Pop'n some platforming; Twinbee

I was a little surprised to find out the existence of a platformer in the Twinbee series. It seems to me, that most Americans only seem to know Twinbee from the Parodius series, a shame really, the Twinbee games are some pretty solid vertical Shmups. Color me baffled to find Pop'n Twin Bee Rainbow Bell Adventures on Hardcore Gaming 101 not too long ago. The concept of little jet people jumping around and punching things rather than shooting bells in the skyline was almost too much for me to handle. I had to give this thing a try.

The game is actually pretty danged fun. Basically, the platforming amounts to running at Sonic the Hedgehog speeds and charging up your jet to fly around. The flying mechanic kind of reminded me of the cape from Super Mario World meets the Jetpack ability from Kirby Super Star; you can fly around in the sky for the entire stage without having to touch the ground, with the exception of finding the exits. You shouldn't just fly around though, bumping into a wall will bounce you around in ways you may or may not want to go, sometimes even over an instant death spike pit.



There's all kinds of bells unsurprisingly to collect, and some special bells that act as powerups. These powerup bells give you things from invulnerability, melee weapons and even a little robot buddy to help you out. Whenever you get hit by an enemy however, you drop your powers in a flurry of multicolored bells forcing you to pick up what you can or face losing them all. I actually liked that part of it a bit more than I normally would as it added some sort of priority to things, increasing the depth of the playstyle.

Stage design is a fairly high point in the game. Lots of areas require pinpoint aiming of your jets to get by. They all start out relatively simple but progress to become more and more difficult. Sometimes they can feel a little cheap however, as there are some places that a misplaced jet can send you to your doom via enemy or worse.

The enemies themselves are mostly harmless, most just walk towards you goomba style. You can easily dispatch them with a jump, a lofty punch to the head or if you're feeling especially saucy, you can jet your way through them. This can add a little bit more strategy to what is otherwise a simple game, forcing you to think about what would be easier versus why the easy way could potentially kill you.



Rainbow Bell Adventures takes place in a beautiful and jolly world filled with a wonderful pallet of pastel colored walls and harmonious music, which compliment the style of gameplay amazingly. You'll truly feel happy playing it.