Detana!! TwinBee (PC Engine)

Vertical
Checkpoints OFF
4 Difficulty levels
6 Stages (loopable)
Ship speed by icons
- - - - - - -
Developed by Konami
Published by Konami in 1992

The only home port of the chapter that redefined the series into a full blown cute'em up franchise, Detana!! TwinBee brings to the PC Engine the multitude of colors of the arcade game while toning down the difficulty for the most part. My statement above stems from the fact that Detana!! is actually the first arcade sequel to the original TwinBee, after several intermediate entries for the NES and the Game Boy. Although the previous games did have some cute elements, they were hardly set in stone as to their overall tone. That's why I believe Detana!! to be the start of the second and better phase of the franchise as a whole.

Living up to its alternate title Bells & Whistles, the game continues to build upon the colored bell mechanics to provide a very specific kind of shmup rush, which mixes survival and scoring against a backbone defined by dynamic difficulty. Even though the punishment for dying is still remarkable, especially in the final levels, it's certainly a more easygoing and approachable experience than the arcade original for a series or reasons. Reduced hitbox and bullet count, less fierce rank progression and extra lives (1UPs) to be collected from specific ground targets are some of them.

The only real compromise besides the expected graphical and musical downgrade is the absence of the sixth level of the arcade original, the one that takes place in the desert landscape. Other than that, everything about the gameplay is duly preserved and remains the same.

Japanese rooftops protruding above fluffy clouds in stage 5

 

Basic inputs are very simple and work with shot in button II and bomb drop in button I. Just like in Xevious, bomb drops are used to hit ground targets. By holding shot you can charge and release a powerful attack that pierces everything and inflicts damage. Powering up is mainly achieved by hitting bells released from clouds and taking the colored ones. At every five hits the bell changes color to a different one other than yellow, in an ongoing sequence with the following order: white (twin shot), blue (speed-up), green (trailing options), red (shield barrier), purple ("solidifies" your options, making them able to cancel bullets and deal aerial damage), black (speed-down) and back to white. You can't have red and purple simultaneously, and if you already have a particular item the corresponding bell in the sequence will be yellow.

The secret to a better chance of survival is to use the first batch of clouds in the very first level to power up as fast as you can. At least two speed-ups are needed, as well as twin shot and options. Extra upgrades can be applied by collecting the ground bell, which gives you a three-way shot for the main character, and by releasing and "docking" with GwinBee, the third mecha besides TwinBee (player 1, piloted by Light the boy) and WinBee (player 2, piloted by Pastel the girl). Firepower is increased when united with GwinBee, especially the charge shot. The only downside is that the hitbox increases twofold, and GwinBee will be lost if hit.

A final detail about the hitbox is that you can lose one or both arms of the character, thus affecting its ability to drop bombs. If both arms are lost an ambulance item will cruise the screen for you to repair them, but note that this only happens once in each level. If the arms are once again lost you'll be unable to drop bombs until you die or reach the next level.

Speaking of scoring, the formula is rather simple. Just collect successive yellow bells. Once the initial ones are taken (four), all others will be worth 10.000 points provided you don't let any of them fall down the screen. Juggling bells for points can be tricky if you're not fast enough, particularly in the second half of the game since enemies start coming down more aggressively and in greater numbers. Finally, you also get extra score by collecting fruit released from ground targets, and 1.000 points are awarded for most of the aerial enemy waves you're able to completely wipe out. 

Intro and first stage of Detana!! TwinBee on the PC Engine
(courtesy of YouTube user The VideoGames Museum)

It's no secret I was never much of a fan of the concept behind the TwinBee series. However, amidst forests, skies, rivers, mountains and ravines, there's no denying that the action in this version of Detana!! TwinBee is finely tailored to the console format both in terms of fun and difficulty. There's just one glaring exception: the final boss. For some odd reason, that creature is even harder than its arcade counterpart no matter the rank situation when you get to him. No only does he spit a lot more bullets, but he also takes a longer beating to finally go down. This crazy difficulty spike is definitely unexpected and uncalled for, and sort of taints the general appreciation of the game.

Regardless of the above, one of the nicest aspects of the PC Engine port of Detana!! TwinBee is that it allows co-op play, a feature that's often well regarded in console adaptations. I admit the game might have a different kind of charm when played with a friend, as long as both players are able to come to grips with the inherent greed associated with bell manipulation.

I played with Light/Twinbee (player 1 side) in the Normal difficulty and reached stage 2-1 with the final score below. The second loop is a lot harder than the first, and unless you have some proper practice chances are the adventure will come to an end right there and then.

