
	Platform Arcade, MSX, NES Genre Shoot 'Em Up Publisher Konami Developer Konami ETA 1985
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Twinbee

I’ve always enjoyed shoot ‘em ups over the years, but the Twinbee series has always held a special place for me. It’s cute, light-hearted sensibility is very hard to resist. The whole thing got started in the mid 1980s, when Twinbee first appeared in arcades with it’s bright colored scenery, adorable heroes, and equally cute enemies. Despite its appearance, the game was no slouch either, making players work pretty darn hard to make decent progress.

One of the nicest features in Twinbee was that it allowed two player simultaneous play, with player one taking control of the series namesake, Twinbee, and player two taking the helm of his comrade, Winbee (both being round, little spaceships with little arms and hands). Many shmups at this time were still single player, so it was a nice change of pace to have this ability to play side-by-side with a friend.

Power-ups also played a central role in the game, with colored bells being the means by which players could enhance Twinbee and Winbee’s abilities (and these bells would also go on to be items closely associated with the series). By shooting at clouds, these little bells would pop out. First they would be white, giving only points if a player flew over them. However, continuing to shoot at the bells would cause them to cycle through different colors that corresponded to different power-ups. There is a blue bell that increases players’ speed, and a yellow bell

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that gives players a dual shot that increases damage output. However, the two

most powerful bells are the green one that will spawn copies of the player’s ship for added firepower, and the red bell which surrounds one’s ship in a defensive force field. Given how good these last two power-ups are, players can only use one or the other at a given time. Using them both simultaneously is a no-go.

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Given how popular the game became in the arcades, it wasn’t long before Twinbee was ported over the Famicom and MSX. However, the game never saw a release out side of Japan. It was only a couple of decades later that the game actually received an official release abroad, as it came to the DS as part of a classics compilation, Konami Classics Series: Arcade Hits.

In the years that followed, Twinbee became quite the popular franchise in Japan, spawning its fair share of sequels on several different platforms, occasionally branching into different genres along the way (the Super Famicom Twinbee platformer is quite fun!). There was even a Twinbee anime series. I’m sure there’ll be plenty more Twinbee games to come along in the future, but it’s also been fun to look back on the game that started it all.

Mr. Nash
January 27, 2011