Twinbee Retrospective

Out of Konami's many fantastic, discarded IPs, Twinbee is one I will always have a softspot for. Initially conceived as a more lighthearted competitor to the Xevious series, Twinbee slowly evolved into one of the most colorful, uplifting, and pure fun cute-em-up series out there. So I want to chart the growth of Twinbee as a series, from a basic 80s shmup to a multimedia franchise, and also try to figure out why Konami just dropped it out what seemed like nowhere.

Twinbee: As mentioned, the first Twinbee is pretty much just a slightly brighter Xevious with more cartoonish spacecraft. It even features the same mechanic where you can bomb the ground for pickups. There are a few new features exclusive to Twinbee though, like the ability to use your arms to block bullets, the ability to perform dual attacks in multiplayer, and of course, the infamous bell powerup system. Twinbee's powerup system is easily the most divisive element of the franchise, to the point where even I'm a bit split on how to feel about it. You can spot these clouds in each stage and shooting one causes a bell to pop out. Shoot the bell to juggle it in the air and every once in a while, it'll turn into a different color denoting that it has a powerup inside. Having to repeatedly juggle a bell to get a powerup you want but not too much that you end up missing the powerup, while also dealing with enemies can be pretty overwhelming so I'm not surprised some aren't fond of this system. However, Twinbee games tend to be fairly slow-paced so outside of one exception, you're often given time and space to go for upgrades. The real issue with the bell mechanic in the first Twinbee, though, is that one of the bell colors will instantly kill the player which feels incredibly cheap. As you'd expect, Konami will slowly phase this mechanic out as the series goes on.

Frankly, it's quite impressive how much of the series' most defining mechanics would be introduced in the very first game. However, the biggest issue with Twinbee 1 for me is just how repetitive it is. Despite having five stages, they all play out pretty much exactly the same boasting similar enemy types and often identical backgrounds. Only furthering this feeling of monotony is the fact that there is a single music track across each of the stages, and you're rarely going to ever hear it since it'll usually be immediately replaced by the far more repetitive powerup theme. This is another early growing pain that Twinbee will quickly shed, as later entries will remove the powerup music and generally put a lot more effort into the soundtrack. Overall, Twinbee 1 is a fine enough shmup considering when it released, but aside from its unique mechanics, it doesn't feel like a fully-formed version of the series. It hasn't quite leaned into the bright, poppy, anime aesthetic that the later entries would revel in, and as such, feels pretty drab compared to most of the other games.

D Tier

Burning Twinbee: Burning Twinbee aka Moero Twinbee aka Stinger in the US is a solid iterative sequel that improves on its predecessor quite a bit. With more stages of a shorter length, each taking place in an entirely unique setting, Burning Twinbee is a much faster-paced and more varied shmup than Twinbee 1. The biggest source of variety is the introduction of a few horizontal scrolling stages which is quite strange considering this is the only entry to have them. This change is quite divisive among the fandom but I don't mind them, they do help to keep this game feeling fresh, though the fact that bells still fall means juggling them in the horizontal sections is a lot tougher. Speaking of the bells, the instakill bell is completely gone which is great. However, the soundtrack is still fairly repetitive as despite the final stage getting its own music, most of the OST has the same issue with the player hearing the standard powerup theme for most of it. Outside of that, Gwinbee got introduced allowing for three-player co-op in the JP version, quite cool for an NES game, but that's pretty much it. As I said, this is an iterative sequel, but it does fix enough of the first game's issues to be considered a moderate success in my book.

However, believe or not, this would be the last Twinbee game to release in the US, straight up. I guess Konami thought the progressively light-hearted tone would seem too childish so they didn't even try promoting any of the later, better games to us. A few games would end up making it to Europe, but from here on out, most of these games are going to be Japan-only.

Twinbee 3: Twinbee 3 is the game where the series became genuinely great in my opinion. Releasing several years after Burning, this entry is a huge step up in terms of presentation. The colors are brighter, the spritework is more elaborate, and the soundtrack is far more diverse. There's multiple level and boss themes, and each stage gets its own unique powerup theme, and the vast majority of the tracks in Twinbee 3 are really energetic and fun. Some of Moero's additions like 3P multiplayer and the horizontal scrolling are removed, but introduced are a decent amount of QoL improvements like a difficulty slider and the ability to recover your lost bells when you die. But the true star of the show is the level and boss design. There's only five stages again but each one of them is unique and features a memorable gimmick like dodging crystals in Stage 1 and shooting down minecarts in Stage 4. 

