I'm one of the few fans in North America. I've tried to get as many of the games I could, and love those Kōda Mariko songs! It's amazing how popular was the radio show. So far, I've managed to get Stinger (which is not very common in the Americas), Twinbee 3, Wai Wai World, FC Parodius Da!, SFC Gokujō Parodius and Otomedius, plus Konami Classics Series: Arcade Hits for the DS, which has the original arcade Twinbee.
Had to rewatch this after finally completing a loop in the arcade Twinbee in the recent Konami arcade compilation for the Switch. I wish more of these games came out here!
For some reason living space ships with arms/legs/wings and so forth are really endearing to me, I only recently discovered Fantasy Zone and Twin Bee and found them VERY appealing. This week I downloaded as many games that were available from both cute-em-up franchsies from the Wii Virtual Console before the service went offline, I hope to someday showcase both games on Twitch.
Cool! Twinbee just appeared on switch too. Fantasy zone took it another step by adding the shop which was cool and I love the soundtrack too. Thanks for watching!
I feel this is how the series managed to reach it's iconic popularity back in the day, with it's timeless, whimsical, fantasy 90s anime vibes it has. It really makes me wish I got to grow up with it as a child somewhere. It's gonna be a long road before Nintendo really gets it's "legal first, user-friendliness second" videogame distribution services right...
Are the Opa-Opa and Upa-Upa (Fantasy Zone / Red Photon Zillion) related to the three spaceship robots from Twinbee? Someone should try to depict or write a story about such a "family reunion" taking place...
It’s not everything either. I just gave up trying to list them all. The others are really really short cameos though nothing major. Next year I’ll make another konami video in this vein. It’s an endless fountain it seems
Wow dude! This is an amazing and superbly researched, written, voiced over, and edited video. I’m really impressed. This must have taken so serious time!!
Thanks! I appreciate it. It’s kind of like the radio. You can’t help that the audience likes 💩 and the good stuff stays off the mainstream radar. Thanks for watching 🔔
I'm a big fan of Twin Bee and I think you do justice to the series with this video, I played Stinger a lot on the NES as a kid and learned later that the game had sequels on Game Boy Super Famicom and PS1 and even an RPG! And the only thing I got here in Canada was Stinger :( But I fixed that, I now have most of all of the Twin Bee games :)
Ah yes one of the many great series by Konami. I think I read somewhere that the original Famicom one sold over 1 million. I really wish Konami & Sega kept better tracks of game sales to the public. Great video as always!
It was over a million! A lot of Japanese sites have put together info that they can but yea I wish the old days had better record keeping. Now you can see that like this week, there were 24,792 ps4 sold or something like that. Thanks for watching 🔔
So great to finally get to see a proper Twinbee retrospective, so detailed and entertaining. Pop'n Twinbee was my first love in the series, but I absolutely love Detana for its soundtrack. Great video!!
@@GTV-Japan I don't remember watching a better retrospective on Twinbee than this one :) Plus I'm a big fan of the ad cuts you always use in your videos. Looking forward to the next one.
Oh thanks! I’m happy to hear that. The next few videos are going to be a little different but I’ll never abandon the core format of videos like this one
Awww, I was like "oh neat there was a twinbee OVA", which got me a bit excited, but sadly it doesn't seem to have english fansubs, some one needs to get on that. :P
If I had the Japanese transcript I could easily translate it. But I don’t have the time to listen and transcribe then translate and encode it. But if some asked for some help I’d love to see it done. I kind of forget that fee know Japanese and when I watch something I just understand it
Awesome video, very well made and great presentation style especially with the commercials from Japan. I only ever played the first game on a pirated multi pack game but really enjoyed it.
Thanks Kevin! I’m glad you liked it! The first Twinbee commercial is my fav just so weird and that kid looked just like me at that age so I guess I have a clone out there somewhere. Thanks for watching as always 🔔
Chris I love R Type (r r r r r tyyyyyype)! Especially for TG 16! I can tell you’re a shmup man because you got fingers fast enough to comment before me! Thanks for watching you earned that First!
Man... You not only go into detail about the games themselves, but you also tell us tons of information about the spin-offs and other media relating to it (including those great commercials you play during the "breaks"). That's really unique. I can see your passion, and I always look forward to more of your videos!
Thanks! And I’m glad you’re going thru most of the old ones. Makes the work put in worth it. By now the format is pretty set so if I know a topic well then I know how it’s going to turn out before it’s made. But yeah I hope I can get more of the same for this year and more people out there can see it
Sweet video! I love and miss old Konami, they're so quirky and fun with their games especially the Famicom and SuperFami era. More power to ya good sir!
Thanks Abby! As for the commercials that was all of them, the anime promo seemed to be taken from a tv show though I’m not sure if the Twinbee episodes were ever on tv. I like the commercials to kind of speak for themselves and a lot of them are funny so I’m happy to hear you like it. See you next time 🔔
Nice to see a video about one of my fave shoot em ups! Although I think you missed something...Twinbee lives on as the current mascot of Konami Style, Konami's official online store in Japan. (Well, its Twitter anyway.) He may not have much love in the form of games and such, but Konami does love him nonetheless.
Thank you for an excellent video!!! Today, here in Chicago, it is a bit cold. -23° but feels like -50° with the wind chill. We broke a weather record today! I'll never forget this day with the Mr Freeze cold and having a couple of beers and a shot of tequila for old time sake while watching your very cool videos. Salud my friend and thanks again!!! 🍻👍
What? -23!!!!? How is that possible? I complain about the cold here but I can’t imagine. Well stay warm and take care. Summer is only months away ☀️ ⛄️ 🌴
Pop 'n Twinbee for the Super Famicom is one of my favorite games of all time. I picked it up at an import store in San Francisco along with Devil Hunter Yohko for the Mega Drive, and I've played through it dozens of times over the years. The power-up system can be frustrating at times, but I love the music, graphics and level design. In my opinion no other Twinbee game comes close in terms of quality. (I also like Twinbee Yahho for the Saturn, but it's a step down in my opinion.) There is one other cute-em-up that I feel rivals Pop 'n Twinbee in quality, however, and that game is Star Parodier for the PC Engine Super CD-ROM^2. That game is fantastic.
Twinbee is seeing official releases in North America by means of Nintendo Switch Online, Hamster's Arcade Archives, and a host of others. Maybe a 4K Media English Dub of the OVAs can air in prime time, uncut yet no vulgarity being spoken.
I loved Stinger as a little kid and always wondered about the mysterious pink ship in the cover art. It's satisfying to learn the story behind it after all this time. Awesome video, like everything on this channel!
I love this Franchise I love it soo much that i made an Imaginary Twinbee Anime with my Original Character Future Mint Herb "The Giant Hope for The Little Child"
@@GTV-Japan I took inspiration to Future Trunks and his Weapon The Rattle Sword based on Z Saber from Zero Especially Megaman Zero -Everyone Grown up making him totally with 14 years old but sadly everyone also Died too Yeah Mint also died too, While Pastel was waiting for his soul entering on Paradise Melora (yes she died too) calls everyone who died in the hands of Warmon (Its something like Evil Robot aka Trio Fused with Sunstar and Wily Star on Megaman 8 bit Deathmatch) She asked that Everyone gives their energies With all Full Energy Melora was able to live again and go back with her's live........but she refused because she is not strong to beat Warmon herself So she decided to give her life to another person Dedicating him "The Last Hope" And the choice was "Him" My Favorite Little Green Boy Already Grown up and Stronger Now not only his Sister's Life and His Family But All Earth depends on Mint's Hands "The big Adventure of The Little One Begin" (OH GOD THAT A *PHEW* GIGANTIC WAY TO START A STORY, THAT WITHOUT FORGET -How Did Mint gets the Rattle Sword -The "Spirit" That Declared Light,Pastel and Mint "The Guardians of Earth" -What Mint did when he started growing (like Helping his friends on school,Training With His Sister with 6 years old) -How Warmon Becomes Stronger that never before -How Melora Dies -a transformation of Pastel and Mint That looked more like a disease similar to Satsui no Hadou on Ryu -the new weapons of the team -The Unlimited potencials that the Mint's Rattle will receive But despite all that I'm already made the beginning and the End (crazy) I ended up having affection and love for the franchise that I just created a complete anime Making Future Mint Herb the protagonist the only one who survive traveling the time to go to the past and discover the reason why everyone has to suffer in his Future. (And sorry for the big text JESUS CHRIST like i said IM MAKING A ANIME SCRIPT)
Thanks Gene! There’s a lot more I could have gone into about the games especially the cameos but my hard drive was full from the video file! Glad you enjoyed it! Spread the word!! 🔔
A new creative video about TwinBee🔥 Thank you so much About the series, I have not finish a game from this series but I have a plan to finish the game on nes as it is on nintendo online service 😅
Great Video! Talking about Twinbee, I always thought Twinbee was fascinating game. My 1st Twinbee game was Detana!! Twinbee on Xbox Live Game Room. While it wasn't My Xbox 360, nor did I buy it, I played the Trial for hours on end. It was also hard game to get working on MAME. In recent terms, I've been playing Twinbee on NES Online. I find the Analog Stick to the best choice to move. Especially compared to the Buttons on the Switch. I usually last until Round 2, but It's enjoyable. Can't wait for the next video!
