed together with the super bizarre enemies and brightly colored stages makes Pop'n Twinbee an experience that never really leaves my mind compared to the likes of other, darker colored Shmups out there.

Oh, and the gameplay for Pop'n Twinbee is absolutely wonderful. While most shmups have it to where you get hit and have to return to your base power again, Pop'n uses a life bar to help mitigate some of the damage while still giving the player a chance to come back to 100% powered form. While this seems like little in terms of difficulty adjustment, for people like me that don't do well with the consistent stress and inability to recover it helps a small mistake feel like a small mistake instead of costing you the whole run. On top of that, there is usually a bunch of new enemies per level coming at you, and it lends the player to be on guard over seeing the same enemies over again. Add to this, both bosses and mini-bosses giving proper tells on when to dodge, and giving a wide enough screen to work with really helps Pop'n feel like you're in proper control of the screen the whole time over the overwhelming feeling that other shmups give you.

If you're a veteran to the genre, I don't think Pop'n Twinbee will impress you the same way it did me. In a lot of ways, Pop'n is made for people like me to help engage with the genre without being thrown into the deep end. While a lot of shmups pride themselves on difficulty, Pop'n Twinbee feels more like a breezy wind that can cause you some trouble, but overall nothing to worry about. If you have an hour to kill, and always been interested in Shmups, Pop'n Twinbee is a wonderful game to start with!