And don't even get me started on the boss fights. Twinbee 3 still has my favorite boss lineup in the franchise, each of them are large in scale and absolutely bonkers in terms of concept. The first boss is against an alien that splits himself up, the third boss is a giant dragon whose teeth you have to clean, and the final boss is this incomprehensible floating island tree pulley system. The second boss is the easy highlight though, a ghost rock band with their own unique boss theme whose members you have to progressively take out, with them getting faster and madder the more members they lose. The sheer amount of boundless creativity, color, and charm crammed into this 20-minute NES game is truly impressive, making Twinbee 3 my favorite shmup on the console. And to this day, I'd still call this one of my favorite games in the series just for how weird it manages to get at points.

Twinbee Da: Soon after Twinbee 3, we'd get a fairly basic entry for the Game Boy called Twinbee Da. It would be re-released three years later in Europe under Pop'n Twinbee to coincide with the SNES game of the same name, which only make it even clearer just how basic it is. Despite the slightly more detailed spritework, Twinbee Da feels like a return to the first game for the most part. It's incredibly slow-paced and zoomed in likely due to the screensize, and while there are a few sparing setpieces like some floating islands in Stage 4 you need to dodge, the game gets pretty repetitve despite its short length. The soundtrack is still pretty solid though, with each stage once again getting its own unique powerup theme. However, for the most part, Twinbee Da is easily one of the weaker games in the series and even by Game Boy standards, there's a few shmups I'd rather play then it.

However, in 2007, Japan would get a collection of Twinbee shmups by M2. And in typical M2 fashion, they made a full-on remake of Twinbee Da. With more detail and colorful visuals that stick more in line with the later entries, a redone soundtrack by Manabu Namiki, and a slightly faster pace, this is easily the definitive way to play Twinbee Da. That being said, this is still a basic Game Boy shmup at its core so it's still fairly unremarkable at the end of the day, but I just appreciate that M2 went the extra mile to do this to begin with. Those guys have more respect for Konami's IPs than Konami themselves.

Detana Twinbee: Every series has that one entry that fully realizes its potential and serves as the template for every future installment to date. In Twinbee's case, that entry in Detana. This is the first shmup to really lean in on the poppy 90s anime aesthetic that would define the rest of the series, with far softer pastel coloring, cute stingers between each stage, and the introduction of the permanent pilots of Twinbee and Winbee, Light and Pastel. These would be the two defacto main characters of Twinbee from here on out and they're great, super lovable and well-designed with Pastel in particular being my favorite character in the series. I'd also argue this is where the music really developed that quintessential "Twinbee sound", as Detana's soundtrack not only drops the powerup themes entirely but takes on a more uplifting, energetic, and whimsical vibe that really suits the series. Tracks like Crossing The Sea Of Clouds, Sky Fortress Laputa, Aquatic Parade, and Paradise Of Beyond The Fog in particular really stand out as some of Twinbee's most iconic tracks.

The gameplay is also quite good. While Detana isn't quite as weird and wild in terms of its design compared to 3, it feels incredibly good to play thanks to solid level and boss design, along with the addition of a charge shot you can use to take out hordes of enemies at once which always feels great. There are a few minor gripes though, Detana is quite a difficult game and a lot of that is due to how easy it is to accidentally get yourself trapped by bullets or enemies. This is an oddly frequent issue in these later Twinbee games and while Detana isn't the worst case of this, it is the most punishing since the one-hit death system still remains. Speaking of punishing, the black bell is back. It only decreases your speed rather than instakills you, but why is it even here? Those issues aside, though, I can easily say Detana is one of the better games in the series. It's not groundbreaking, but it is an incredibly pleasant and enjoyable shmup that really refines the Twinbee gameplay.