Awesome! I didn’t know it doesn’t work so well in mame but just get the psx iso and your fine. The next three videos are a little experimental but after that back to this style of video. See you there!
Thanks I need the support. From all the comments today I’m scrapping some ideas and will try to do a Parodius Gradius and Goemon video in the near future 🤞
So I finally got my PC Engine Duo recapped and I've been playing a little game called "Bakushou yoshimoto no shinkigenki". Have you heard of this game?
Yea I’ve seen that! It’s based off a tv show that’s still on the air! But I think it’s only seasonal. The show doesn’t really have stories it’s kind of like talk and manzai kind of stuff the opening song is from the show. I think I’m the only person who isn’t Japanese that watches regular tv by that I mean not anime dubs online aha. That game was from 1994! It’s sad how by then the turbo duo was already history
@@GTV-Japan Yea, I've watched all the anime available even if it wasn't translated, it's very funny the voice of Twinbee who always ends every sentence with -bee
Your videos are great! I never expected that Twinbee has been this popular over the years. Looking forward to a Gradius Full story. Also, commercial breaks between the vids are unique. Lol. Never seen that somewhere else. Subbed!
Hey thanks! I appreciate it. I was surprised at its popularity too when I researched it. I have no plans for a full gradius video. But in December I did one all about Parodius so go check it out when you have time 🔔
I'm really amazed at how much supplementary material there was for games at that point and Konami in particular. Even to this day Konami is still doing stuff like this for their music game division - the multimedia "HinaBitter" and "BandMeshi" projects flesh out an entire world around the band characters that "perform" their songs in their music games. I believe that HinaBitter, based on the story of five girls who form a band to revitalize their struggling home town, has in fact sponsored stamp rallies and various other initiatives to revitalize Kurayoshi in Tottori-ken. It's amazing to me the lengths Konami has gone to over the years for this stuff, and I'm glad to see the tradition carried through to this day for the games where you still can't shove story in due to the very static framework that music games have.
Yeah it truly is incomprehensible to our culture and sensibilities. Maybe if gaming had stayed American after games became more advanced we’d see that but eh. Shoulda coulda woulda
Amazing video! Thank you for creating and sharing this! Twinbee is a series that has been with me throughout most of my life, the earliest point being Pop'n Twinbee for the SNES. It was the first video-game that I enjoyed as a kid and was fully addicted to and the first game which introduced me to the anime/manga style via the work of Shuzilow.HA (Shujirou Hamakawa), the artist of the Twinbee series. Becuse of Konami's shift towards Metal Gear series and other more recent titles, I've always felt that Pop'n Twinbee has always been abandoned, but I can see that there is a massive community which loves it to this day! Thanks Again! :)
There was actually a real life amphibious aircraft from the 1960's called the UC-1 Twin Bee. It has a cute, stubby and bulbous appearance very similar to the ships in the Twin Bee games and was clearly an inspiration to the game's designers. A cool little fact which only makes the games even more appealing to me.
I’ve not read anywhere officially that it was actually inspired by the real aircraft, but I’d be amazed if it was sheer coincidence. Not as amazed as I was to discover there was a real Twin Bee though!
I should have watched the video to the very end before commenting - just saw the segment where you mentioned the Twin Bee aircraft. D'oh! Amazing research as always 👍🏼
I remember when Twinbee was picked as the fourth 3D Classic on the Nintendo 3DS (which I'm surprised this video didn't mention) and how it was the first mainstream port of Twinbee 1 in the US, (not counting RainbowBell being included as part of the DS Konami Arcade collection) which basically made everyone I knew and every forum I went to go "WTF is a Twinbee" since it came out right after a 3D Classic of Xevious and Urban Champion, so most folks thought it was a shovelware shooter Nintendo liked for some reason. I ended up finding it a ton of fun even if I couldn't beat it and found Arika's port job to be shoddy at best, and I've always wanted to play the other games. Been looking for a good copy of Twinbee Portable for a while now, but I need to find one on eBay that isn't artificially inflated, or a good japanese routing source (since used Amazon JP copies are very cheap). I did end up playing Stinger via the Wii U Virtual Console a while back and enjoyed it, but I found the horizontal bits to be a bit clunky. Hopefully the rumors of both the Konami 50TH Anniversary Arcade Collection and Pop N Twinbee on SNES Online come true, so I can check out the games on newer hardware. Hoping the arcade collection has cool stuff like Pooyan, Contra, Yie Ar Kung Fu, Gyruss, Twinbee and Detana Twinbee!
If you need a hand in finding a copy I can try! I did include text of each port in the description but man the read I did for all the ports was so long and crazy I just left it out. Most of the DL versions will be offline soon sadly anyway. Thanks for watching 🔔
@@GTV-Japan Perhaps, yeah. I may try myself a bit more before asking you over Twitter DM if needed. I have a feeling the game's in the 3000-5000 Yen range based on Amazon JP pricing which would be something I could save for since eBay shows some used copies at similar pricing, but I don't know if it's something that's inflated either since stuff like Digimon Adventure PSP goes for 1 yen on Amazon JP despite being charged $30 on eBay and that's another game i'm looking into importing.
I think the real deal Will be in store on clearance but you’ll never be able to get that. What about on psn store? I didn’t check there. I just hope for a modern classics set to end all this!
@@GTV-Japan PSN Contains both the Gradius and SALAMANDER Portable collections but not Parodius or Twinbee sadly. Otherwise I would have jumped on those. I think I'll keep looking and if I have extreme difficulties I'll let you know. Could buy Detana on the Wii U VC to tide me over and play Famicom Twinbee on Switch if needed, at least
Im so glad you have the same love for shmups. Also very nice to explain the history of Twinbee. My first games for the famicom was Gradius and Twinbee, and I instantly fell in love with it. You earned a sub from me. Cheers!!
Never knew about the Twin Bee games compared to the Parodius series, but I thankfully decided to check out this series to know more about how Cute em ups first started. I often called them Cute Shooters, but I guess Cute em ups is what most people call them. When it comes to people in my everyday life, a shooter is more like a Call of Duty or Battlefield or Halo type of game. For me, Shooters will always be something from Japan like Parodius for side scroll shooters or Galgun for on rail shooters. When it comes to more western shooters, Duke Nukem would be my fav because of the Alien Hive and Strip Club levels in Duke Nukem. Another western shooter is RARE's Jet Force Gemini on the Nintendo 64, a 3rd person shooter where you play as a boy, a girl and a dog and you have to shoot alien bugs and ants to save teddy like tribals. A really awesome game with a few flaws but a blast to play that was made years before Japan's Earth Defence Force. But I have always been a fan of the cute shooters, the cute em ups. Wished they would be made more these days.
I am a huge Fantasy Zone and Space Harrier fan. Without Twin Bee we may have never received Fantasy Zone. I like the 16-bit Twin Bee titles but aside from Stinger I never really got into it. Parodious is fantastic as a series. I can still here the words "Welcome too the Fantasy Zone! Get Ready!" running through my head. Man...this was yet another video that sent me through memory lane. What the Hell am I going to do once we all go back to work full force?! I can't watch your videos all day unless I quit my job...and that's probably a bad idea. ;)
@@GTV-Japan You know what? That's a great idea! I will leave my gaming PC running and have it streaming on all of our screens through a continuous loop. That way our cat doesn't get bored while we're gone. My fiancee should be totally fine with this new plan. Besides how else are we supposed to get the high score on our electric bill?! Our neighbors are going to lose this electric bill war I'm imagining in my head. Me: "Hey, how much was your electric bill last month?" Neighbor: "I paid $180.00 last month, not bad." Me: "You lose buddy! Our bill was over a thousand dollars!" Neighbor: "Wait what?!" Me: "That's right loser, we smoked you! By the way, do you have some garbage bags, toilet paper, bleach, chicken, you know what....we better get some paper and a pen. This is going to be a big list." ;)
Not to be confused with the Playstation 2 (which has a bunch of good shmups as well) I really love the Phantasy Star serie (whether it is the classic Master System/Megadrive games, the Online, the Universe (mainly the PSP ones) and even Online 2 despite being a JP only MMO). It's my fav JRPG along with the Ys and Dragon Quest series.
