Aqy’s TwinBee Score: The STG Rant

Sometimes it’s good to remember about your run-throughs in shmups that aren’t your hi-scores, or aren’t even runs where you reach a new stage.  But are still exciting and different in their own way.  This post is just about one of those runs.

I reach stage 13 with this score but I certainly wasn’t expecting to get this far.  Like the Gradius games, dying in Twinbee is hard to recover from.  If it’s a hectic part of the game, it’s very easy to die again quickly, and then again and again to game over.  Especially during bosses.  I don’t recall how I lost every of my 3 lives before my last in this run.  However, two of those were solid recoveries to getting powered up again.  Luckily, where I died was not during hectic parts, aside from a life I lost shortly before a boss battle.  Boss battles are kind of interesting because you only need to get about 2 or 3 shots once the boss reveals it’s core to kill it.  Even when it seems dire and you’re surrounded by popcorn or bullets, getting those few shots right before death to kill the boss is awesome.

On my 2nd recovery, I was crushed by the spinning metallic clubs.  This section only consists of the clubs, a few ground enemies and clouds.  It’s really not a bad place to suicide if you need to get your arms back.  (Out of context, that sentence is awesome.)  There I couldn’t power up from the clouds but soon after the metallic clubs dissipated, I picked up the spread power up, then there was a bunch of clouds with bells and I upgraded to options.  There’s a long period in this run where I’m just trying to get my powers back, thus missing a lot of potential 10K bells.  But you really have to ignore the bells sometimes because this game’s rank turns into bullet hell!   Which becomes the most exciting part of the game, where minute dodging is used a lot more often.  Most of the game is spent just sweeping the screen and making sure all the enemies are shot down, as to not linger on the screen and get a cheap kill on you.  But that simple act is just so much fun, especially when fully powered up and the game throws tons of enemies and bells at you.

Anyhow, the run ends when there is an unprecedented amount of ground enemies in stage 13 and I am not prepared to act fast enough.  There is a star that clears the screen of bullets and air enemies and I go for it and get shot down for my efforts.  The best thing to do is to stay at a mid-upper range of the screen and just spam the ground for enemies when you know they’re coming.  I didn’t know they were there.  But I’ll remember next time, and I’ll practice, to get past stage 13, and my current hi-score of 2.2 some million.  I genuinely want to see what else this game offers beyond stage 13.

One of my favorite things about playing STGs as a hobby has to be finding that game that I love to play.  Everyone has different picks and tastes and you can never seem to please someone with a direct recommendation.  For me it’s a curious search and a fun one.  When I’m not invested in a shmup that is so awesome I want to keep replaying it over and over: I’m playing all kinds of shmups just for a credit or two for the simple enjoyment of casual play.  Some games when I finish I thought it was fun, but sometimes it feels like it’s the same old, “Oh, I needed to know what to do at that part” to progress which can be discouraging.  I feel that other factors step in when I really like a game.  The music, the sound effects, graphics and animations have to create the right synergy.  With Twinbee, I love how simple and classic it is for a STG.  The enemies are often peculiar objects: lightbulbs, forks, bent spoons that explode into a magical dust when they meet my green energy blasts.  The way the game handles music is also interesting, it changes depending on what power-ups you have.  Other STGs have done this before, Star Force is an example.  I like that game too, but I haven’t invested any serious time in it… it’s even more simple, it’s before MY time, in fact.  1985 (I was born in 1986.)

Tangent:
Sometimes I like to think about a type of media in terms of my birthdate, I don’t think I’m the only one who does this! Like, I think sometimes, is it just a funny coincidence that I like or love games like Commando, Son Son, Twinbee, Gradius, Salamander, Flying Shark, all games made right around 1986.  Perhaps I just like them because this time was a brilliant era for the birth of video games and STG in general!  It’s funny to think about video gaming still being in its infancy in the grand scheme of things.  And to think, some day, we will all be the Cranky Kong’s preaching to our grand kids what a REAL “game” was.  I don’t think the future is that bleak for the “core” game experience to be out there.  Probably everything will be digital and accessible… I digress.

Finding a game you love is a joy in any matter.  Sometimes it doesn’t matter what the reasons are.  Except that you play it and you don’t want to stop.  I think I like Twinbee because when the game doesn’t have tricky parts, it’s just fun to shoot stuff and collect bells.  Which is probably half of the game as far as I’ve made it.

…Or maybe it’s because I have a hard-on for Konami shmups in general.  Some of you know that I am in fact a Gradius nut, but certainly not the nuttiest of them all. *cough*TVIks*cough*