Twin Eagle - Revenge Joe's Brother - MAME machine

Arcade Video game published 36 years ago:

Twin Eagle - Revenge Joe's Brother © 1988 Seta Company, Limited.

A vertical shoot-em-up that places the player's helicopter against multiple attacking targets in the air, sea, and land. Collecting the weapon and speed power-ups throughout the game is vital since the gameplay is quite difficult.

The object of the game, which is not explained further, is to avenge Joe's brother - which is probably not assumed to be the player, but presumably a friend of the player who lost his brother to the enemy. (It uses bad English grammar on the subtitle of the screen, using "revenge" as a verb, as apposed to "avenge". That being said, it's a pretty tight game otherwise.) To do so, you must destroy the fortress on the very last level. When you start the game and it scrolls onto the starting screen, the background contains the different levels that you must survive. Ground and sea levels alternate with fighter jet levels. The starting position of the ground enemies and drones with helicopter blades do not vary from game to game; but fighter jets come on in random positions.

TECHNICAL
Board Number: M6100326A
Prom Stickers: UA2

Main CPU: Motorola 68000 (@ 8 Mhz), M65C02 (@ 1 Mhz)
Sound Chips: X1-010 (@ 16 Mhz)

Players: 2
Control: 8-way joystick
Buttons: 2
→ [A] Shoot, [B] Bomb

TRIVIA
Twin Eagle was released in April 1988 in Japan by Taito.

Licensed to Romstar for US distribution.

The entire sound production was done by a freelancer sound team, Goblin Sound. A hard-to-find soundtrack CD was released by Seta in 1989 whose title is given as "Twin Eagle and Real Majhong 3" or "SETA GAME MUSIC SCENE ONE Twin EAGLE & SUPER REAL MAHJONG PIII #01". The rock song that plays during the fighter jet battles is called "Early Warning (Can't sleep over 3 hours)". It is not clear who the artist(s) are on it. It has verses with most of the lyrics in Japanese, but choruses in English. The bridge is in Japanese, with a vocal line and overdubbed vocals with different lyrics at the same time. There's a tasty eight-bar lead break in the song, too. The game only features a clip from the song, and is evidently a different take from the version on the CD.

TIPS AND TRICKS

• Power-up items:

1) M = Shot Multiplier
2) L = Slightly increased shot length
3) S = Slightly increased helicopter speed, cumulative
4) B = Extra bomb
5) Although it is ultra-rare, a floating icon can appear (instead of a balloon) which contains a full multi-shot power-up. This doesn't always show up, but when it does, it is (virtually?) always in the forest level before the city level at the end.