For personal matters I like the TwinBee games in the long-running TwinBee franchise and the games are good and fun. There are 13 TwinBee games in the franchise that stand out good and even though the TwinBee franchise is underrated but decent I hope there will be more TwinBee games one day in the future and I'm more than willing to apply and sign up for Konami studios and make and create more future TwinBee games. Most of all the TwinBee franchise really needs to come back.
@@GTV-Japan Stinger was marketed poorly. No one knew what type of game it was apart from the box art, and that did not help. I don't believe it was produced for too long either.
I can still remember those days when I was a kid where I'd go to some family computer and Nintendo rental shop in my hometown in PH and play this game and other classics. What a childhood that was. Didn't realize it's this big in JP though. I think I only got to play 2-3 versions of it. Thanks for this!
admittedly I was never super into the twinbee series (the bell juggling thing always bugged me I rarely got the powerup I wanted without getting killed lol) but I did love Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius... and the Twinbee G/X remix is definitely one of my favorite songs in beatmania IIDX 4th Style! I do need to look up the twinbee anime, though!
The anime is great and has a “hard R” kind of vibe to it if you know what I mean wink wink. There’s no dub or sub that I’m aware of though. Thanks for watching 🔔
I'll never understand why Konami kept thinking that America would just straight up boycott them if they ever dared to release a Twinbee game here.... :/
No idea but like I said and it was true, they were limited to 5 games a year. Yea they made Ultra to get around that but still all of those games were great as it was so there just wasn’t any room for it I guess. Thanks for watching and Here’s to imports and emulator 🔔
Thanks! That’s a good one. I was thinking Momotaro densetsu too but I have a lot of other Japanese only ideas lined up for this year. I’ll add Goemon to the list for sure. Goemon is also a spaghetti restaurant chain in Japan or something. Thanks for watching on day one! 🔔
A comprehensive Goemon video would be amazing, you're definitely the right person to do it justice. There's hardly any information about the series on UA-cam, other than the horribly mutilated western releases. It's definitely my favourite series of all time and probably the catalyst for me falling in love with Japanese culture.
I’ve been hit with tons of Goemon requests now so yea I am going to do it. Probably around summer. I’ve already got videos up to May lined up so after then I can work on it
Awesome! Really look forward to it. I've been a serious collector of Japanese video games for nearly 30 years, so I love all your content and the unique perspective your channel brings to the hobby.
I like the game Pop’n Twinbee on the SNES but, I had to research if there were any sequels released. But for being a American, we missed out on a great series that North Americans never knew about. There were games for the Saturn, PlayStation 1, and other platforms. But I was surprised to find music CDs, promos, a full length radio drama, and even a OVA based on it.
Yes I will. I have one short salamander only video already written but I think this year let’s give Gradius and Parodius the same treatment as this! Thanks for watching 🔔
Thank you!!! I was trying to wrap my head around where the Twinbee game that is hidden in the PC Engine Mini came from. Makes sense now on why on the Japanese version of the PC Engine Mini you have to highlight Tokimeki Memorial to unlock it, since that Twinbee game was a mini game in Tokimeki Memorial. So I can only guess that Force Gear is another mini game from Tokimeki Memorial, because to play Force Gear you also have to highlight Tokimeki Memorial to unlock it in a similar manner. Awesome Video and Thank you once again!!! Edit: Also Subbed
Yea that’s right. Both are in the computers in the game somewhere. On the pce/TG Mini you can select tokimeki or salamander and lush select twice for twinbee and thrice for force gear and play those. So I think that’s pretty cool. Thanks for subscribing. You are now legally obligated to watch all 97 episodes and report back on what you like 😆 talk to you soon I hope 🔔
I miss this franchise so much, Konami used to be Golden in the 90s but now it's just Pachinko Machines for days. honestly, Twinbee would've been a pretty good Mascot of Konami. I would also like to mention that there was a Twinbee cameo in Super Bomberman R where Plasma Bomber pilots Gwinbee as a Phase 2 boss fight.
0:28 Ha ha, YES! Man, as much as I love shooters I've never really been a fan of the TwinBee games. While I do dig the aesthetics, I can't stand the bell juggling. I absolutely hate it! Which Castlevania games have TwinBee cameos? I honestly can't think of a single one that has any.
@@NefariousWes the handheld cvs are pretty much universally considered the best ones outside of symphony, hopefully you've played them since you've posted, you'd be missing out big time otherwise
Pop'n Twinbee is one of my favorites. I play it every week at least once. I own the Super Famicom version. I also have Stinger on NES and Twinbee 3 on Famicom. I have been meaning to get the first in the series for the Famicom.
Found out about the episode now. It should be noted that the Pop'n Twinbee 1st stage song (Twin Memories) is also the official main theme for various media and that Mariko Kouda is the voice actor for the Madoka-character, if I remember correctly.
I played Pop'n Twinbee, Rainbow Bell Adventures and Parodius on the SNES, started doodling the characters, found the odd anime episode... but I didn't know it went THIS deep. Another epic video, my browse through the backlog continues.
I've only recently played TwinBee (Famicom version) when a friend stuck it on my NES Classic. It is quite fun. Although, like all shoot em ups, I am terrible at it. Interesting history. I enjoyed it!
I've watched this video before, and I want to say this is a fantastic video on the TwinBee franchise! I've been enjoying the series since 2008, and my first experience with the series was with Pop N' TwinBee. My favorite game in the series is TwinBee Yahho! I've played many games in the series since then!
I always thought Twinbee was Konami's answer for Sega's Fantasy Zone but it was other way around. The more you know. I think one of the reasons why most of Twinbee games weren't released in North American because Americans weren't so familiar with anime. France, Germany, Italy and UK were familiar with anime since 70s and Ginga Nagareboshi Gin and 90s Moomins helped popularize anime in Northern European countries, especially in Finland (my homeland). I will definitely get Pop'n Twinbee for my SNES game collection someday.
It’s true! I didn’t know myself but many from France have come here and told me how they got soooo many anime and games Americans didn’t. Seems weird but they just love it. Thanks for sharing your opinion and thanks for watching 🔔
Thanks haha I hope it’s from my video though there’s lots of links with just the clip. I will turn Wai Wai world into a review video after Parodius and it’s actually a very cool game
@@GTV-Japan true, and your vids showing me stuff I never played that seems worth checking out. after the massive success of Bloodstained and Eiyuuden on kickstarter, maybe some of the old Konami Shmup talent will try their hand there.
The MSX machines had two cartridge slots and as I understand it, if you inserted Twinbee in the second slot when you play Gradius you get to play as Twinbee instead of Vic Viper. Different combinations of carts give different effects. A fun easter egg of sorts, but this surely was the inspiration to the later Parodius games. Never owned a MSX myself, but 'Displaced Gamers' got a really good video where he mentioned this tidbit.
Yea this is very true and some of that is shown in the Parodius video I did at the end of that year. It’s very cool Because it even works in emulation and I’ve learned many games took advantage of this feature. Thanks for watching 🔔
@@GTV-Japan Ironically I had that video lined up to watch first thing in the morning (The Parodius Story Da!!). Which was also a great video btw, that's how you earn subscribers.
Thanks friend! Can you imagine a Twinbee video with nine million views?! That’s like Superdrag winning a Grammy award! The world would be upside down! I appreciate the support 😃 so go spread the word and maybe I’ll reach that. Ya never know 🔔
Hey thanks! Be sure to check out the other videos I made before and comment on what you like. I always read everything and love discussion about these topics
Twinbee has largely passed me by. The only thing of it I've ever seen was an advert for "Pop'n Twinbee Rainbow Bell Adventure" in the back cover of a UK Sonic the Comic sometime around 1994.
@@GTV-Japan Yeah, it was unusual, as those were the days where not even the rich kids had TWO games consoles at home! Nonetheless, it was there - I have mistaken the Twinbell ships for Opa-Opa from Sega's Fantasy Zone a couple of times!
The trilogy was twinbee goemon Parodius and now it’s over. In 18 the story arc was about the events of 1983. This year will have a longer arc with hints dipping in most videos that leads to a huge shocking finale. If I can pull it all off
I am trying to write as many quality scripts that can be shared so the channel can explode properly. I’ll make Wai Wai world as one of them, but I want at least 10 that are mainstream enough to get a million views in the end, the the rest are just for fun or because no ones done them
Oh yes the anime scene! A random girl gets hit with the big ray and becomes 25 feet tall. That scene is great. Actually the whole anime is very R rated. It’s on UA-cam but no sub. Go check it out. Thanks for watching!
Yes that’s right. My memory is a little fuzzy now, so it might be a different episode but there’s a scene where Twinbee crashes into a girls locker room that’s pretty funny too. When I was making the Goemon video last week, they also drew Yae pretty hot in some manga, I learned. Oh what wonderful research!
