Pop'n Twinbee Game Boy Developer: Konami Publisher: Konami By: GammaBetaAlpha ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~- Table of Contents -~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ Basics [HELP] Walkthrough [WALK] Donations/Amazon [DONT] Contact Info [CONT] ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~- Basics -~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ [HELP] Pop'n TwinBee, also known as TwinBee Da!!, is a vertically-scrolling shoot'em'up game, often referred to as a shmup, which was released in Japan and Europe only. It was also released in the Konami GB Collection 2 for Game Boy, a Japan-only release. However, it was additionally released with colour for GB Collection 4 on the GBC in Europe. The gameplay content is apparently identical, so you may wish to play the colour version instead. Your ship, the Twinbee, can fire bullets at aerial enemies and drop bombs on anti-air structures on the ground, all while avoiding return fire from your foes. At the end of each level you will have a boss to face off against (or in the case of Stage 5, five of them). A major part of Pop'n Twinbee is also getting the highest score that you can. You can do this by destroying enemies for points. You can also fire at clouds that show up throughout each level, which will drop bells, Grey Bells giving off up to 10,000 points per Bell. As expected in a shmup, there are also power-ups. You can upgrade the TwinBee's guns, movement speed, create two phantom replicas and bring out a helper Medical Ball by shooting at Bells to change their colours, and picking up items left behind by destroyed anti-air ground structures. -------- CONTROLS -------- These are the default controls. They can be changed on the SetUp option on the title menu screen. A - Fire bomb (cannot be holding B to fire) (must have at least one arm) B - Fire bullets at aerial enemies (hold B for rapidfire) D-Pad - Move around the screen Start - Open your menu Close to return to the main game ----- BOMBS ----- When fighting structures that are on the ground, you cannot use your regular bullet fire. Instead, you have to bomb them using the A button (you cannot be using your regular gun while using bombs, either). To bomb a structure on the ground, get in close to where the target is (below it, but it is not necessary to be perfectly vertically aligned) and press the A button for the bomb to autolock onto the target. If you do not have at least one Arm on the TwinBee (refer below), you cannot use Bombs. ---------------- CLOUDS AND BELLS ---------------- Throughout each level, you will encounter various clouds drifting through the air. When you fire at a cloud, a bell will drop out of it, moving up a bit before falling south on the screen. You can shoot at the bell multiple times to send it reeling back up the screen (and even off-screen) to prevent it from falling off the bottom of the screen. This also has the effect of (sometimes, but not always) changing the colour of the bell, which changes its effect if you pick it up. GREY - Awards extra points. If you do not let a Grey Bell fall off- screen, the number of points you gain increases consecutively after each bell, starting off at 500 points, then 1000, 2000, 5000, and finally it stays at 10,000 points for every Grey Bell you get until a Grey Bell drops off screen. At that point it then resets to 500 points. BLACK - Gives your ship a speed increase. You can increase your speed up to a total of three times. WHITE - Upgrades your aerial gun into a double-shot. EYE - Gives you two phantom duplicates of your ship that will fire aerial bullets at the same time as your ship, tripling your firepower (but not bombs). STRIPED - Creates a barrier around Twinbee that soaks up some enemy damage. ------------ GROUND ITEMS ------------ When you destroy buildings on the ground, they will leave behind various items, with fruit being the most common. FRUIT - Gives you extra points STAR - Destroys all enemies in the air and gives you double the score of what you would get from normally destroying them MILK BOTTLE - Gives your ship an extra life CANDY - Gives your ship(s) a three-way shot, spitting out one bullet directly north, and the other two NE and NW, superseding a double-shot gun. If you pick up another Candy while still having the first power-up active, a Miracle Ball will activate. The Miracle Ball will bounce around the screen, destroying any aerial (but not ground) enemies that it comes in contact with. Touching it with the Twinbee will not harm you, but it will stop the Miracle Ball until you move away and then it shall start up again. ------------------------- ARMS, AMBULANCE AND DEATH ------------------------- Your TwinBee ship starts off with two 'arms', a small sphere on either side of your ship. If you get hit by a bullet, you will lose an arm. If you lose both arms, you can no longer shoot bombs and if you take another hit, the TwinBee itself is