That being said, I also think it's worth noting that I first played Detana through the PC Engine port which is definitely the most commonly circulated version of the game. However, it wasn't until I actually saw the arcade port when I realized it's easily the inferior version as well. It lacks a stage, the music doesn't sound anywhere near as good as the arcade version, and most bafflingly of all, it's a lot slower-paced as well. I didn't even realize this at first until I noticed that despite having one less stage, a loop of PC Engine Detana takes longer to complete than a loop of Arcade Detana. So yeah, I'd recommend trying to play the Arcade version if you can, there's plenty of great collections.

Pop'n Twinbee: In between Twinbee's two biggest arcade titles, we'd get Pop'n Twinbee for the SNES. Despite the SNES not being a console that handles shmups especially well, it's honestly a perfect fit for Twinbee specifically since these games tend to be slower-paced. And as you'd expect, the SNES handles Pop'n Twinbee like a champ, with minimal slowdown and lovely painterly visuals that still stand out as some of the prettiest in the franchise. Pop'n further develops the aesthetic and characters of Twinbee, introducing a new love interest for Light in the form of Madoka. The soundtrack also ranks as one of my favorites, utilizing Konami's punchy SNES soundfont to great effect with tracks like Village Sky, Ocean, Far East Sky, Big Airship, Wild Life, and Mechanical World. 

Pop'n Twinbee is an interesting title because it's mechanically a lot different from both Detana and its sequel, removing the charge shot and putting a stronger emphasis on the drone powerup. Even more, it's very much designed for beginners first. With a robust difficulty slider, a newly added Couples Mode that goes easier on Player 2, and the addition of a health bar, it definitely feels like Konami wanted this to be a shmup anyone can jump in and play. And overall, I think they generally succeeded. Pop'n Twinbee is definitely a much easier game than its predecessors, but it doesn't slouch on the stage and boss design in the slightest. If anything, I'd say the boss roster is even more creative and memorable than Detana's. That being said, my one big issue with Pop'n Twinbee is that you can feel the addition of the health bar meant Konami got even sloppier with enemy and bullet patterns as I got myself trapped more often here than in any other entry in the series. Obviously, getting hit by a single bullet is less punishing than in something like Detana, but it still feels kind of cheap. Aside from that, though, Pop'n Twinbee is definitely another winner for the Twinbee series, further improving on the visuals, sound, level design, boss design, and worldbuilding. Despite its differences, it's a strong step forward towards the ultimate Twinbee game.

Twinbee Yahho: 1995's Twinbee Yahho is often regarded as the finest game in the series and yeah, it's hard to disagree. This game fixes pretty much every single issue one could have with the prior games in the series. Thought the earlier games were too slow? Well, Yahho is blisteringly fast-paced, never letting up the frenetic pace. Sometimes, this game moves so fast that your ship is literally pushed around by the sheer force at which you're moving. Thought the level design wasn't interesting or weird enough? Well, now the entire game is an Alice In Wonderland pastiche that has you chasing down multiple airships, squeezing through a parade of giant cats, and fighting a robot Alice doll as a final boss. Yahho is admittedly quite short only clocking it at around 20 minutes long, but with multiple charge shot types, difficulties, and a fun scoring system, it's immensely replayable in exchange. 

That being said, I think Yahho's faster pacing has a few noticeable side effects. If you've played any of the prior Twinbee games, I think Yahho is going to have a bit of a learning curve. I was always used to taking it slow with Twinbee only to get my ass seriously kicked during my first playthrough of Yahho. It wasn't until I threw caution to the wind and started acting as aggressively as the enemies and bosses when Yahho really clicked with me, though realizing that the Saturn port came with rapid fire also helped. I also feel like the bell powerup system doesn't quite mesh as well with the faster pacing since it rarely felt like I actually had the time to juggle for the powerups I wanted. Removing the system entirely would probably remove a core part of Twinbee's identity at this point, but it probably wouldn't have hurt to streamline it just a little bit. However, I'd still say these side effects are a small price to pay for what's otherwise an incredibly propulsive and addictive experience, easily one of my favorite shmups Konami has ever made.