I just thought of something. Why is Dr. Cinnamon alive in Twinbee 2? It takes place 100 years after Twinbee! Edit: Oh shoot. Cryogenic sleep. And overall, great video!
Yea it’s weird but I think that part was retconned out after the books and videos were made. I would have gone more into that but the manual is the only source and it was all Japanese text no picture so for most people it would be kind of boring. Thanks for watching as always 🔔
Oh yea I know you’d be interested for sure but I have to keep in mind if a video is to be successful in the long term to keep people from clicking off. There will be a lot more casuals that come across this video in years to come so don’t want to bore them. In the games light was called annomon and yea the manga and anime gave them new personas. Kind of weird and cool who it happened
Just had my first taste of TwinBee today; I got a Nintendo Power kiosk cartridge (a.k.a. SF Memory Cassette) with Pop'n TwinBee and Magical Drop 2 on it... Good lord, TwinBee is far too mechanically complex of a SHMUP for how cutesy it looks! 😂 I'mma have to bust out the asciiPad and set the main weapon button to _Auto._ (Switches the button to 'normally closed', with rapid fire enabled.) 21:25 I love how even one of the goofy-looking baseball players from Konami's _Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakkyuu_ series is chilling at the club having a pint. 🤣 Konami are just so hilariously balls-to-the-wall when it comes to easter eggs. (And Kojima especially; if he can get away with it, he'll do it...hell, sometimes he'll do it anyway. Forgiveness versus permission, etc. 😏)
Gradius was the real origin of the Konami code if I'm not mistaken? I actually saw displaced gamers channel reprogram the MSX gradius version to actually scroll rather than load page to page pretty cool that today all we had to do was change a line of code and back then it took years and a million man hours to figure out how....
You are my kind of guy! Going thru the back catalog! Much appreciated! One thing though, if you comment on every video, that's great but the same phrase repeated will cause them all to end up in the spam filter.
Sadly, my first and only encounter with Twin Bee is playing the theme music on Dance Dance Revolution Extreme. Really fun song though with an upbeat pop sound. One of my favorite shooters as a kid was Burai Fighter on the NES that sadly didn't have many ports/sequels.
I love shooters. I've been playing them since the '70s and every decade up until the present. I can't bring myself to say "shmups." It embarrasses me. 😳
Haha I hear you. I’m the same but whatever people want to call them is fine as long as they like them. It does kind of have a 90s forced edginess to them. I’m more angry about shooters now not meaning space shooters and just FPS. But I’m sure you knew that by watching. Thanks as always for watching on the first day. Always means a lot 🔔
What was your favorite Twinbee game? Share your memories of Twinbee, cute em ups or other shmups! I’d love to hear it!!
Pop'n Twinbee on my PAL Super Nintendo with my father back in the early 2000's... the game was hard but we managed to finish it one day
I'm one of the few fans in North America. I've tried to get as many of the games I could, and love those Kōda Mariko songs! It's amazing how popular was the radio show.
So far, I've managed to get Stinger (which is not very common in the Americas), Twinbee 3, Wai Wai World, FC Parodius Da!, SFC Gokujō Parodius and Otomedius, plus Konami Classics Series: Arcade Hits for the DS, which has the original arcade Twinbee.
That’s cool! I didn’t know about the DS one. I hope we just get a massive Twinbee/Gradius/Parodius compilation someday. Thanks for watching 🔔
That’s cool! I used to be so mad that the games weren’t out in America despite being translated. Thanks for watching 🔔
I forgot something. In that collection for the DS, Twinbee is called RainbowBell.
I hope someday I manage to get the PSP Konami collections.
Had to rewatch this after finally completing a loop in the arcade Twinbee in the recent Konami arcade compilation for the Switch. I wish more of these games came out here!
oh its on there!? I have been busy so I must have missed it. Thanks for watching!
By the PC Engine Mini and cross your fingers
For some reason living space ships with arms/legs/wings and so forth are really endearing to me, I only recently discovered Fantasy Zone and Twin Bee and found them VERY appealing. This week I downloaded as many games that were available from both cute-em-up franchsies from the Wii Virtual Console before the service went offline, I hope to someday showcase both games on Twitch.
Cool! Twinbee just appeared on switch too. Fantasy zone took it another step by adding the shop which was cool and I love the soundtrack too. Thanks for watching!
I feel this is how the series managed to reach it's iconic popularity back in the day, with it's timeless, whimsical, fantasy 90s anime vibes it has. It really makes me wish I got to grow up with it as a child somewhere.
It's gonna be a long road before Nintendo really gets it's "legal first, user-friendliness second" videogame distribution services right...
Japan version. Get princess Melora let me try !
Are the Opa-Opa and Upa-Upa (Fantasy Zone / Red Photon Zillion) related to the three spaceship robots from Twinbee? Someone should try to depict or write a story about such a "family reunion" taking place...
No they aren’t related but that would be cool
Incredible! I had no clue that Twinbee was so large of a series with so many games and other media formats! This was such a great video--thank you!
Thanks I’m glad you like it! It’s such an interesting divide between regions that probably would not happen nowadays. See you next time 🔔
Thank you for making these videos. The production value is crazy good; really feels like im watching a television special or something!
Awesome I’m glad you liked it! I actually was a tv director many years ago and I can’t go back to it so youtube is my outlet. Thanks for watching 🔔
This was quite informative, thanks for putting it together! Who knew Twinbee characters had so many cameos in other games?
It’s not everything either. I just gave up trying to list them all. The others are really really short cameos though nothing major. Next year I’ll make another konami video in this vein. It’s an endless fountain it seems
In Super Bomberman R, Plasma Bomber has a mecha known as Judge Gwinbee.
Oh yeah! That’s cool
Wow dude! This is an amazing and superbly researched, written, voiced over, and edited video. I’m really impressed. This must have taken so serious time!!
Yea it did thanks for noticing! More than that all my videos are edited on the commute train to and from work. Glad you liked it 🔔
@GTV Japan Wow!! That is very impressive to be able to do that. You must not have issues with rush hour for your working time?
No. I just got on the train and sit for an hour. Then I have an hour free mid day. Then an hour ride back home.
These videos are so well produced, you deserve a lot more recognition!
Thanks! I appreciate it. It’s kind of like the radio. You can’t help that the audience likes 💩 and the good stuff stays off the mainstream radar. Thanks for watching 🔔
I'm a big fan of Twin Bee and I think you do justice to the series with this video, I played Stinger a lot on the NES as a kid and learned later that the game had sequels on Game Boy Super Famicom and PS1 and even an RPG! And the only thing I got here in Canada was Stinger :(
But I fixed that, I now have most of all of the Twin Bee games :)
Cool! Yep the good old days of regional differences. Glad they are mostly gone 🔔
I rly like that the commercials breaks are ads for the game
Thanks I’m glad you liked it 🔔
Ah yes one of the many great series by Konami. I think I read somewhere that the original Famicom one sold over 1 million. I really wish Konami & Sega kept better tracks of game sales to the public. Great video as always!
It was over a million! A lot of Japanese sites have put together info that they can but yea I wish the old days had better record keeping. Now you can see that like this week, there were 24,792 ps4 sold or something like that. Thanks for watching 🔔
So great to finally get to see a proper Twinbee retrospective, so detailed and entertaining. Pop'n Twinbee was my first love in the series, but I absolutely love Detana for its soundtrack. Great video!!
Thanks Jordi! I wasn’t sure if anyone else had covered the series but this was the most requested topic I had 🔔
@@GTV-Japan I don't remember watching a better retrospective on Twinbee than this one :) Plus I'm a big fan of the ad cuts you always use in your videos. Looking forward to the next one.
Oh thanks! I’m happy to hear that. The next few videos are going to be a little different but I’ll never abandon the core format of videos like this one
Awww, I was like "oh neat there was a twinbee OVA", which got me a bit excited, but sadly it doesn't seem to have english fansubs, some one needs to get on that. :P
I would love to but I’m way too busy sorry! I thought about subbing the radio show but that’s even longer! Thanks for watching 🔔
that is rather a shame nobody's done the OVA's.
If I had the Japanese transcript I could easily translate it. But I don’t have the time to listen and transcribe then translate and encode it. But if some asked for some help I’d love to see it done. I kind of forget that fee know Japanese and when I watch something I just understand it
@@GTV-Japan yeah even the patt when Mint says:Babu! Or Babu!! Or even B a b u!!!
Awesome video, very well made and great presentation style especially with the commercials from Japan. I only ever played the first game on a pirated multi pack game but really enjoyed it.
Thanks Kevin! I’m glad you liked it! The first Twinbee commercial is my fav just so weird and that kid looked just like me at that age so I guess I have a clone out there somewhere. Thanks for watching as always 🔔
Great video .Great you showed R-Type one of my favorites.The pop twin bee on the super famicom was the one I always played it was great
Chris I love R Type (r r r r r tyyyyyype)! Especially for TG 16! I can tell you’re a shmup man because you got fingers fast enough to comment before me! Thanks for watching you earned that First!
