Twin Cobra (1987)

Beat on slow motion mode. This was a fairly standard vertical shoot em up as a helicopter with realistic modern enemies; mostly other helicopters, tanks and boats. There were occasional large transport choppers and harrier looking jets that dropped powerups upon defeat but there was a distinct lack of fighter jets. They would have improved the gameplay nicely since this game lacked the variety of enemy motion types found in other games of this type. Bosses were large tanks or anti air vehicles, and a couple being stationary buildings. There is something about these modern military aesthetic shoot em ups that I like above the more typical space ship vs weird aliens. The gun powered up to fire more shots, there were different colors that offered different shot patterns without altering the power level and which were found regularly, and there were screen clearing bombs. The default red shot started simple and powered up to give a small spread. The green shot had 0 spread, focusing damage to a narrow spot and was the only shot that I felt was better not held down in turbo. Blue did a wide spread that was excellent at clearing the screen ahead and hitting those off angles. A big problem with the green shot was enemies getting behind, and the final dark green shot solved that by shooting in the 4 cardinals, and also arcing towards enemies to hit diagonals too. I used the dark green shot for the rest of the game. It required a bit more skill to keep track of all the directions and did not clear the screen as well as blue, but it was fun and versatile. The rear shots did not come in handy though. The base boss was weak to the sideways shot because it only had 1 projectile that was aimed, everything else went straight ahead. The toughest boss was the thing that looked like it had 4 guns on top, because it fired so fast that it was tricky to squeeze between the shots. Later they duplicated the bosses, making you fight 2 back to back, but only the final boss actually had 2 enemies on screen at the same time. This design was lame, especially how it was always the same 2 bosses. They seriously missed the challenge of having 2 DIFFERENT bosses back to back, or even 2 bosses (same or different) at the same time. I would have more enjoyed that level of escalation. There should have been a proper boss gauntlet and throw in some regular enemies too sometimes. Also there should have been naval bosses. The level design was very samey and did not feel like a proper military campaign since the start and end of each stage was always on the home ship at sea. There was no indication for stage number either. It was a fun enough game but could have been a lot more interesting.

7.0/10

Platform:

Turbografx-16

Description:

A standard vertical shmup that most people might know as Twin Cobra on the Genesis, but I played it under the name of Kyuukyoku Tiger.

Liked:

I liked to fly a helicopter once, and the starting an landing sequences between levels were a nice touch. The level design in terms of enemy placement is excellent, and it's challenging but on a really manageable level. The powerup system is simple enough, and doesn't feature an overpowered weapon.

Disliked:

My main gripe with this game is that all the levels look the same. Every level has the same environments and the same enemies. Sure later on here and there you see a new enemy type, but overall there is too little variety. If you are doing badly one hit kills you and sets you back to a checkpoint which can be frustrating (just as Truxton), but if you are doing well the game throws you many powerups that stay on screen all the time and act more like an annoyance than help.

Summary:

It's a good vertical shooter, with solid enemy designs. For today's standards it might feel a little basic, especially since the environments never change throughout the game. But it's an enjoyable playthrough.