• Completely destroying the bunkers before shooting any of the men behind them almost always yields a shot-multiplier power-up. One can regularly have the maximum number of shot multipliers by the end of the first level by using this trick. This does not seem to work past the first level; as the bunkers are usually missing in front of the men in later levels. When you run out of missiles, you still have your regular guns, which can do a lot of damage with enough power-ups. Fire as often as you can when you are using the guns, and keep firing. It is always good to pick up missiles, unless you are on the first level, and it could interfere with getting a red balloon. Part of the trick to playing the game is to scroll the screen from side to side and to pick off the enemies that are placed on opposite sides to harass you.
• By learning the pattern of when and where enemies appear, you can neutralize them before they can do you any harm. This is especially true with hitting the helicopter drones as they come on screen, and nuking the screen just before the guided missile truck. It is best to use the nuke when your helicopter is positioned at the very bottom of the screen. Otherwise, it may only be partially effective; as it destroys only things ahead of you, and up to a certain angle to the side.
• It is important to conserve nukes, unless you are dying a lot; or are being overwhelmed after just dying. Therefore, particularly if you are practiced, and have shot power-ups, taking out the guided missile trucks with your shots can save nukes. If you can shoot the trucks when fairly close while strafing from one side to another, you fairly consistently can get the guided missiles to pass harmlessly off the side of the screen. If you aren't so close and haven't taken them out with a nuke, they may circle the screen three times before finally going away. Depending on the situation, this may not be practical. If there are a lot of enemies on the screen, or don't have shot power-ups, nuking the truck may be your best option.
• During the fighter jet sequences at the end of each level, you may see light-blue jets, gun-metal colored jets, and/or red jets. The first two can usually be taken out with shots, and are relatively easy. The gun-metal jets also shoot missiles as well as flashing-dot shots. The red jets fire a LOT of missiles and flashing-dot shots; and once one comes, others often come. Again, conserving nukes is important, so only use them if you have to; but if you are in a situation with the jets you won't otherwise survive, it is always better to use up nukes and survive than to save a nuke and die. It is pretty common to have to use a nuke to survive an attack of red jets.
• The helicopter drones always come onto the top of the screen in groups, with each member of a group entering in nearly the same place. Then, they fly around a lot, making you dodge them, firing shots, and generally complicating the situation. It's usually good to try to hit them right as they come onto the screen; and while you can hit them later, your main focus should be hitting them as they come onto the screen. This should take much higher priority than hitting them later. Sometimes only hitting a few this way can make it much easier to survive when a lot come onto the screen. You can usually survive a wave of them by moving to one side, then the top of the screen, to the other side, and then back down; if other enemies aren't being a problem. The last member of a group of drones may linger on the screen more and fire more shots at you than the others.
• Helicopters come to attack you head-on at various points in the game. They don't fire at you much if you can safely pass them. Near the beginning of level two, you face three in a row. You'll usually want to strafe them (although you can just dodge them, too), having some shot power-ups; but keep well back from them, as they like to release a lot of shots when they get near you. A common blunder is to dodge these three to the right, without enough of a head-start.
• Destroying the bunker at the end isn't too hard; especially if you can manage to have some shot power-ups and bombs at that point. Be wary of the guided missile trucks as you approach it: a bomb can be well-used as you approach all the enemies just outside the bunker wall. Shoot at the wall to break it to enter. You will see one more guided missile truck, with hardly any other attackers. This you should be able to take out with shots. Once you get to the main bunker, there will be infantry in green fatigues shooting at you, and helicopter drones that just keep coming. Get rid of all the guys in green fatigues first; doing whatever is needed to survive the drones. Once they are gone, only a single nuke seems to be needed to destroy the bunker; or else a LOT of shooting.

SERIES

• Twin Eagle - Revenge Joe's Brother (1988)
• Twin Eagle II - The Rescue Mission (1994)

STAFF
Produced by: Jun Fujimoto
Game designed by: MTY, Yam
Game programmed by: MTY
Game sub programmed by: Kazuaki Nakanishi
System programmed by: H. Kobayashi, K. Yoshii
Graphic designed by: Sachiko
Character designers: K. Sato, A. Kumura, M. Kasajima, M. Takeda

Music direction by Goblin Sound.
Music composers: Zero Yotsumoto, T. Suzuki, Conrad T. Kozawa
Music performers: T. Suzuki, Zero Yotsumoto, Coke Taguchi, T. Tanno, S. Tsutsui
Sound edited by: T. Suzuki, T. Hasegawa

Allugataya system: T. Hasegawa, T. Suzuki, K. Okuda
Game advised by: J. Narita
Graphic editer designed by: M. Watanabe
68K Chan: K. Ishikawa
Board designed by: Nobuyuki Nonaka
Pcm 16: K. Oiyama
Vdc: T. Iwata, K. Oiyama
Vrc: Nobuyuki Nonaka
Sound filter: Shyachou, M. Tanaka
Eigiyou: T. Ishikawa, Y. Ota
Jimu: T. Watanabe, T. Hiroi, K. Komura, M. Tanaka
Koubai: M. Harada, M. Iwata
Koumu: Y. Ikegai
Seizou: A. Aranaga, T. Sasho, K. Tominaga
Character model maked by: M. Takeda, Kazuaki Nakanishi, S. Tanaka

PORTS

• CONSOLES:

[US] Nintendo NES (1989) "Twin Eagle - Revenge Joe's Brother [Model NES-2E-USA]"
[JP] Nintendo Famicom (1991) "Twin Eagle - Revenge Joe's Brother [Model VIS-2E]"

CONTRIBUTE
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