Man... You not only go into detail about the games themselves, but you also tell us tons of information about the spin-offs and other media relating to it (including those great commercials you play during the "breaks"). That's really unique. I can see your passion, and I always look forward to more of your videos!
Thanks! And I’m glad you’re going thru most of the old ones. Makes the work put in worth it. By now the format is pretty set so if I know a topic well then I know how it’s going to turn out before it’s made. But yeah I hope I can get more of the same for this year and more people out there can see it
@@GTV-Japan 👍
Sweet video! I love and miss old Konami, they're so quirky and fun with their games especially the Famicom and SuperFami era. More power to ya good sir!
Thanks! The 8 bit era is my favorite so I’ll be making videos for a while because I had so many great games. Hope to see you again 🔔
@@GTV-Japan looking forward to it, especially the obscure ones.
If you go back to some of my life vids you’ll see stuff no ones ever heard of on a few occasions 🍻
This was such a delightful discovery. I never knew the game was such a huge hit! Thanks for making this video.
You’re welcome I’m glad you enjoyed it! 🔔
Great video! Also love that you put the original commercials in your videos. It's a great touch that I've only seen on this channel! :)
Thanks Abby! As for the commercials that was all of them, the anime promo seemed to be taken from a tv show though I’m not sure if the Twinbee episodes were ever on tv. I like the commercials to kind of speak for themselves and a lot of them are funny so I’m happy to hear you like it. See you next time 🔔
Nice to see a video about one of my fave shoot em ups! Although I think you missed something...Twinbee lives on as the current mascot of Konami Style, Konami's official online store in Japan. (Well, its Twitter anyway.)
He may not have much love in the form of games and such, but Konami does love him nonetheless.
Yea I did miss that I guess but I will look it up now. At least they still appreciate it! Thanks for watching
Thank you for an excellent video!!! Today, here in Chicago, it is a bit cold. -23° but feels like -50° with the wind chill. We broke a weather record today! I'll never forget this day with the Mr Freeze cold and having a couple of beers and a shot of tequila for old time sake while watching your very cool videos. Salud my friend and thanks again!!! 🍻👍
What? -23!!!!? How is that possible? I complain about the cold here but I can’t imagine. Well stay warm and take care. Summer is only months away ☀️ ⛄️ 🌴
Pop 'n Twinbee for the Super Famicom is one of my favorite games of all time. I picked it up at an import store in San Francisco along with Devil Hunter Yohko for the Mega Drive, and I've played through it dozens of times over the years. The power-up system can be frustrating at times, but I love the music, graphics and level design. In my opinion no other Twinbee game comes close in terms of quality. (I also like Twinbee Yahho for the Saturn, but it's a step down in my opinion.) There is one other cute-em-up that I feel rivals Pop 'n Twinbee in quality, however, and that game is Star Parodier for the PC Engine Super CD-ROM^2. That game is fantastic.
Thanks for sharing! I agree the power up system is the hardest or in some cases the “worst” part of the game
the cute em up most markatable to me is star parodia for pc engine, but twinbee is awesome!
Greetings from Brazil and continue with the great videos!
I really like that game too! But it makes me sad to think of how mishandled the turbo Grafx was Thanks for watching 🔔
@@GTV-Japan Part of this was because the Hudson Soft practically carried the pc engine on the back
Yes true!
Twinbee in Japan huh?
Don't worry.
I have a idea.
Twinbee 1/8 Anime English Fandub needs a voice cast.
Stay tuned!
I’d like to see that!
@@GTV-Japan 👍
@@angelafloyd4780 I'd also love too see that. As well as a fandub of the 3 OVA episodes and the radio drama.
Cool, huh!
@@Dorian_Scott Yep. 👍
Twinbee is seeing official releases in North America by means of Nintendo Switch Online, Hamster's Arcade Archives, and a host of others.
Maybe a 4K Media English Dub of the OVAs can air in prime time, uncut yet no vulgarity being spoken.
That’s cool! Sadly UA-cam won’t allow me to add the new information to a video but sounds good 🔔
I loved Stinger as a little kid and always wondered about the mysterious pink ship in the cover art. It's satisfying to learn the story behind it after all this time. Awesome video, like everything on this channel!
Thanks for watching 🔔
I love this Franchise
I love it soo much that i made an Imaginary Twinbee Anime with my Original Character
Future Mint Herb
"The Giant Hope for The Little Child"
Wow that’s cool 🔔
@@GTV-Japan I took inspiration to Future Trunks and his Weapon The Rattle Sword based on Z Saber from Zero Especially Megaman Zero
-Everyone Grown up making him totally with 14 years old but sadly everyone also Died too
Yeah Mint also died too, While Pastel was waiting for his soul entering on Paradise Melora (yes she died too) calls everyone who died in the hands of Warmon (Its something like Evil Robot aka Trio Fused with Sunstar and Wily Star on Megaman 8 bit Deathmatch) She asked that Everyone gives their energies
With all Full Energy Melora was able to live again and go back with her's live........but she refused because she is not strong to beat Warmon herself
So she decided to give her life to another person Dedicating him "The Last Hope"
And the choice was "Him"
My Favorite Little Green Boy Already Grown up and Stronger
Now not only his Sister's Life and His Family
But All Earth depends on Mint's Hands
"The big Adventure of The Little One Begin"
(OH GOD THAT A *PHEW* GIGANTIC WAY TO START A STORY, THAT WITHOUT FORGET
-How Did Mint gets the Rattle Sword
-The "Spirit" That Declared Light,Pastel and Mint "The Guardians of Earth"
-What Mint did when he started growing (like Helping his friends on school,Training With His Sister with 6 years old)
-How Warmon Becomes Stronger that never before
-How Melora Dies
-a transformation of Pastel and Mint That looked more like a disease similar to Satsui no Hadou on Ryu
-the new weapons of the team
-The Unlimited potencials that the Mint's Rattle will receive
But despite all that I'm already made the beginning and the End (crazy)
I ended up having affection and love for the franchise that I just created a complete anime
Making Future Mint Herb the protagonist the only one who survive traveling the time to go to the past and discover the reason why everyone has to suffer in his Future.
(And sorry for the big text JESUS CHRIST like i said IM MAKING A ANIME SCRIPT)
Definitive would be an understatement, really great job! As always.
Thanks Gene! There’s a lot more I could have gone into about the games especially the cameos but my hard drive was full from the video file! Glad you enjoyed it! Spread the word!! 🔔
A new creative video about TwinBee🔥
Thank you so much
About the series, I have not finish a game from this series but I have a plan to finish the game on nes as it is on nintendo online service 😅
Yea I noticed it recently popped up on there. Maybe more will. I’d like that
I’m glad you liked the video! Thanks for watching
Great Video! Talking about Twinbee, I always thought Twinbee was fascinating game. My 1st Twinbee game was Detana!! Twinbee on Xbox Live Game Room. While it wasn't My Xbox 360, nor did I buy it, I played the Trial for hours on end. It was also hard game to get working on MAME. In recent terms, I've been playing Twinbee on NES Online. I find the Analog Stick to the best choice to move. Especially compared to the Buttons on the Switch. I usually last until Round 2, but It's enjoyable. Can't wait for the next video!
Awesome! I didn’t know it doesn’t work so well in mame but just get the psx iso and your fine. The next three videos are a little experimental but after that back to this style of video. See you there!
Those Japanese commercial breaks are so awesome. Really enjoying your channel. Yoku yatta!!
Hoping for a full Parodius vid lol
I’m sure I’ll get one done someday! Thanks for watching
Of course man, your vids are amazing
Thanks I need the support. From all the comments today I’m scrapping some ideas and will try to do a Parodius Gradius and Goemon video in the near future 🤞
Agreed.. I loved Parodius
I agree with this comment. Please do if you can.
I think you got all of the Twin Bees here! Awesome footage of an epic game we never see.
Thanks Jake! Hopefully there will be a proper region free collection someday.
@@GTV-Japan We can only hope. Until then I'll have to stick to finding it for my Sega Saturn.
That’s the spirit!
So I finally got my PC Engine Duo recapped and I've been playing a little game called "Bakushou yoshimoto no shinkigenki". Have you heard of this game?
Yea I’ve seen that! It’s based off a tv show that’s still on the air! But I think it’s only seasonal. The show doesn’t really have stories it’s kind of like talk and manzai kind of stuff the opening song is from the show. I think I’m the only person who isn’t Japanese that watches regular tv by that I mean not anime dubs online aha. That game was from 1994! It’s sad how by then the turbo duo was already history
I love so much TwinBee that I have a Pastel avatar on many of my accounts and I also have a figure of her.