destroyed and you lose a life. However, a square-shaped ambulance will drop from about the middle of the screen after losing both arms. If you grab it, both arms are destroyed, and you will get another ambulance if you lose both arms again (by contrast, touching an enemy or non-bullet projectiles results in instant death, a spare arm or two or not). You cannot use Bombs while you have no arms. If you die, you will lose all your power-ups. However, you will also notice a small ship emerging from the TwinBee's remains that slowly flies up to the top of the screen. Once your TwinBee returns to the screen, go up and touch the ship to regain all the Power-Ups you had, including Candy-upgraded Gun and phantom replica ships. --------------- TWO-PLAYER MODE --------------- If you have a friend with a second copy of Pop'n Twinbee and hook up with a link cable, two ships can play together, with Player 2 using the Winbee ship. ------------ STAGE SELECT ------------ If you select the SetUp option on the title menu screen, you can choose any of the first four stages to go through. To get to Stage 5 and 6, you still have to defeat Stage 4 first. ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~- Walkthrough -~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ [WALK] --------- STAGE ONE --------- •Start off by focusing less on enemies and more on the bells, shooting at the clouds to get bells to come out and then shooting at the bells themselves to change colours. A White Bell is top priority, unless you get an Eye Bell (a Bell that will give your ship two phantom duplicates and triple your firepower), then Black/Patterned, and Grey Bells. •Shortly after the stage begins, you will be shot at by towers on the ground. To destroy these towers, you need to get close to them (not directly vertically aligned, but still close) and Bomb them using the A button (on the default firing scheme) and your bomb will autolock onto the tower. Typically a Fruit is left behind, but sometimes a Star (destroys all airborne enemies, giving you 2x the score bonus) or a Milk Bottle will instead be left behind. •Enemy formations get wild pretty fast, as they will stop coming in lockstep with one another and start swooping in at curves and dropping to the bottom pretty quickly. Not much you can do other than hold the B button for your autofire and be sure to avoid enemy fire as much as is possible. •The first time you cross over water is a red herring, and you will come back to land again shortly. The second time you do will start up a boss battle, and you should stay away from the centre to avoid a couple of projectiles at the start. STAGE ONE BOSS -------------- This boss, whose given name is 'Taiyou No. 13' and vaguely resembles a sun with a long nose on its bottom side, has several discs rotating it, acting as an improptu shield. The discs themselves do not attack or anything, but if you come into contact with them, it is an instant kill. Taiyou does not move down to the bottom of the screen at all, but he does move left and right and down a little bit, so stick to the bottom side altogether just to avoid touching him by accident. That being said, Taiyou has two different attacks. The first is shooting out one disc at a time from his 'nose' that goes straight down the screen, but he shoots them out at a fairly quick pace. The second is spitting out a smaller bullet from his approximate centre - this bullet can go at diagonal, so watch out for this as while you can avoid discs simply by not being aligned with him, the same cannot be done for the bullet. To damage and destroy Taiyou, just shoot at him. There does not seem to be any specific damage animation, but shooting at him will hurt and eventually destroy the boss. --------- STAGE TWO --------- •Enemies will start swarming you right away in this stage, starting with a wave coming from the top-left side of the screen of knife-like foes, so watch out for them. •Buildings on the ground will start firing at you right away as well - in this level, what you need to watch out are for the square stones with faces on them. •Once you get up to a narrow river crossing, some sort of ship will be crossing the water. You cannot bomb this ship and it does not appear to fire at you, so ignore it. •When you get past the first ship in the water, you will start to encounter a very annoying type of enemy - U-shaped foes that will pop in from the top of the screen, spit out three bullets (one straight down, two at a 45 degree angle), and then quickly retreat back up. Watch out for this type of enemy, as the first one can be a surprise, and later on in the level they will occasionally show up in twos and threes. •Also past the first ship in the water, you will encounter a large formation of stone faces on the ground - a 2x2 group to the right, followed by a 1x2 formation shortly thereafter. They are spaced out as normal for the rest of the level. •After you cross a second ship in the