The next title in the series is another console game, the amazing Pop'n TwinBee for the Super Famicom, which was later followed by the final arcade chapter TwinBee Yahho!.

Darius Alpha (Playstation 4)

Horizontal
Checkpoints OFF
1 Difficulty level
16 Stages
Ship speed fixed
- - - - - - -
Developed by Taito / M2
Published by Strictly Limited Games in 2020

Those who've been around long enough certainly know at least a little about the Taito long-running franchise where you fight all sorts of marine creatures in outer space. Besides several impressive arcade titles, in the good old days Taito was also very keen on delivering ports and even original games to home consoles. One way to know some of the best of them is by getting hold of the Darius Cozmic Collection Console, a compilation released for the Playstation 4 (and the Nintendo Switch) that packs six console classics and some variations thrown in for good measure. Of all the included games, however, the one that most people will certainly be more curious about is Darius Alpha.

A promotional version of Darius Plus released in 1990 for the PC Engine, Darius Alpha was a mail-order exclusive, obtainable only by sending in a pair of coupons found in the manuals of Super Darius and Darius Plus. Only 800 copies of the HuCard were produced, making it one of the rarest and most expensive HuCards ever made. Sure you could resort to emulation, but what about experiencing the game in full glory as ported by the nice fellows from M2? For those who value the idea of playing it on a real console, it sounds irresistible.

Considering both Darius Plus and Darius Alpha are included in this compilation, it's only natural to play the former and then Alpha, which works as an arrange version of sorts. That's what I'd recommend you to do if you haven't been exposed to the HuCard games yet, after all Darius Alpha is a boss rush where you fight all 16 bosses from Darius Plus in succession.

Is Tough Spring perhaps the 2nd degree cousin of My Home Daddy?

Although devoid of much animation, all bosses are quite large and menacing, often moving all over the screen as they try to hit you with all sorts of attacks, from bullets to lasers and even homing fireballs. Most of them can be beaten with simple strategies, but some do require precise positioning and dodging so that you can successfully avoid damage. By default, button × fires the main shot/missiles, ○ drops bombs and either □ or ∆ provide rapid shot for both inputs at the same time. Power-ups are granted automatically after each boss fight, making all three weapons (missile/shot, bombs and shield) evolve equally. Provided you don't die, the first form of shot (missile) is used against three bosses, the laser is used against seven of them and with wave shot you get to face the six final creatures. Dying strips you off all power-ups in the current upgrade level, which can be aggravating at whatever stage you are. There are no extends and no continues.

Visually and musically the game owes a lot to Darius Plus, which in turn did a decent job in adapting Darius to the home format of the PC Engine. Backgrounds consist only of that otherworldly cloud formation shifting colors as stages unfold, and the music changes as per the original main game. However, for a glorified arrange mode exclusively built upon bosses, it's just a bit disappointing that you don't get to see the names of those giant creatures prior to the fight, just like in future chapters of the franchise. Extra points are obtained by destroying some of their parts (fins, tails, arms), as well as by prolonging the fight so that those spinning timeout cubes start appearing. It's a very risky strategy though, simply because in Darius Alpha these cubes are (or at least seem to be) much more aggressive.

Playing Darius Alpha on the Playstation 4 has some minor advantages over the original HuCard. It looks great since in default conditions the game runs in Supergrafx-compatible mode, which supposedly makes colors more vivid and eliminates the occurrence of sprite flicker (not that much of a problem in the original game actually). There isn't much in the way of those fine gadgets that became the trademark of M2, but they at least included a vertical indicator named "boss navigator" that shows your progress as you beat game bosses in succession.

Release trailer for Darius Cozmic Collection Console
(courtesy of YouTube user and digital publisher ININ GAMES)

The interface for the game selection screen in Darius Cozmic Collection Console is top notch, providing valuable information on all included games in the English language. In the case of Darius Alpha three extra modes exist besides the Normal game (in Normal mode button L1 initiates the 4-minute time trial mode, serving as the SELECT button from the PC Engine original). Both the normal and time trial courses, in addition to an extra full game time attack mode, can also be played separately if you wish to get your best results into the online leaderboards. For these it's also possible to save and upload your game replay, as well as download any replay available on the leaderboards. In-game functions can always be accessed by pressing either R2 or L2.

My time revisiting Darius Alpha was short but intense. I hammered the game for one evening until I got the clear with the end result below, defeating final boss Cuttle Fish in my very last life. It was great and straight-to-the-point fun, the kind that never gets old no matter how old we get (or feel). 