Thanks for this great video.
Great! Please check out the 1/8 anime. It’s great. Thanks for watching 🔔
@@GTV-Japan Yea, I've watched all the anime available even if it wasn't translated, it's very funny the voice of Twinbee who always ends every sentence with -bee
Haha yea that’s a very common trait in anime! Oh how I wish they’d make a comeback of some kind
I love the commercial breaks scattered in your videos. I just found your channel. Very good work.
Thanks I’m glad you liked it! 🔔
Your videos are great! I never expected that Twinbee has been this popular over the years. Looking forward to a Gradius Full story. Also, commercial breaks between the vids are unique. Lol. Never seen that somewhere else. Subbed!
Hey thanks! I appreciate it. I was surprised at its popularity too when I researched it. I have no plans for a full gradius video. But in December I did one all about Parodius so go check it out when you have time 🔔
I'm really amazed at how much supplementary material there was for games at that point and Konami in particular. Even to this day Konami is still doing stuff like this for their music game division - the multimedia "HinaBitter" and "BandMeshi" projects flesh out an entire world around the band characters that "perform" their songs in their music games. I believe that HinaBitter, based on the story of five girls who form a band to revitalize their struggling home town, has in fact sponsored stamp rallies and various other initiatives to revitalize Kurayoshi in Tottori-ken. It's amazing to me the lengths Konami has gone to over the years for this stuff, and I'm glad to see the tradition carried through to this day for the games where you still can't shove story in due to the very static framework that music games have.
Yeah it truly is incomprehensible to our culture and sensibilities. Maybe if gaming had stayed American after games became more advanced we’d see that but eh. Shoulda coulda woulda
Amazing video! Thank you for creating and sharing this! Twinbee is a series that has been with me throughout most of my life, the earliest point being Pop'n Twinbee for the SNES. It was the first video-game that I enjoyed as a kid and was fully addicted to and the first game which introduced me to the anime/manga style via the work of Shuzilow.HA (Shujirou Hamakawa), the artist of the Twinbee series. Becuse of Konami's shift towards Metal Gear series and other more recent titles, I've always felt that Pop'n Twinbee has always been abandoned, but I can see that there is a massive community which loves it to this day! Thanks Again! :)
Hey no problem. This was a fan requested topic it seems like you really know your twinbee!
There was actually a real life amphibious aircraft from the 1960's called the UC-1 Twin Bee. It has a cute, stubby and bulbous appearance very similar to the ships in the Twin Bee games and was clearly an inspiration to the game's designers. A cool little fact which only makes the games even more appealing to me.
Yea I wonder if it was an inspiration or just a coincidence 🔔
I’ve not read anywhere officially that it was actually inspired by the real aircraft, but I’d be amazed if it was sheer coincidence. Not as amazed as I was to discover there was a real Twin Bee though!
Yea I know. That’s just crazy
I should have watched the video to the very end before commenting - just saw the segment where you mentioned the Twin Bee aircraft. D'oh! Amazing research as always 👍🏼
Ha! I would never leave it out
I remember when Twinbee was picked as the fourth 3D Classic on the Nintendo 3DS (which I'm surprised this video didn't mention) and how it was the first mainstream port of Twinbee 1 in the US, (not counting RainbowBell being included as part of the DS Konami Arcade collection) which basically made everyone I knew and every forum I went to go "WTF is a Twinbee" since it came out right after a 3D Classic of Xevious and Urban Champion, so most folks thought it was a shovelware shooter Nintendo liked for some reason. I ended up finding it a ton of fun even if I couldn't beat it and found Arika's port job to be shoddy at best, and I've always wanted to play the other games. Been looking for a good copy of Twinbee Portable for a while now, but I need to find one on eBay that isn't artificially inflated, or a good japanese routing source (since used Amazon JP copies are very cheap). I did end up playing Stinger via the Wii U Virtual Console a while back and enjoyed it, but I found the horizontal bits to be a bit clunky.
Hopefully the rumors of both the Konami 50TH Anniversary Arcade Collection and Pop N Twinbee on SNES Online come true, so I can check out the games on newer hardware. Hoping the arcade collection has cool stuff like Pooyan, Contra, Yie Ar Kung Fu, Gyruss, Twinbee and Detana Twinbee!
If you need a hand in finding a copy I can try! I did include text of each port in the description but man the read I did for all the ports was so long and crazy I just left it out. Most of the DL versions will be offline soon sadly anyway. Thanks for watching 🔔
@@GTV-Japan Perhaps, yeah. I may try myself a bit more before asking you over Twitter DM if needed. I have a feeling the game's in the 3000-5000 Yen range based on Amazon JP pricing which would be something I could save for since eBay shows some used copies at similar pricing, but I don't know if it's something that's inflated either since stuff like Digimon Adventure PSP goes for 1 yen on Amazon JP despite being charged $30 on eBay and that's another game i'm looking into importing.
I think the real deal
Will be in store on clearance but you’ll never be able to get that. What about on psn store? I didn’t check there. I just hope for a modern classics set to end all this!
@@GTV-Japan PSN Contains both the Gradius and SALAMANDER Portable collections but not Parodius or Twinbee sadly. Otherwise I would have jumped on those. I think I'll keep looking and if I have extreme difficulties I'll let you know. Could buy Detana on the Wii U VC to tide me over and play Famicom Twinbee on Switch if needed, at least
That’s too bad. It’s as bad as namco museum!
Im so glad you have the same love for shmups. Also very nice to explain the history of Twinbee. My first games for the famicom was Gradius and Twinbee, and I instantly fell in love with it. You earned a sub from me.
Cheers!!
Thanks for that! I appreciate it. Be sure to catch up on all older videos when you have time. As for Twinbee, it’s just great 🔔
There is only one chance for Twinbee to become well known and return to the spotlight...
Smash Bros.
A real Sophie’s choice there. Thanks for watching! 🔔
It’s the kind of video only Mr. GTV can do! Great!
Yep! The power of G! Thanks for watching 🔔
Never knew about the Twin Bee games compared to the Parodius series, but I thankfully decided to check out this series to know more about how Cute em ups first started.
I often called them Cute Shooters, but I guess Cute em ups is what most people call them.
When it comes to people in my everyday life, a shooter is more like a Call of Duty or Battlefield or Halo type of game.
For me, Shooters will always be something from Japan like Parodius for side scroll shooters or Galgun for on rail shooters.
When it comes to more western shooters, Duke Nukem would be my fav because of the Alien Hive and Strip Club levels in Duke Nukem.
Another western shooter is RARE's Jet Force Gemini on the Nintendo 64, a 3rd person shooter where you play as a boy, a girl and a dog and you have to shoot alien bugs and ants to save teddy like tribals. A really awesome game with a few flaws but a blast to play that was made years before Japan's Earth Defence Force.
But I have always been a fan of the cute shooters, the cute em ups.
Wished they would be made more these days.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and memories! 🔔
Great Video. You should totally do a Follow Up to this but based on the Goemon series
Lots of comments have asked for the same. So I think it’s going to have to be! Along with Gradius and Parodius. Thanks for watching as always 🔔
I am a huge Fantasy Zone and Space Harrier fan. Without Twin Bee we may have never received Fantasy Zone. I like the 16-bit Twin Bee titles but aside from Stinger I never really got into it. Parodious is fantastic as a series.
I can still here the words "Welcome too the Fantasy Zone! Get Ready!" running through my head. Man...this was yet another video that sent me through memory lane. What the Hell am I going to do once we all go back to work full force?! I can't watch your videos all day unless I quit my job...and that's probably a bad idea. ;)
Yes I’d say it is. Just leave it running on a loop at home all day while you’re gone 😆
@@GTV-Japan
You know what? That's a great idea! I will leave my gaming PC running and have it streaming on all of our screens through a continuous loop. That way our cat doesn't get bored while we're gone. My fiancee should be totally fine with this new plan. Besides how else are we supposed to get the high score on our electric bill?! Our neighbors are going to lose this electric bill war I'm imagining in my head.
Me: "Hey, how much was your electric bill last month?"
Neighbor: "I paid $180.00 last month, not bad."
Me: "You lose buddy! Our bill was over a thousand dollars!"
Neighbor: "Wait what?!"
Me: "That's right loser, we smoked you! By the way, do you have some garbage bags, toilet paper, bleach, chicken, you know what....we better get some paper and a pen. This is going to be a big list." ;)
Sinn0100 winning!
Also thanks for Showing Phantasy Star II and Star Soldier Vanishing Earth (on the N64)
a PS2 video will come soon
Not to be confused with the Playstation 2 (which has a bunch of good shmups as well)
I really love the Phantasy Star serie (whether it is the classic Master System/Megadrive games, the Online, the Universe (mainly the PSP ones) and even Online 2 despite being a JP only MMO). It's my fav JRPG along with the Ys and Dragon Quest series.
