Twin Bee

is a vertically scrolling shooter released by Konami as an arcade video game in 1985 in Japan. Along with Sega's ''Fantasy Zone'', released a year later, ''TwinBee'' is credited as an early archetype of the "cute 'em up" type in its genre. It was the first game to run on Konami's Bubble System hardware. ''TwinBee'' was ported to the Family Computer and MSX in 1986 and has been included in numerous compilations released in later years. The original arcade game was released outside Japan for the first time in the Nintendo DS compilation '' Konami Classics Series: Arcade Hits''. A mobile phone version was released for i-mode Japan phones in 2003 with edited graphics.

Various ''TwinBee'' sequels were released for the arcade and home console markets following the original game, some of which spawned audio drama and anime adaptations in Japan.

Gameplay

''TwinBee'' can be played by up to 2-players simultaneously. The player takes control of a cartoon-like anthropomorphic spacecraft, with Player 1 taking control of TwinBee, the titular ship, while Player 2 controls WinBee. The game control consists of an eight-way joystick and two buttons: one for shooting enemies in the air and the other for dropping bombs to ground enemies (similarly to ''Xevious'').

The player's primary power-ups are bells that can be uncovered by shooting at the floating clouds where they're hidden. If the player continues shooting the bell after it appears, it will change into one of four other colors: the regular yellow bells only grant bonus points, the white bell will upgrade the player's gun into a twin cannon, the blue bell increases the player's speed (for up to five speed levels), the green bell will allow the player to create image copies of its ship for additional firepower, and the red bell will provide the player's ship a barrier that allows it to sustain more damage. The green and red bells cannot be combined. Other power-ups can also be retrieved from ground enemies such as an alternate bell that gives the player's ship a three-way gun, a star which eliminates all on-screen enemies.

As with other games of the same genre, getting shot by a single enemy bullet will cause the player to lose a life, but if the bullet only strikes either side of the ship instead, the player's ship will only lose one of its arms. If the player's ship loses both arms, it will lose the ability to throw bombs and the player must wait for an ambulance to arrive. The player must navigate their ship to the ambulance to repair their arms. If the player's ship loses both arms for the second time, no ambulance will arrive.

If two players are playing at the same time, they can align their ships vertically or horizontally together to perform more powerful attacks.

Ports

''TwinBee'' originally appeared as an arcade game. It was later ported to MSX and the Family Computer. The Famicom version was re-released only in Japan under the Famicom Mini label for the Game Boy Advance. This game was officially released for the first time outside Japan as part of the '' Konami Classics Series: Arcade Hits'' for the Nintendo DS in March 2007, under the name ''RainbowBell'' in North America, although the ''TwinBee'' name was restored for the European release. ''TwinBee'' was released in Japan on August 10, 2011, and in other regions on September 22 for the Nintendo 3DS as a part of the 3D Classics series. This release was featured (amongst other games from the Nintendo Entertainment System and Super NES) to be released for the 3DS on a tech demo called ''Classic Games'' at E3 2010. The arcade version of ''TwinBee'' was made available on Microsoft's ''Game Room'' service for its Xbox 360 console and for Windows-based PCs on December 1, 2010. Also, the MSX version was re-released for Windows' EGG Project on August 19, 2014. The arcade original version was available via the ''Arcade Archives'' series published by Hamster Corporation on Christmas 2015 for the PlayStation 4 in Japan and in December 2019 for the Nintendo Switch worldwide. The Famicom port was re-released via the Nintendo Classics service in November 2018 worldwide, with an SP version titled ''TwinBee: A Second Helping of Donburi Island!'' released in June 2019.

Legacy

In 2022, Konami organised ''Konami Action & Shooting Contest'' to encourage indie developers to make games based on some of its classic series, including ''TwinBee''. Hosted by the Shueisha Game Creator's Camp and Tokyo Game Show, Ken Niimura won the rights from Konami to develop the game through the competition; his team's proposal was named ''TwinBee Loop!: The Mystery of the Planet of Light and Darkness!!''.

Reception

In Japan, ''Game Machine'' listed ''TwinBee'' on their April 1, 1985 issue as being the third most-successful table arcade unit of the month.

The version of ''Twinbee'' for Nintendo 3DS received a total of 68/100 on Metacritic, which is mixed to positive, with an average user score of 7.3.

References

External links

Twinbee World

i-mode release

{{Twinbee series

TwinBee games
1985 video games
Arcade Archives games
Arcade video games
D4 Enterprise games
Famicom Disk System games
Game Boy Advance games
Hamster Corporation games
I-mode games
MSX games
Multiplayer and single-player video games
Nintendo 3DS eShop games
Nintendo Entertainment System games
Nintendo Classics games
PlayStation 4 games
Video games developed in Japan
Virtual Console games for Wii U
Virtual Console games
Windows games
X68000 games
Xbox 360 games