Though the best thing about Twinbee Yahho has to be the presentation. Being an arcade game from the mid 90s, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that Twinbee Yahho looks absolutely gorgeous. With smooth sprite-scaling, massive enemies and bosses, bright colors, and impressive screen-warping effects for when you move especially fast, Twinbee Yahho is a feast for the eyes from start to finish. Even the Saturn port which I played looks pretty much arcade perfect, with no slowdown whatsoever. The soundtrack is also just incredible, with each stage theme in particular being incredibly upbeat, memorable, and powerful. Twin Flight is one of the most iconic Konami tracks period in my eyes, and Sky Swimming, Over The Sea, Aerial Garden, and Dancing Toys also really stand out as series highlights. Yahho also fully leans into the 90s anime aesthetic more than ever before, with animated character boxes popping up in the middle of gameplay to progress the story along with full voice acting. Sadly, there still isn't a translated version of the game so I was never actually able to follow the story, which I imagine would make Yahho an even more fun experience. So yeah, Twinbee Yahho is absolutely stellar. It's fast, frenetic, consistently engaging, immensely replayable, visually gorgeous, and boasts a killer soundtrack. It's easily the best shmup in the entire franchise, and ranks as the crowned jewel of Twinbee as a series.

Sadly, Yahho would be the last new, proper shmup the Twinbee series would end up getting, at least outside of the aforementioned Twinbee Da port and the odd mobile title. At least we ended on a high note, though. And yet, despite how good Yahho is, it's not my favorite Twinbee game. That would go to...

Pop'n Twinbee: Rainbow Bell Adventures: So Twinbee got several spinoffs in the mid 90s to varying degrees of success, but Rainbow Bell Adventures in particular is something truly special. Not only is it my favorite Twinbee game, but I think it's a perfect encapsulation of everything that made SNES era Konami so endlessly charming.

Rainbow Bell Adventures is a Twinbee platformer that mechanically feels like a blend between Twinbee and Sparkster, of all games. On one hand, the bell powerup system returns, though you now get them from defeating enemies. This is my favorite iteration of the bell system since you don't really need to juggle them, every bell you find will give you a powerup no matter what. But what truly makes this game is the fact that Twinbee's team is equipped with rocket boosters that you can use to blast across the levels ala Sparkster, and it feels incredibly fast and fun. Adding an element of strategy, you can choose to play as Twinbee, Winbee, or Gwinbee, each having their own charge time and attack stats, so it's up to you to decide whether you value having a more powerful standard attack (Gwinbee), being able to use your jetpack constantly (Winbee), or being an all-arounder (Twinbee). Though Rainbow Bell Adventures still has multiplayer so you can totally play as both Winbee and Gwinbee to cover all your bases.

Rainbow Bell Adventures is also interesting because it's an explorative platformer. Each stage is filled to the brim with collectibles to find, from secret exits that unlock other levels, to keys that open doors, to a ton of fairies to retrieve to get the best ending. The sheer amount of secret exits means it's not too long until the map really opens up and you're pretty much able to visit every single world within a single hour, and figuring out the order of operations to find all the keys and rescue all the fairies is quite satisfying. There's truly quite a lot to do, but the game lets you know when you've found everything in a stage making going for 100% a fairly pleasant experience. Sadly, this only applies to the Japanese version. Rainbow Bell Adventures did release in Europe but it removes the completion tracker and most of the secret exits, changes the map to be entirely linear. The game itself is still fun, but the sense of exploration is entirely gone in this version which is a real shame.

Another area in which Europe dropped the ball is that it removed all of the dialogue. JP Rainbow Bell Adventures has a ton of really charming dialogue exchanges amount Light, Pastel, Mint, and Dr Cinnamon in between levels and it sucks that the EU version doesn't have any of that. Once again, the presentation in RBA is pretty fantastic, keeping in line with the artstyle of Pop'n Twinbee. The levels are colorful and vibrant, the bosses are big and memorable, and everything just looks really pleasant. But then there's the soundtrack which I'd say ranks as my favorite in the entire franchise, maybe even one of my favorites on the SNES. It's hard to describe RBA's soundtrack as anything other than pure unfiltered Konami. It's just oozing with energy and boundless happiness, it's hard not to smile when listening to any of its tracks. The melodies are catchy, the soundfont is super punchy, and there's not a weak track in the entire score. Green Hills, Sunset Over The Hills, Pastel Forest, Danger Approaches, A Child's Fantasy Realm, World Of Ice And Snow, Run Run, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Konami's output on the SNES ranks as one of the best out of any company, only ever rivaling that of Square and Nintendo themselves. Every single game they put out was a banger and the consistently bright spritework, stellar soundtracks, and fast-paced gameplay made for a lineup that was just dripping with energy. With games like Contra 3, Turtles In Time, all four Goemon games, Sparkster, Axelay, and the Parodius trilogy, it's hard not to get the sense that the developers and musicians at Konami loved making games. But Pop'n Twinbee: Rainbow Bell Adventures feels especially like a passion project, mixing and matching mechanics from Konami's past games into a truly one-of-a-kind SNES platformer, only elevated further by the incredibly soulful presentation. This was the game that made me a Twinbee fan, and to this day, I still hold it up alongside Yahho as the peak of the franchise.