For personal matters I like the TwinBee games in the long-running TwinBee franchise and the games are good and fun. There are 13 TwinBee games in the franchise that stand out good and even though the TwinBee franchise is underrated but decent I hope there will be more TwinBee games one day in the future and I'm more than willing to apply and sign up for Konami studios and make and create more future TwinBee games. Most of all the TwinBee franchise really needs to come back.
Here here! 🔔
The business model sounds familiar to the idol franchises today. Thanks for the video. I never knew that Twinbee was a multimedia juggernaut.
This was a very in depth retrospective. Not sure how much more complete it could be. I learned a fair bit so thanks!
At least up to the time it was made nothing more can be said! 🔔
@@GTV-Japan Awesome! 👍
Unfortunately I checked and it appears the PSP compilation version never got a release outside of Japan which is sad.
But psp is region free! And it all emulates anyway
@@GTV-Japan Oh okay.
Yeah I’m 100% emu all the way
Do we know the reason America didn't get so many of the games?
whoever decided that didnt want to release it, but probably stinger sold poorly compared to other games
@@GTV-Japan Stinger was marketed poorly. No one knew what type of game it was apart from the box art, and that did not help. I don't believe it was produced for too long either.
Yea all true points. It was also before the nes was big and that didn’t help
I think another reason is because America isn't really into Cute 'em Ups back then.
Simple, America wanted to look ‘rad and savage’ with hardcore games but as the weeb population grew, we were getting more games from Japan
I can still remember those days when I was a kid where I'd go to some family computer and Nintendo rental shop in my hometown in PH and play this game and other classics. What a childhood that was. Didn't realize it's this big in JP though. I think I only got to play 2-3 versions of it. Thanks for this!
No problem! Thanks for watching 🔔
@@GTV-Japan you're welcome. I have subd. Keep it up!
Thanks talk to you again soon
Keep up the awesome work dude!
Sean Dennis thanks Sean! I’ll keep making them for sure
admittedly I was never super into the twinbee series (the bell juggling thing always bugged me I rarely got the powerup I wanted without getting killed lol) but I did love Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius... and the Twinbee G/X remix is definitely one of my favorite songs in beatmania IIDX 4th Style! I do need to look up the twinbee anime, though!
The anime is great and has a “hard R” kind of vibe to it if you know what I mean wink wink. There’s no dub or sub that I’m aware of though. Thanks for watching 🔔
"Rainbow Bell Adventures" is my absolute favorite Twinbee game.
I can't count the hours on how long I played it after I got it in the late 90's.
Awesome 🔔
I'll never understand why Konami kept thinking that America would just straight up boycott them if they ever dared to release a Twinbee game here.... :/
No idea but like I said and it was true, they were limited to 5 games a year. Yea they made Ultra to get around that but still all of those games were great as it was so there just wasn’t any room for it I guess. Thanks for watching and Here’s to imports and emulator 🔔
Great video as always! Maybe you could do a video on the Goemon series. That would be great.
Thanks! That’s a good one. I was thinking Momotaro densetsu too but I have a lot of other Japanese only ideas lined up for this year. I’ll add Goemon to the list for sure. Goemon is also a spaghetti restaurant chain in Japan or something. Thanks for watching on day one! 🔔
A comprehensive Goemon video would be amazing, you're definitely the right person to do it justice. There's hardly any information about the series on UA-cam, other than the horribly mutilated western releases. It's definitely my favourite series of all time and probably the catalyst for me falling in love with Japanese culture.
I’ve been hit with tons of Goemon requests now so yea I am going to do it. Probably around summer. I’ve already got videos up to May lined up so after then I can work on it
Awesome! Really look forward to it. I've been a serious collector of Japanese video games for nearly 30 years, so I love all your content and the unique perspective your channel brings to the hobby.
That's awesome!
I like the game Pop’n Twinbee on the SNES but, I had to research if there were any sequels released. But for being a American, we missed out on a great series that North Americans never knew about. There were games for the Saturn, PlayStation 1, and other platforms. But I was surprised to find music CDs, promos, a full length radio drama, and even a OVA based on it.
Yea it’s really a huge divide. Unfortunately. Thanks for watching 🔔
Please make a Gradius/Salamander video!!!! This video is great!!
Yes I will. I have one short salamander only video already written but I think this year let’s give Gradius and Parodius the same treatment as this! Thanks for watching 🔔
I love TwinBee Yahho! Arcade
You should! Everyone should too it’s a great game. Thanks for watching
Thank you!!! I was trying to wrap my head around where the Twinbee game that is hidden in the PC Engine Mini came from. Makes sense now on why on the Japanese version of the PC Engine Mini you have to highlight Tokimeki Memorial to unlock it, since that Twinbee game was a mini game in Tokimeki Memorial. So I can only guess that Force Gear is another mini game from Tokimeki Memorial, because to play Force Gear you also have to highlight Tokimeki Memorial to unlock it in a similar manner. Awesome Video and Thank you once again!!! Edit: Also Subbed
Yea that’s right. Both are in the computers in the game somewhere. On the pce/TG Mini you can select tokimeki or salamander and lush select twice for twinbee and thrice for force gear and play those. So I think that’s pretty cool. Thanks for subscribing. You are now legally obligated to watch all 97 episodes and report back on what you like 😆 talk to you soon I hope 🔔
I miss this franchise so much, Konami used to be Golden in the 90s but now it's just Pachinko Machines for days. honestly, Twinbee would've been a pretty good Mascot of Konami. I would also like to mention that there was a Twinbee cameo in Super Bomberman R where Plasma Bomber pilots Gwinbee as a Phase 2 boss fight.
Yea I know what you mean! Thanks for the info 🔔
0:28 Ha ha, YES! Man, as much as I love shooters I've never really been a fan of the TwinBee games. While I do dig the aesthetics, I can't stand the bell juggling. I absolutely hate it! Which Castlevania games have TwinBee cameos? I honestly can't think of a single one that has any.
Portrait of ruin, Order of Ecclesia and Harmony of Dispair. I had no way to find it capture it but they are in there. So is konami man!
@@GTV-Japan No wonder I haven't seen 'em. They're handhelds.
Ya I did like those though and it’s still cool regardless
@@NefariousWes the handheld cvs are pretty much universally considered the best ones outside of symphony, hopefully you've played them since you've posted, you'd be missing out big time otherwise
Pop'n Twinbee is one of my favorites. I play it every week at least once. I own the Super Famicom version. I also have Stinger on NES and Twinbee 3 on Famicom. I have been meaning to get the first in the series for the Famicom.
The others are better because they’ve been refined. Honestly not a huge fan of the first game but yea it’s enjoyable 🔔
Found out about the episode now. It should be noted that the Pop'n Twinbee 1st stage song (Twin Memories) is also the official main theme for various media and that Mariko Kouda is the voice actor for the Madoka-character, if I remember correctly.
Yeah that’s right!
I played Pop'n Twinbee, Rainbow Bell Adventures and Parodius on the SNES, started doodling the characters, found the odd anime episode... but I didn't know it went THIS deep. Another epic video, my browse through the backlog continues.
Oh yeah it’s deep. And layered 🔔
I've only recently played TwinBee (Famicom version) when a friend stuck it on my NES Classic. It is quite fun. Although, like all shoot em ups, I am terrible at it.
Interesting history. I enjoyed it!
Thanks. It’s a pretty hard game thank the lord for save states! 🔔
I've watched this video before, and I want to say this is a fantastic video on the TwinBee franchise! I've been enjoying the series since 2008, and my first experience with the series was with Pop N' TwinBee. My favorite game in the series is TwinBee Yahho! I've played many games in the series since then!
I went back and played the older ones recently. Still very fun! 🔔
Great documentary on the Twin Bee series!!
Thanks for watching! This was one of my favorites to make so I’m glad years later you found it! 🔔
I always thought Twinbee was Konami's answer for Sega's Fantasy Zone but it was other way around. The more you know.
I think one of the reasons why most of Twinbee games weren't released in North American because Americans weren't so familiar with anime. France, Germany, Italy and UK were familiar with anime since 70s and Ginga Nagareboshi Gin and 90s Moomins helped popularize anime in Northern European countries, especially in Finland (my homeland).
I will definitely get Pop'n Twinbee for my SNES game collection someday.
It’s true! I didn’t know myself but many from France have come here and told me how they got soooo many anime and games Americans didn’t. Seems weird but they just love it. Thanks for sharing your opinion and thanks for watching 🔔
Is that Nadia: Secret of Blue Water music I hear in the background?
No. As far as I know I only used twinbee music. But it was so long ago I can’t remember!
@@GTV-Japan My mistake! One of the songs from the Twinbee series sounds a lot like one from Nadia.