water, you will face more U-shaped enemies, this type with a Down Arrow v engraved on its body, which will orbit in an S-shape pattern as it drops to the bottom of the screen, occasionally spitting out a single bullet each. •Once you get to the waterfall, the boss battle for this stage shall start. STAGE TWO BOSS -------------- Harifoori is the name of this boss. The main body is its weak point, while the pod on either side of it is invulnerable to damage. Harifoori's movement pattern is to bob around in a sort of sideways 8 pattern, and he will move down towards the right corner to start. However, sometimes (especially if Twinbee is on the upper side of the screen) Harifoori will 'bounce' off the side of the screen and move back towards the centre instead of completing half the sideways 8 loop. Start the battle off on the right side. Harifoori will move towards that side at the start no matter what, but more importantly, both the main body and its pods will always target their shots in the direction the Twinbee is in. If you wait until they fire and you have a couple of speed upgrades, you can quickly move left while holding B for autofire to blast at Harifoori. A good tactic to try is to stay on the opposite side of the screen where Harifoori is, about midway or slightly above the middle of the screen. When Harifoori spits out bullets and missiles at you, they merely go in the direction Twinbee is in, but do not home in on you. You can then go down and to the opposite side of the screen just as Harifoori is moving back up to the center of the screen and to the side you were just on, strafing Harifoori in the process, then moving up again on the screen to repeat the process. Occasionally, the main body will submerge and hide behind the waterfall. It does not do anything until it comes back out again. In the meantime, stay in either bottom corner, as the two small pods tend to shoot missiles straight towards the centre-bottom of the screen when the main body is gone. ----------- STAGE THREE ----------- •A lot of the enemies do not actually attack or shoot bullets in this stage, as you may notice with the very first wave of enemies. They do not twist or move in surprising ways, so often they are just there to soak up damage and attempt to overwhelm you with numbers so you may accidentally run into one of them. Some enemies WILL shoot at you, however, so do not get careless. •You will notice the ground-based buildings for this level right away - they are star-shaped and the stars will move around a little bit when firing. •Clouds on this stage do not come from the top most of the time. Instead, they spontaneously form in front of the spire-like structures on the ground, and are semi-transparent. •Partways through the stage, you will come across river rapids. When the Twinbee ship is floatnig right above them, it will be pushed in the direction the rapids are flowing. Use this as an indication to stay away from the centre- bottom of the screen, as there will be a couple of ships that pop out from there and oscillate left and right slightly and move towards the top of the screen. These ships do not appear to shoot or anything, but they will destroy the Twinbee with contact. •Once you get past the third river rapids, be prepared to deal with a boatload of enemies, including a 2x3 grouping of 6 Stars on the ground crammed together, and multiple octopus and Metroid-like enemies. Once you get past this wave and come to a long walled gate, you will be fighting the boss for this stage. STAGE THREE BOSS ---------------- This boss is known as Kameron, and it was obviously designed with a tortoise base. Kameron likes to move around the screen a lot nonstop in no real set pattern. His head will come close to the bottom of the screen (but never actually touch it). This can be problematic, as he spits out one bullet at a time from his head, aimed at the Twinbee. As a result, when he comes down towards the bottom of the screen, you need to move away from him quickly so you have time to react when he fires at you and dodge a bullet. Aside from that, Kameron also fires two projectiles out of his rear end that go up for a bit before coming back down, dropping to the bottom of the screen. While you can dodge these, they can also be destroyed in mid-air by firing at them with your gun, particularly useful if you have the Candy Power-up active. After Kameron takes some damage, the silhouette of a bird will appear on its shell. From now on, when you fire at him, he will sometimes respond with a couple of balls of goop that shoot out straight towards you. These can also be destroyed, but it may be best to hold your fire until he moves upscreen so you have plenty of room to dodge just in case. ---------- STAGE FOUR ---------- •Coming into this stage, move up to near the top of the screen and send a bomb flying at the egg-shaped object with a crack along its middle. This is the building type for the stage that