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NES box art for Twin Eagle, the cover of NEStalgia episode 232

232 · Twin Eagle

▶ Game info
VerdictSkip it
GenreSHMUP
ReleasedOctober 1989
SeasonSeason 5
DeveloperSETA
PublisherRomstar
July 29, 2022 · 31 min · transcript available

Twin Eagle is a vertically scrolling arcade style shooter. You control a helicopter, and need to earn points by shooting or bombing the various (and numerous!) enemies you'll encounter. Planes, helicopters, tanks, anti-aircraft guns, foot soldiers, and more will all be trying to bring your mission to an abrupt end!

SHOW NOTES

Longplay

Australia Version

Arcade Game

The Rescue Mission

Digitized Photos

  • Engage in the most challenging shoot-em-up action packed game yet for the Nintendo Entertainment System
  • NES Longplay
  • Introductions
    • For folks familiar with the box art, there’s only 1 eagle on the cover.
    • There’s a hidden subtitle on this game, it’s not on the box art, but is on the menu.
    • Should be Avenge Joe’s Brother, right?
  • Overview
    • Vertical Helicopter SHMUP, certainly not our first go around.
  • Gameplay
    • The Twin Eagle controls
      • Movement - Rather slow, hard to really circle around
      • No enemy collision
      • The coloring of the enemy bullets read well
      • Fire bullets and drop bombs. We’ve seen it all before
        • Bomb has an interesting quirk. On top of destroying every enemy on screen, it also destroys enemy bullets. A good way to get in a last second dodge.
      • The Power-Ups can be shot at to rotate through a number of different Power-Ups. Thus collecting multiple of the same power up, levels up that particular upgrade. But collecting a new power up doesn’t reset the level up, just the type of power up. If you’re on level 3 Black S and collect Black P, it is now level 3 Black P
    • The mission map - Tells you enemies you defeated and hostages you saved
      • Hostages - Just points
    • No bosses
    • There is 2 player - but the 2nd player is not Joe’s Brother. Just an unnamed pilot. Or maybe his name is Buddy. They say You and a Buddy can avenge Joe’s death
    • The claim that this is the most challenging
      • Obvious Ad Speak
      • We’ve had good challenging and we’ve had Nintendo Hard challenging beyond this
    • This is the team that brought us Space Invaders. A classic, but is the appeal of that game just that they were first to do it? It doesn’t seem like they are innovating much here.
  • Australia Unlicensed Version
    • Home Entertainment Supplies in Australia would publish it there as an unlicensed NES game. This would end up in a dispute between HES and Nintendo
  • Sequels and Spinoffs
    • ARCADE GAME
      • ​​It was one of the first arcade to use extensive digital sampling, from digitized photos to a digitized soundtrack.
        • And let me tell you, none of it holds up because of that. Looks and sounds like mush
    • The arcade sequel
      • Players can rotate their choppers 360 degrees, so they can fire at an angle or even downwards.
      • Players can destroy nearly everything on screen, even buildings
      • At the end there are cut scenes including a news anchor of the fictional SBC News Network, and army generals commenting on your progress.
  • EGL
  • Next week -
  • NEStalgia Byte - Battle City
  • POWER UPS
  • Black S - The first P-Up will result in your three shots going right-left-right
  • at a 45 degree angle from each other, as opposed to going straight
  • through. Once you obtain a second Power-Up, you will be able to fire
  • two bullets at once (six in one rotation) one to the left, one to the
  • right. The third time, you will fire three at a time, one each in the
  • left, center, and right.
  • Gold S - To a maximum of two, picking this up will allow your aircraft to move
  • a lot faster. Compatible with weapon upgrades.
  • Black P - For some reason, this is the exact same Power-Up as Black S, to the
  • point where the two are even compatible with each other. So if you
  • can't get a Black S from a Power-Up, use a Black P (or vice versa)
  • Green W - While the first upgrade only allows you to shoot one bullet at a time
  • going straight forward, the second upgrade allows you to shoot them in
  • pairs. #3 will space out the pair of bullets, while #4 will allow you
  • to shoot three bullets out, one straight and the other at 45 degree
  • angles.
  • Rocket - While the first upgrade only allows you to shoot one bullet at a time
  • going straight forward, the second upgrade allows you to shoot them in
  • pairs. #3 will space out the pair of bullets, while the fourth one will
  • let you fire three at a time, one to the left, center, and right. To
  • boot, it is with rockets, which easily outclass most of the other
  • weapons, and can slaughter anything except for the final boss in one
  • hit.
  • Arrow - Obtaining the first Power-Up will allow you to shoot a pea-sized bullet
  • upwards. However, the second upgrade will let you shoot a bullet behind
  • and ahead of you at the same time, attacking any enemies that might get
  • around you. The third upgrade is where it really gets into the heat, as
  • you can shoot two bullets up and one bullet down. Unfortunately, it
  • cannot go any higher than that (and being able to fire three bullets
  • behind and in front would probably be too much of godmoding).
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