Twin Cobra (Arcade)

Twin Cobra is the sequel to Tiger-Heli, featuring fancier graphics and energic music thanks to newer hardware.

WARNING!: There're no cobras in this game. :(

Fun Fact: The design of the helicopter in the title screen is later reused in Spy Bros. DX, a remake of Pipi & Bibi's.

Regional Differences#

Copyright#

Japan	US

The Japanese and US versions display a standard export copyright notice on boot. The European version (called World by MAME standards) doesn't have an equivalent notice and instead goes straight to the title screen.

Additionally, the copyright was expanded in the US version to mention Romstar.

Title Screen#

Japan	US	Europe

This game is known as Kyukyoku Tiger in Japan, and Twin Cobra internationally.

Gameplay#

The Japanese version is infamous for being fiendishly difficult, to the point of being borderline impossible for beginners. The international versions reduced the difficulty to a sane level, though still not a cakewalk.

• The Japanese version supports two players, but one after the other. The international versions supports simultaneous gameplay.

Japan	International
Both Players	Player 1

• In the Japanese version, the helicopter is gray for both players. In the international versions, per inclusion of simultaneous gameplay, player 1's helicopter is red and player 2's is blue.
• In the Japanese version, dying causes you to restart at a checkpoint. In the international versions, you simply respawn where you were and keep playing.
• In the international versions, the player's helicopter moves faster than it does in the Japanese version.
• In the Japanese version, you can fire four shots at time. In the international versions, this was reduced to three.
• In the international versions, dying against boss will cause its health to be drastically reduced, allowing you to destroy it with few shots.

Name Entry/High Score List#

Japan	International

Of course, per tradition of arcade games' localization, the name entry's character limit was dropped from 6 to 3 in the international versions.

Additionally, the "TOP PLAYERS" text was recolored from emerald green to fried gold and the ranks were recolored from blue to green (with the shame to lose that cool gradient effect that is present in all other texts).

Lives Setting#

NOTE: The thresholds highlighted in bold are the default options in MAME.

The "No Extra Lives" option was replaced with a 50k only one in the international versions.

According with the shumps wiki, the manual for US arcade operators states that one extend at 100k points is considered the default setting for the US version. Go figure.

Revisional Differences#

Toaplan regretted making the Japanese version insanely difficult, so in 1989 they released a second version based on the easier international version, containing all the changes made for that version.

The fact that 1989 was the same year they released Fire Shark, which was also fiendishly difficult, is probably not related. Probably.