Takotan (Playstation 4)

Horizontal
Checkpoints OFF/ON
2 Difficulty levels
8 Stages
Ship speed fixed
- - - - - - -
Developed by Joseph Calabro
Published by Red Art Games in 2021

Dear fellow shmuppers, especially those who are fond of everything Parodius or Gradius, beware. This game is a trap. Down to the game's name, on the outside everything about it screams Takosuke the Octopus, a major character in the long-running comedic franchise created by Konami. I actually wonder how the devs could actually pull off a stunt like this, but considering the Konami of today couldn't care less about its IPs it's no wonder such aberrations are allowed to exist. Suffice it to say that apart from the visual similarities there is absolutely nothing here that serves as a throwback to Parodius or poor Takosuke.

Takotan hit the gaming scene in several platforms at around the same time, and considering it was even released for the long dead PS Vita my guess is that it was actually developed from the ground up for this particular system. All other versions then probably followed. Also released as Octonaut in some other platforms, it's a simplistic widescreen cute'em up where the main character is a golden octopus on a mission to save planet Earth from an alien invasion. The opening animation hints at the fact that Takotan/Octonaut is actually a kaiju, much like similar humongous creatures such as Godzilla or Mothra.

Given its relatively friendly visuals, it's astonishing how little fun you can have with this game. You shoot with button × and activate the last collected weapon with button □, while also having the ability to dodge by quickly retreating to the background with button ○. A new stage always starts with 1.000 points of health/shield, allowing players to take lots — and I mean lots — of damage before dying. The game practically doesn't want you to die, but if by any chance you happen to bite the dust Takotan will be respawned at the start of the level or the start of the boss fight.

Release trailer for Takotan on the Playstation 4
(courtesy of YouTube user and publisher RED ART GAMES)

On top of granting a huge amount of shield energy, Takotan also gives you health refills every now and then in between weapon items. Unfortunately, of all 12 weapons available only the 3-way shot (scatter) is actually useful. All other weapons are either stupidly cumbersome or just underpowered to the point you can't even destroy a single turret, and with no power-ups in sight it's just foolish to relinquish 3-way. Not even the "invincible" item is worth a damn since it prohibits you from shooting while denying any damaging power whatsoever. Finally, as if dying wasn't such a hard thing to do, you can also run into extra lives to prolong the agony.

But hey! Do you feel the need to lose even less health? Just turn Assist to ON at the start screen and off you go!

Anyway, the remainder of the items that appear from destroyed waves and enemies are crystals, which as they get hit increase in value from 100 to 500 while shifting colors from green to yellow, red, pink, pinkier and then back to green. Naturally, crystals are one of the main sources of extra points. The other scoring device consists of destroying enemies in succession to make the score multiplier increase up to a maximum of ×10. The problem with this mechanic is that most of the time it's impossible to sustain the maximum multiplier simply because the game has too many empty sections. Some stages are pretty much just obstacle fields devised to make use of the background dodging maneuver.

In a nutshell, the gameplay in Takotan is a catastrophe of wrong choices all over. It severely lacks any sense of balance in weapons, stage design or scoring. What was supposed to be simple and easygoing is just incredibly boring, with zero potential for a minimum sense of drive or excitement. When will devs realize that cute design and decently drawn sprites for bosses aren't enough to make a game? Let alone one that blatantly steals and dillutes ideas without any sort of expansion whatsoever? Sorry, but the background dodging thing doesn't cut it.

The boss from stage 5 (The Outpost)

The irregular duration of levels is also a noteworthy aspect of why the game seems a real chore to play. The 4th stage, titled "the stars", seems to take forever to complete, and depending on which weapon you have boss fights might drag even more than they normally do. On the other side of the torture spectrum, a special mode called Panic gives you only a 1-hit shield and instant death afterwards, in a harder setting of sorts that's nigh impossible due to the idiotic way weapons are implemented. Finally, in Custom mode you can adjust everything you want about the gameplay, such as fixing weapons, eliminating weapon choices, selecting stages, etc.

In trying to get more information to share with you fine readers I ended up beating the game one more time, as you can see from the leaderboard table below. If you want to do the same, i.e. have your name immortalized in this mighty colorful screen, be warned you'll have to endure the game to the end since it's impossible to input your initials unless you do so. Oh yes, just like in any other hobby suffering is sometimes inescapable. The good news is that life goes on and there are lots of games around the corner waiting to provide much more fun than things of this sorry caliber.