Twinbee Da for Game Boy (again)

Released in Japan in 1990 and as Pop'n Twinbee in Europe in 1994.

I think I wrote about Twinbee earlier, but I played it again yesterday so I wanted to write a little about it again. It is my favorite game.

The game was criticized because the black and white screen makes it difficult to see what happens. But you can just play on a GBC, GBA or SGB (Super Game Boy). So many options! As often I couldn't find any good pictures of a particular good color set up so I had to take one myself.

Here it is with the Left+A color scheme (Press Left+A when the GBC starts). I think every moving object is clearly distinguishable. I tried all the other color schemes, but I found this to be the best. It isn't great but definately acceptable. The Super Game Boy have some decent color set ups too.

Even better is that you can buy something called Konami GB Collection. In Europe it was on the Konami GB Collection 3, while in Japan it is on the GB Collection 2. However - the European version has full GBC support! Here is a snapshot from the European Color version. The Japanese version is not GBC, for some reason. The Jap version is identical to the original game boy version, except for a nice looking intro animation. On that GB Collection you will also find the awesome Ganbare Goemon: Sarawareta Ebisumaru. As with most Goemon games, it had not previously been released outside of Japan.

But there is a bad difference too. The original game boy version has support for 2 player co-op, while the GB Collection does not. If my fellow blogger friend stopxwhipering reads, I think she should try this Twinbee on the Super Game Boy 2 some day.

For even better graphics, a PSP version was released in 2011. It looks nice, but I don't play that system.

The last time I played Twinbee, which was more or less my first time too, I found the game to be quite difficult. As soon as you lose your powerups, you are in for a hard time. But yesterday it was a breeeze. The main difference is that I didn't mess up with the bosses. If you don't go to far up the screen, you can usually regain your powerups from your dead body. It is also better to die on the left side than the right side.

Facing the last boss  ( Cyber Poppo ) fully powered up, with the shadow planes and the spread fire, makes him die in a few moments. With no powerups it will take a long time and is difficult to avoid the stuff he shoots out.

The bell system is surprisingly confusing to some reviewers. It works like this. When you shoot a bell five times it will become a power-up, unless you have already taken that power up or something that negates it. Shooting it again will change the bell back, but it could become some other powerup after 5 shots. So basically, shoot the bells, but don't think they are completely random.

Another important thing about the bells: for each bell you take, the score is increased (This may only apply to the bells that are not power up bells). The first bell gives 500, but after 5 bells it will be 10 000 points per bell. If a bell drops of the screen, the score is reset to 500 points again.

You get an extra life with each 100,000 points and it is not hard to stack up on extra lives if you take the bells. As you can see in my picture above, I had 7 before I faced Cyber Poppo, and I must have died 6 times or so (you start with three extra lives), I'm not sure exactly what my death count would be.

My score may seem low because I skipped the first three levels. You can do that from the options menu. The options menu also allows you to set the Turbo speed of your ship, which is very helpful from the developers.

I think I already rated this game, but I think that because it is my favorite game you can guess what my rating is of it.