Twinbee Taisen Puzzle Dama: The same year as Rainbow Bell Adventures, the PS1 would also get a Twinbee-themed puzzle game. This is actually a reskin of a Konami series called Taisen Puzzle Dama, which itself is pretty much a Puyo Puyo clone with a few minor tweaks like only needing to match three of the same color, certain orbs you have to match twice, and unique garbage attacks depending on the character. It's obviously not as refined or balanced as Puyo Puyo, but it is quite fun and gets the competitive spirit of its inspiration better than most Puyo clones. Twinbee Taisen Puzzle Dama mostly stands out thanks to the adorable Twinbee theming, once again boasting full voice acting along with detailed mid-game animations for the series' whole cast, even including characters like Detana's Princess Melora and Pop'n's Madoka. The soundtrack is even composed partially of remixes of prior tracks, and they all sound great with CD quality audio. Overall, this is a mostly fine competitive puzzle game on the surface, but it is a pretty cool spinoff in terms of how it celebrates the series.

The Twinbee Paradise Sensation: So I guess it's time to get into the most fascinating thing about the Twinbee series. As you've probably noticed, I've kept harping on about how each successive Twinbee game felt more and more like a playable 90s anime and that's entirely intentional on Konami's part, because for a little while, they genuinely wanted to make Twinbee into a multimedia franchise. And it was actually quite the success too! In 1993, the Twinbee Paradise radio drama started broadcasting, and it was quite the hit. So much so that it ended up getting multiple seasons, several OVAs, a manga, and tons of music CDs. Even the games would start to take more after Paradise, with the drama's voice cast even being brought on to voice act in games like Taisen Puzzle Dama and Yahho. And that's not even getting into how popular Pastel got in particular. She quickly became one of Konami's biggest mascots, and the company even tried to launch her as a virtual idol, releasing multiple Pastel-only music albums.

Now, not speaking Japanese, I sadly can't exactly say I was able to listen to the radio drama. However, I will say that I was able to watch some of the OVAs and yeah, they're incredibly cute. They're all quite low stakes and goofy, but they're well-animated, charming as heck, and it's just fun to see these characters in motion. That being said, they're very blatantly biased towards Pastel as she gets the bulk of the screentime across all of the OVAs. Not that I'm complaining personally since Pastel is still my favorite, but it would've been nice to get one Light focused episode, right?

What Happened?

With how successful and popular the radio drama seemed to be, it's hard not to wonder why the Twinbee series was snuffed out just like that, right as it hit its peak. Well, would you be surprised to hear that Konami pulled a Konami? In 1998, Japan recieved a Twinbee RPG called... well... Twinbee RPG. Sadly, seeing as it's untranslated, I haven't been able to play it personally and can't say whether or not it's good. Not that its quality seems to have mattered because Twinbee RPG just didn't do well enough to justify the high production costs, so Konami just... ended the series altogether. Pastel would continue to pop up every once in a while as Twinbee's main mascot and we did get that pretty stellar PSP collection, but otherwise, Twinbee was pretty much left in the dust with all of Konami's other forgotten IPs like Goemon, Parodius, and most of Hudson's stuff.

But while it lasted, Twinbee was one of the freshest cute-em-up series out there, constantly evolving both its mechanics and presentation with each and every installment. Frankly, the best thing about Twinbee is that growth. When you compare where it started to the trifecta of Yahho, Rainbow Bell Adventures, and the ambitious Twinbee Paradise project, it's hard not to admire just how far the series had gone.