will fire at you from the ground. •As you will notice with the first couple of waves of skeleton enemies, this stage introduces more unusual enemy movements. The Skeletons do not actually attack, but they bounce up and down in a rapid oscillation going left to right (or right to left) and slowly drift down towards the bottom. •The same goes for the Spade playing cards that will go from one side of the screen to the other, bounce off, and also slowly drift down. •Watch out once you get to a row of 4 eggs lined up. Once you approach these, you should expect to see a lot of enemies that will drop from the top of the screen straight down to the bottom without any movement to the sides. •Later on in the stage, you should come across what almost resemble beanstalks on the ground with a ball on top. When you get close to one of these balls, it will open up and spit out three bullets at you one time. You cannot really control when they open up, so in general just stay away from them until a ball opens up, then you do not have to fear it anymore. •Most of the beanstalks are close to one another, but after a single lone beanstalk later on in the level, the boss will appear. STAGE FOUR BOSS --------------- The Giant Queen Bee is an annoying boss, if only because she just dumps so much stuff on you. The Giant Queen Bee herself will only move left to right, bobbing up and down slightly in the process. However, she will constantly be sending down lances straight down, as well as heart-shaped projectiles. Often, four Worker Bees will come out of the Queen Bee and swarm around the area. Not only will they fire lances at you at the low point of their flight, but they will provide obstacles that make it more difficult to nimbly move around. Fortunately, there are two things that will help you out in this battle. The first is that the Hearts can be destroyed in mid-air and the Queen Bee will stop sending them out after she takes some damage (indicated by her 'tail' at the back being visibly damaged). The second is that the Worker Bees RARELY touch the bottom of the screen where the Twinbee is, so you can generally stay out of their way after you get used to their flight patterns. If it does look like one may come into contact with you, then take the hit from a lance if you have to - your arms will be destroyed first before the Twinbee itself is with the lances, but contact with a Worker Bee is an instant kill. ---------- STAGE FIVE ---------- "The buildings on the ground for this level are the raised fists. •As you will quickly learn coming into this level, enemies will just swarm you from all over the place, including from behind. Do not stay right at the bottom of the screen, so that you do not get accidentally killed in contact with a helicopter popping up from the bottom of the screen. This chaos continues on for a pretty long period of time, so expect to get killed once or twice. •When you get to the floating islands that drift left and right, you CANNOT fly over them, you must go around them as contact with them is an instant kill. •Past the floating islands, you will get another large landmass with a lot of raised fists that you need to destroy to have a realistic chance of making it past safely, along with a final few swarms of enemies mainly coming from the sides of the screen. •Once you get to a final drifting island, the boss battle gauntlet begins. STAGE FIVE BOSSES ----------------- The first boss stays at the top of the screen, with several discs orbiting him. He is a pretty big nuisance as he fires a ton of bullets with very little refractory time in between bullet sets. To beat him, you need to be able to time your movements well to slip in between the short space between each set of bullets that he spits out and continue holding the B button for autofire. The second boss, a large bee, takes up a smaller space as he does not have any discs rotating around him, and only shoots a single bullet at a time, and moves around a lot in a wave-like fashion, oscillating up and down while going left and right. However, honeycombs will form all over the screen, starting off fairly transparent and then solidifying. You can fly over them while they are mostly transparent but become fatal once they solidify. You can also destroy them, but for ones that form on the side or bottom of the screen you will need to be able to nimbly maneuver around them while strafing the bee. The third boss, a sort of beetle, is fairly easy in himself. He moves around but does not come down right to the bottom of the screen himself. Let him shoot his five bullets and then quickly fly to the other side of the bottom of the screen and you should not have any problems with stray bullets in your path. The problem comes in waves of four subordinate beetles that form at the top of the screen. If you have the Candy upgrade to shoot out three bullets at a time, it is easier to clear them out before they move to the bottom and shoot