SNES Game Review 145: Pop'n Twinbee

My 100th review for this project was Pop'n Twinbee Rainbow Bell Adventure and I mentioned in that review that I should probably review Pop'n Twinbee before Rainbow Bell but that I couldn't and wouldn't be doing that as I didn't own it. (I only review things I have the actual cartridge for) Well as I am drawing to the end of my project I have started being a little more picky about what I review, I have looked at a few things I have really wanted to review but didn't own and looked at getting them. So I grabbed this game purely to do this review.

So Pop'n Twinbee is a top-view shoot-'em-up game originally released in march 1993 by Konami for the Super Famicom in Japan. It was never released in the American market but it did make its way to the Pal regions during November of 1993. If I was to try and explain this game any more I would call it a vertical moving cute em up shoot em up. In fact as far as I am concerned the first game in the Twinbee series Twinbee (an arcade game) alongside sega's original Fantasy Zone are the games I would say kick started the whole cute em up genre. This game Pop'n Twinbee is in fact the 6th game in the Twinbee series but in all honesty when it came out here I had no idea that it was a part of a Series maybe cause it was the first one to hit our shores and back then we didn't have the internet and the freedom of information we have now. I have fond memories of playing this when younger at a friends house but as far as I can remember I never actually owned it, in fact I don't remember ever seeing it in the wild or having the chance to grab it. I guess that's the good thing about collecting as an adult its a lot easier to earn the money to buy the games and to go through all of the trouble of finding them. People might moan when paying £20 for an old game now but remember when we were kids and these games were the in thing they were frequently more than this, there was no internet to help and so tracking a copy down could involve taking the bus all over the place or begging your mum or dad to drive you all about.

OK so the game plays pretty much like any other shoot em up you will have played you travel up the screen shooting enemies and collecting bells which you can either just grab  straight away and gain points or you can shoot them. If you shoot the bells then they will change color with each color representing some kind of power up. If you learn what color means what power up then you can start trying to shoot things until they become the color you need to gain your desired upgrade. You can get a speed boost, a shield, a split shot, a satellite.

This bell-based system of power ups really gives the game a unique feel. At times the screen can be  full of enemies and bullets yet you not only have to think about shooting and avoiding them but you also need to think about the bells. Should you grab the bells now or would going towards them see you shot and damaged, or can you afford to shoot them enough to turn them in to the desired color. It helps that in this game its not 1 shot and you explode, nope you actually have a life bar so maybe you can afford to take a little damage if it leads to you getting the desired power up.

You don't just have to worry about the enemies in the  air at the same height as you though, in fact you have your regular shot but you also have a  separate lock-on weapon which can hit enemies who are below you, then you have a  bomb button which causes your ship to spew a multitude of smaller bees which cover almost the whole screen attacking. If you hold down your lock on button then you can use this to deliver a short-range punch attack, which doesn't seem all that useful to me but its still kind of cool.

The game has seven stages each with a boss at the end and you can either play alone or in two player mode. I find two player to be pretty cool as when playing with 2 players certain options are available to allow you to help each other, you can give the other player a bit of your life energy to replenish there's  or even use your team mates ship as a projectile against the enemys. In the options menu you can switch between normal and couple mode. Now couple mode is something which is very interesting for a multiplayer game like this. If you select couple mode, the games enemies will primarily attack Player 1 giving Player 2 a much easier time of things. This mode is intended to allow less experienced players to still enjoy the game. This is something which I really like as it would allow you to play the game with a partner or child who is less experienced, it is something I would frankly like to see in more co-operative video games. I think it is also important to note that this game has 7 different difficulty levels which is quiet a lot by most games standards, the levels also do seem to have quiet a bit of difference. I think this is great as not only does it mean that there should be a level which suits you but it also gives the game some replayability as if you finish it on one level you can always try to finish it on a higher level (well unless you finish it on level 7 that is).

Not only is Pop'n Twinbee incredibly cute hence my referring to it as a cute em up but it also obviously has a very strong anime influence. The game has lovely color-filled backgrounds, realism maybe cast aside in favor of cuteness but detail certainly is not. The first stage sees you fly over  forests, crop fields and  towns. This is pretty good for a first level some games would have saved each of these types of area for a level all of there own. This game is always providing you something new to look at and its not just the stages. The enemies are also very varied ranging from normal looking ships to angry vegetables to flying attack pandas. Throw on top of this the fact that you have cute short little intermissions between levels and the game is just so delightfully cute and well Japanese.

The audio is also in my opinion so darn happy and enthusiastic it really sets the mood for this games whole personality perfectly. Add to this the fact that there are great sound effects for the the shots and explosions plus some really cute little bits of  voice-acting including little pained cries when your hit and shouts of  glee when you grab an item.This game is just dripping in charm and personality to the point that I simply challenge you to not smile at it, in fact if it doesn't make you smile at some point then I think you might just be dead inside.

So what would I score this game? Well I would give it 8 out of 10 and that's coming from someone who is not really that big into the whole space ship shoot em up genre. So how much are you looking to pay for it if your interested? Well the game seems to most often go for £18 to £25 for a loose pal cart but it is worth looking about as I got mine for £11 for a loose pal cart. even if your not the sort who would usually go for a shump this might well be worth a look as well its just so darn cute and happy. Also it gets a big shout out both for its large range of difficulties but also for its unique couples setting.