 SNEEEEE- THAT'S DRUNK! A couple days ago, Nintendo announced that they'd be adding a few games to their switch online platform, one of which being Poppin' Twinbee, which was met with a response from some people of... What the hell is that? So I thought I'd put together a video about this one really quick. Poppin' Twinbee is a vertically-scrolling shoot-em-up made by Konami in 1993. It was never released in North America, but it did reach PAL regions in addition to Japan, and it's the sixth game in the Twinbee series that dates all the way back to 1985, with the first game simply titled Twinbee made for arcades, and it was eventually ported to like two dozen other platforms. So, what makes this shoot-em-up different from all the others? There's three major things here. Number one I should point out right away is that this game is two-player co-op. Now, I have no idea if Switch is going to enable online play with a second player, but this game is capable of having two players play at the same time, and that's a unique feature for a Super Nintendo or Super Famicom shoot-em-up. The first player controls Twinbee and the second player controls Winbee, and what's cool here is that you can toss each other at enemies, as well as lend energy to each other if needed. There's also none of that infamous Super Nintendo slowdown with this game, even with two players on the screen, but I'll expand on that aspect a little bit later. The second major standout here is obvious, and that's the game's visual style. The art direction and color palette were unique at the time, to say the least, and even to this day, there aren't too many games that look like this. When people refer to the cute-em-up genre, this is what they're referring to. Everything somehow has a smile on its face, both figuratively and literally. You might interpret that as cute or creepy, that's your call to make, but what I like is how the game catches you off guard and throws these decidedly not cute bosses in your way, like this thing here. Plus, some of the enemy design you'll come across is pretty dang cool, like whatever this thing is. The music also complements the visuals here really well, sounding really upbeat without being distracting or annoying. I mean, come on, it's 90s Konami, they always killed it with music. The third thing that makes this game stand out is the two layers of enemies that you have to account for as you play through this one. Usually with shoot-'em-ups, you're just dodging and destroying stuff that's directly in front of you, but with Pop and Twinbee, you've got stuff in front of you and stuff on the ground beneath you that you've got to take care of. The B button fires your usual projectile attack, but the Y button locks onto enemies beneath you and takes them out with bombs, so you have to be cognizant of their presence at all times, you can't just mindlessly spam your fire in all directions, and the game does a good job providing some situations within the level design that take advantage of this mechanic, like this spot here where you've got a herd of armadillos that drop health if you bomb them. You have just one life to get through seven levels, but even if you're not that good at shoot-'em-ups, this game is reasonably forgiving. You have seven continues, and you also have a life bar, so no one hit deaths here, and there's plenty of opportunities to pick up health replenishments. If you do die, you start at the beginning of the level, so there's no checkpoint. You can also just hold the button down for rapid fire, so you're not constantly pounding the B button. What really helps you throughout this playthrough is the power-up system. It's similar to Gradius, another shoot-'em-up series made by Konami, in that there's a certain amount of control you have over how you improve your ship. You power up by shooting these grinning clouds that drop these bell icons, and they ricochet off your fire and change color when you shoot them. You might have seen these before in the Perodius games. They'll always start as a bronze color, which gives you points, whoop-de-doo, but shoot them once and they'll change color. Pink gives you a damage shield, green gives you a mini that follows you around and adds to your firepower, blue is a speed boost, silver gives you a cannon shot, and purple gives you a spread shot. But don't shoot the bells too many times or they'll turn back to bronze again. Occasionally you'll get a flashing bronze bell, which gives you a clear screen attack. So yeah, managing these bells and how you want to power up is a huge part of this game. I should also mention there's a little bit of customization here, too. Before you get started playing, you can switch between three different option formations. Or in other words, you can pick how those mini ships fly around you. They can spin around you and forming a shield, they can shadow you, or they can do perpendicular line patterns, depending on where you are on the screen. Also interesting here is what's called a couple mode. If you turn this on, most enemy fire will focus their attacks on player one. So if you're playing two player with someone less experienced, this is a good option to have. Another thing I should mention is the difference between the Japanese release and the PAL region release. I really hope they're using the Japanese release on the Switch because it plays much faster, whereas due to technical limitations inherent to the PAL format, those games play at something like 80% the speed that the Japanese version does, and that sucks. So hopefully the Japanese version is what's gonna be available. So yeah, Pop and Twin Beat is a good time. It's a solid two player shoot-em-up. I will say, I don't think this is one of those games that's gonna convert anyone to suddenly become a shoot-em-up fan. It's definitely not in the same class as, say, Icaruga or Blazing Lasers or Lords of Thunder or anything like that. But Pop and Twin Beat is pretty dang fun. It's got a colorful, playful atmosphere. It's definitely interesting to look at and to listen to, and I think it's worth checking out today. Alright, I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.