bullets at you. Boss number four, vaguely resembling a scorpion, may be the easiest. He will constantly have several smaller scorpions orbiting him which he spits out one at a time at you. Each smaller scorpion will shoot a single bullet, while the larger scorpion will shoot multiple ones at you. You can destroy the smaller scorpions while they are still around the larger one or as they are coming towards the bottom of the screen, but they will regenerate. The large scorpion will start moving towards the right side of the screen, wrap over the border to the left side of the screen, and continue right for a few more runs before reversing directions and going left. Stay at one side of the screen, shoot, then when you get fired at, quickly move to the opposite side of the screen and repeat. The fifth and final boss, the gear boss, has the simplest pattern - he constantly moves around in a clockwise circle, directing bulletfire at wherever the Twinbee is. Meanwhile, smaller gear enemies show up at the top of the screen and then go down to the bottom, shooting at you. Stay one step ahead of the gear boss - from his position at the North side of his rotation, when he rotates down to the south side, loop around him clockwise, and keep your finger on the B button to destroy the small gears. Once he starts coming back up, continue going around him clockwise and strafe him with bulletfire. Repeat circling around him and staying a step ahead until the boss is destroyed and the gauntlet finishes. STAGE SIX --------- •You will not fight any regular enemies on this island stage, instead getting three short sentences from the evil presence before finally fighting the boss. STAGE SIX BOSS -------------- The final boss is called 'Super Delicious Ultra Cyber Poppo', but the author thinks that is a ridiculous name even in the absurdist style of the Twinbee games, so will stick to just calling it Cyber Poppo. Cyber Poppo is basically a snapper turtle-like boss who moves left and right, but does not dip to the bottom of the screen. His head will snap out and spit out lollipop projectiles, which can be destroyed. Although the bottom corners of the screen are not perfect safe spots, they are surprisingly good spots to park out on as it is only the occasional lollipop that will come in contact with you there. From there, you can continue to strafe Cyber Poppo and cause damage. Cyber Poppo has three indication stages of damage. First, his right fin (from your perspective, the left side) will be damaged, then the right fin, and finally his head. After each body part is destroyed, he may let off a one-time attack of small cloud projectiles that kill with contact. After you cause some more damage the final boss will finally go down, leaving you with an ending and a credit roll. ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~- Donations/Amazon -~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ [DONT] I don't really care too much about donations, but if you are feeling generous, feel free to send one via PayPal to gammabetaalphafaqs AT gmail DOT com Alternatively, if you ever order any items from Amazon.com, go to the link below. You do not have to buy anything right away, but (if you do not clear browser cookies often) any items you buy within the next 90 days will count as a 'referral order' to me, meaning I get anywhere from 4-6% as a referral/affiliate payment of what you ordered (ie. order $100 worth of stuff, I get $4-6 from Amazon.com) www.amazon.com/?&camp=212361&linkCode=wsw&tag=raofavigafa-20&creative=391881 Other than that, considering this FAQ is for an obscure old game, if you have any other obscure old games that you do not play anymore, consider sending them to me (I will even pay the shipping cost!). I write FAQs for plenty of obscure old games with no FAQs, and having a physical copy of the game (and even better, a manual) is superior to not. You can email me if interested at gammabetaalphafaqs AT gmail DOT com ~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~- Contact Info -~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~ [CONT] Although I believe I have found everything there is to find in this game, there is occasionally the possibility of some super secret level in an obscure game that was never found because it was too obscure, or the like. If you have anything that you feel needs to be includes, feel free to email me at gammabetaalphafaqs AT gmail DOT com If you have any other information to contribute or notice any errors, again, shoot me a notice at gammabetaalphafaqs AT gmail DOT com If you wish to host this guide, or use information from it, consider the FAQ semi-public domain: you can host it without asking and derive information from it word-for-word if you wish, but keep the document unchanged if hosting it and give credit where due if using information ________________________________________________________________________________ ©2013 GammaBetaAlpha FAQs