Detana!! TwinBee

About Detana!! TwinBee

Detana!! TwinBee (1991), released in Europe as Bells & Whistles, is Konami's colourful vertical shooter in which TwinBee and WinBee save planet Meru, with charge shots and bell-juggling power-ups.

Detana!! TwinBee in Depth

Several years after the first TwinBee, Light and Pastel, making their debut, pilot TwinBee and WinBee across seven levels to defeat the evil alien Iva after Princess Melora sends an SOS from planet Meru. In the Japanese version one button shoots airborne enemies and the other drops bombs on ground targets, while the European version fires both at once. Holding the shot button fills a meter for a Big Shot released when the button is let go. Bells hidden in floating clouds can be shot to change colour, and alongside the original five colours come a purple bell that adds a tail shield and a black bell that slows the ship down. Mini-bells and the lucky star also return.

The ship GwinBee can be combined with to fire wider beams, and two players can line up side by side for the same effect or one above the other for a five-way spread; with GwinBee between them, he springs out and destroys everything on screen. After the first loop, a harder second loop follows, and inserting more credits after losing all lives continues the game with a free power-up. Japanese magazines Game Machine and Micom BASIC listed it among the most popular arcade games of spring 1991, and Gamest awarded it first place for Best Shooting in its 1991 Grand Prize, plus placings for graphics and music.

Making Detana!! TwinBee

Much of the Gradius team made it, with Masato Ohsawa directing, Toru Shimomura as sole programmer, Hiroshi Matsuura as engineer and Konami Kukeiha Club members Hidenori Maezawa, Masae Nakashima and Michiru Yamane on music. Released in Japanese arcades in February 1991 and in Europe that March, it was ported to the X68000, whose magazine Oh!X praised its arcade accuracy and nominated it for Game of the Year, and to the PC Engine in 1992, which readers of PC Engine Fan rated highly. Germany's Power Play called it a nice shooter with candy-coloured visuals. It has since appeared on Saturn, PlayStation, PSP, mobile phones, the Virtual Console and Hamster's Arcade Archives.