Ahh I see no problem
This is a great video. I learned a lot about this cool franchise.
Thanks Noel I’m glad you enjoyed it! I’ll be doing Parodius later this year too🔔
@@GTV-Japan I look forward to it. Love the commercials as always.
This one had some good ones
@@GTV-Japan that wai wai world commercial I've watched about 30 times today. ✌
Thanks haha I hope it’s from my video though there’s lots of links with just the clip. I will turn Wai Wai world into a review video after Parodius and it’s actually a very cool game
Amazing, thanks again!! :D
Thanks to you too! Sorry it took so long but now you know why! 🔔
I feel like Twin Bee was a big inspiration behind Mega Man.
It’s possible that it was in an influence 🔔
Damn, this makes me wistful for old Konami. So much love and care went into the cross brand pollination
don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened 🔔
@@GTV-Japan true, and your vids showing me stuff I never played that seems worth checking out.
after the massive success of Bloodstained and Eiyuuden on kickstarter, maybe some of the old Konami Shmup talent will try their hand there.
I’d like to see that !
The MSX machines had two cartridge slots and as I understand it, if you inserted Twinbee in the second slot when you play Gradius you get to play as Twinbee instead of Vic Viper. Different combinations of carts give different effects. A fun easter egg of sorts, but this surely was the inspiration to the later Parodius games.
Never owned a MSX myself, but 'Displaced Gamers' got a really good video where he mentioned this tidbit.
Yea this is very true and some of that is shown in the Parodius video I did at the end of that year. It’s very cool
Because it even works in emulation and I’ve learned many games took advantage of this feature. Thanks for watching 🔔
@@GTV-Japan Ironically I had that video lined up to watch first thing in the morning (The Parodius Story Da!!).
Which was also a great video btw, that's how you earn subscribers.
Holammer thanks! Both of these were fan requests. Gotta give people what they ask for
You should have 9.1 million subscribers
Thanks friend! Can you imagine a Twinbee video with nine million views?! That’s like Superdrag winning a Grammy award! The world would be upside down! I appreciate the support 😃 so go spread the word and maybe I’ll reach that. Ya never know 🔔
The original TwinBee for Famicom was known by some in South America. It was included in a lot of multicarts for pirate Famicom consoles.
Cool! Thanks for telling me!
Twinbee?! I've never heard that before
Please check it out it’s great 🔔
A look at Konami's cute game series Twinbee. Thanks for the video. ☺️
You’re welcome! 🔔
Greetings again my friend,from México city, excelent video and work,!!!!!
Thanks Alejandro! I’m glad you liked it!
Always neat to see how much really was behind some games
I know. It’s very fascinating and I love it
Next video will be Keith courage and basically it’s the same idea for an expanded universe
If there hadn’t been Twinbee there was no Deathsmiles, so thumbs up!
You got that right. Thanks for watching 🔔
Subbed hard, nice channel
Hey thanks! Be sure to check out the other videos I made before and comment on what you like. I always read everything and love discussion about these topics
Twinbee has largely passed me by. The only thing of it I've ever seen was an advert for "Pop'n Twinbee Rainbow Bell Adventure" in the back cover of a UK Sonic the Comic sometime around 1994.
That’s funny as mega drive fans couldn’t play it. Thanks for watching 🔔
@@GTV-Japan Yeah, it was unusual, as those were the days where not even the rich kids had TWO games consoles at home! Nonetheless, it was there - I have mistaken the Twinbell ships for Opa-Opa from Sega's Fantasy Zone a couple of times!
They do look rather similar
I won TwiBee 3 on Famicom and Pop'N TwinBee on the Super Famicom. They are excellent games. I also have Stinger on NES.
That’s cool! 🔔
I'd love to hear your take on wai wai world, your Parodius upload kicked ass and so does this one. Twin Bee
Thanks! It’s meant to be like a trilogy
So we can expect a trilogy from GTV sometime in the future ?
The trilogy was twinbee goemon Parodius and now it’s over. In 18 the story arc was about the events of 1983. This year will have a longer arc with hints dipping in most videos that leads to a huge shocking finale. If I can pull it all off
@@GTV-Japan
sounds great! I'm in need of my GTV fix. Can't wait for some new material.
I am trying to write as many quality scripts that can be shared so the channel can explode properly. I’ll make Wai Wai world as one of them, but I want at least 10 that are mainstream enough to get a million views in the end, the the rest are just for fun or because no ones done them
4:30 Ok, you have my attention
Oh yes the anime scene! A random girl gets hit with the big ray and becomes 25 feet tall. That scene is great. Actually the whole anime is very R rated. It’s on UA-cam but no sub. Go check it out. Thanks for watching!
@@GTV-Japan Thanks I will. Twinbee & Winbee's 18 Panic, right?
Yes that’s right. My memory is a little fuzzy now, so it might be a different episode but there’s a scene where Twinbee crashes into a girls locker room that’s pretty funny too. When I was making the Goemon video last week, they also drew Yae pretty hot in some manga, I learned. Oh what wonderful research!
I just thought of something. Why is Dr. Cinnamon alive in Twinbee 2? It takes place 100 years after Twinbee!
Edit: Oh shoot. Cryogenic sleep.
And overall, great video!
Yea it’s weird but I think that part was retconned out after the books and videos were made. I would have gone more into that but the manual is the only source and it was all Japanese text no picture so for most people it would be kind of boring. Thanks for watching as always 🔔
Gaijillionaire True, the pilots Light, Pastel, and Mint kinda retconned Twinbee, didn’t they? Also no problem, your videos are really entertaining
Oh yea I know you’d be interested for sure but I have to keep in mind if a video is to be successful in the long term to keep people from clicking off. There will be a lot more casuals that come across this video in years to come so don’t want to bore them. In the games light was called annomon and yea the manga and anime gave them new personas. Kind of weird and cool who it happened
Nice video
Great content on your channel
New supporter
hey thanks! some how you got caught in the spam filter, but i set you free!
35th Anniversary of TwinBee (1985-2020)
36 now ;P
Getting older!
@@GTV-Japan hehehe yeah
I loved the snes game (Pop'n Twinbee)
Cool! 🔔
Just had my first taste of TwinBee today; I got a Nintendo Power kiosk cartridge (a.k.a. SF Memory Cassette) with Pop'n TwinBee and Magical Drop 2 on it... Good lord, TwinBee is far too mechanically complex of a SHMUP for how cutesy it looks! 😂 I'mma have to bust out the asciiPad and set the main weapon button to _Auto._ (Switches the button to 'normally closed', with rapid fire enabled.)
21:25 I love how even one of the goofy-looking baseball players from Konami's _Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakkyuu_ series is chilling at the club having a pint. 🤣 Konami are just so hilariously balls-to-the-wall when it comes to easter eggs. (And Kojima especially; if he can get away with it, he'll do it...hell, sometimes he'll do it anyway. Forgiveness versus permission, etc. 😏)
Very nice! Sounds like you’re having fun!! 🔔
Gradius was the real origin of the Konami code if I'm not mistaken? I actually saw displaced gamers channel reprogram the MSX gradius version to actually scroll rather than load page to page pretty cool that today all we had to do was change a line of code and back then it took years and a million man hours to figure out how....
This was SO GOOOOD
I enjoy Twinbee a lot more than Xevious
You’re awesome then! 🔔
Nothing really to say, but I enjoyed this video. Thanks for making and sharing it.
You are my kind of guy! Going thru the back catalog! Much appreciated! One thing though, if you comment on every video, that's great but the same phrase repeated will cause them all to end up in the spam filter.
@@GTV-Japan Oh, I wasn't aware. Sorry.
Sadly, my first and only encounter with Twin Bee is playing the theme music on Dance Dance Revolution Extreme. Really fun song though with an upbeat pop sound.
One of my favorite shooters as a kid was Burai Fighter on the NES that sadly didn't have many ports/sequels.
That’s too bad but why not try it out today?
I love shooters. I've been playing them since the '70s and every decade up until the present. I can't bring myself to say "shmups." It embarrasses me. 😳
Haha I hear you. I’m the same but whatever people want to call them is fine as long as they like them. It does kind of have a 90s forced edginess to them. I’m more angry about shooters now not meaning space shooters and just FPS. But I’m sure you knew that by watching. Thanks as always for watching on the first day. Always means a lot 🔔
@@GTV-Japan Thanks for bringing Otomedius Excellent to my attention. I wasn't aware of it. Just bought a sealed copy on eBay for $10 👍🏻
That’s cool! Great thing about Japanese only Xbox 360 exclusives. Almost zero demand!
you can take the sound of T B Fantasian and put it onto the new Takeshis Castle Tv Show ... and the 80/90's are BACK ! Back to the Future !
Totally!! 🔔