Arcade Longplay #81: Twin Eagle II

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HIDEFACES

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Published on January 15, 2018 1:46:07 AM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVzqBhl3AwI

Game:

The Final Boss (2019)

Duration: 31:22

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Twin Eagle II is a 1994 vertical scrolling shooter game for the arcade. There honestly isn’t anything special about this game as it can be easily lumped in with the many other shooters from that era. A number of odd plot and music choices all make for a disappointing and lackluster experience.

The player controls an attack chopper as they traverse through nine stages shooting enemies in a vertical scrolling format. One unusual feature for this type of game comes with the use of a health bar that is supplied to your helicopter. This game suffers from a similar problem found in Battletoads where some enemy attacks will take some health away and others instantly kill you. There simply is no consistency with this life bar and as a result it is completely pointless and cumbersome. As in most shooters, the player has access to various bombs and powerups that can be exploited to destroy a lot of enemies at once. There are two types of bombs that can be used (air to air and air to ground) but I find this to be a bit excessive. The powerups you find during the course of the stage really do nothing and once again this is a feature that could have been cut. There is one really infuriating powerup in particular that forces your chopper to spin around shooting wildly, leaving your aircraft vulnerable to attack.

The stages themselves, while reasonably challenging, offer no creativity and this game is an absolute chore to play through. You will deal with lengthy periods of nothing where no aircraft are trying to attack you and this causes a “boring” feeling to pop up. This is especially true for the uncreative boss fights. You literally fight the same boss over and over again at the end of each stage and the only change that is made comes with their tactics. The only exception is the final boss, a slightly modified version of the regular boss battles.

While the core gameplay of Twin Eagle II is certainly passable, the game eschews its chance to shine and be original and instead rely on boring level design that offers no fun or creativity.