Does Stinger Ring a Bell? How About TwinBee?

A new video already? Chris must be avoiding Puppet Steve and Ghost Doctor to get these out fast.
Right off the bat we have a problem, and it’s in the title. Stinger NES Nintendo/Famicom SCANDAL! History & Video Game Review

First off, Stinger? *looks up* Oh oooh, it’s TwinBee. Specifically, the second TwinBee game which got released overseas as Stinger because the first game didn’t see release until 2010 on Microsoft’s short-lived “Game Room” service, then getting a proper 3D Classics release on 3DS the following year. It now has a wider reach on the Nintendo Switch Online service along with its later sequel Pop’n Twinbee. This sequel though, only saw release on NES.
And right off the bat, you can probably guess what the big “SCANDAL” is going to be. That they changed the name when they released it overseas. It wasn’t a big shock with Mario 2 in 2007, and it’s not a big shock here. Especially since TwinBee is not that notable of a franchise outside of Japan. But Chris could surprise me. … PFffffffft

Let’s dig into this 14:33 minute mess. Wait, before I do. Chris bragged on Facebook how Season 6 is four and a half hours long. That’s not something to be proud of, especially since so much of it is meandering nonsense. Also, he cheated by including I Rate the 80’s, Pop Culture Paranomral, teasers for the first two reviews, the compilation of Mario Game Genie videos, and the Summer Movies video. Look up “quality vs quantity” Chris.

The video opens with IG walking in next to a Sonic lamp because “look at muh new toy!” and tells us he’s going to look at Stinger, which he refers to as a “fly-em-up shooter game”. I’m sorry what? Do you mean “shoot-em-up”? Because that’s the proper term. I have not heard anyone use “fly-em-up shooter”. Jeez, right off the bat we have problems.
Anyway, he’s going to look at the game’s history and the “shocking” backstory. Oh please…

Theme song

But first, a sponsorship message for intotheam.com, a site that sells T-shirts. Just regular ass t-shirts, nothing special. Again, I don’t think this is a real sponsorship. There’s no discount when you type in a code or anything. I also haven’t seen any other channel get sponsored by them.

IG starts talking about how Stinger came out early and it’s a classic and it’s totally nostalgic. Then why are you talking about it? I thought you were focusing on bad games again.
He also says it cam out at a good time as third parties were really ramping up releasing NES games. Even though third parties have been releasing games for a while by the time Stinger came out (September 1987).
“During the Christmas season of 1987” I don’t really consider September to be that but go on.
“Capcom had just released” Capcom? TwinBee’s by Konami. I know it’s a bit of a meme to confuse the two companies but if you’re trying to be educational… sorry, let’s see where he’s going with this.
He lists off games Capcom released, notes how SNK released Ikari Warriors, and how Konami released their own games. Okay… what does this have to do with anything?

Then on Christmas 1987, he claims to have gotten two games. Castlevania and Stinger. Like all his other recent anecdotes, it sounds made up.
He says the first thing he always does is to look at the cover art. On a box, right? Because a new game would come in a box.
Then he starts going over the cover art. Whyyyyy.
“The iconic silver border on Konami games” Learn what iconic means! That is not iconic!
He describes more of it, the colors, the ships, the enemies. Then it puts in his unplugged NES, doesn’t even push the game down. Why are you still making mistakes this obvious?

He starts the game, shows the basic story, then gets into the shooting. He also refers to it as a “Shooter-Up”. Can’t he properly say Shoot-Em-Up? At least just go with Shmup or simply Shooter.
He makes some Beatles references, then points out the weird enemies like strawberries, sushi (that’s not sushi, that’s narutomaki, the fish cake that goes on ramen), grapes, ice cream, pumpkins (you sure those aren’t peppers? They’re green), and donuts that he refers to with the word “fucktations”. What.

He wonders “why”, and notes that the instruction manual points out how the aliens want to turn the Earth into cotton candy. Not sure if that’s in the Japanese version, but TwinBee is classified as a “cute-em-up”, a shmup that uses surreal images and bright colors. Parodius is another example.
It’s clear he doesn’t have the actual manual (using a scan from online).
He then notes how the aliens don’t want money, natural resources, or slave labor as he imposes a UFO on a safe, an oil rig, and a picture of ancient Egypt forcing the Israelites to build the pyramids. Because that’s hilarious! What the actual fuck… oh and they’re naked.
He then curses the audience out for thinking too hard about this. … Reflection?

He reaches the boss, which causes flashing lights and for IG to make another fucking Porygon joke. This isn’t funny. He also follows up by faking a seizure. Computer Soldier Porygon happened over 20 years ago, move on from making those jokes. The Simpsons and South Park already got them in ages ago.
He shows the boss and it’s a giant watermelon. “She’s ready to pulp my ass into oblivion” If Chris bothered to look further in the manual, he would know that the watermelon is named Willie, and is likely a guy. Smoooth…
He dies, prompting him to yell “Aw fuckleberries!” Urgh that is bad…

He then assumes his audience thinks this game is bad (which he uses in a bunch of scatological words) but says it is actually good. You kind of spoiled that at the start Chris.
Then notes how there’s a 2-player mode (because of course).
He also points out how the background can be blown up for weapons. He dies at this point and says “fucktations” again. What even is that?
He brings up the bells which provide power ups like double shots and multiple ships (better known as “options”). He notes how having three ships has him easily kill a boss, but he still gets killed by regular enemies. Which he calls “fucktations”. Stop trying to make “fucktation”
happen. It’s not going to happen.
He notes getting the option is tough because it takes a long time to turn the bell pink. Git Gud m8.
Then he gets it but dies and hits himself in the face with a stack of NES cartridges. Real classy… Also, he keeps showing the Sonic lamp. It’s real tacky.
And how sometimes the bell falls off, then he dies again. He yells “For the love of Peter Pepper” and the chef from BurgerTime (Peter Pepper) comes out and tells him to “leave me out of this”. WHAT IS THE JOKE?! BurgerTime exists?! We get it, you want him in Smash Bros. But that has no chance of happening.

He says Game Genie is good for it because you will die a lot. Like I said earlier, git gud m8.
Then a death montage, with a crooked jaw shot and then he yells “Fuck” a lot, causing the word to appear next to him and then he swats the “fucks” away…. You know, typing this out, it makes me wonder how Chris’ script reads. Because it probably looks like the ramblings of a madman.
He does note it’s possible to get them back if you catch the little ghost that come out after you die, but it’s hard to get.

Then he goes on and on about the enemies and the stages and the backgrounds. It’s not interesting.
He reaches a boss that’s also a home stereo (Master Blaster according to the manual). Says it’s “real 80’s” and reminds him of the old cartoon Kidd Video. What? Then he plays the intro. What?!
It goes for a while. He says he loved this show (probably aged like dumpster cheese). He does mention the boss’ name and notes how it’s the same as the villain in Kidd Video. Probably a coincidence. I doubt Konami’s localizers knew about that show. But IG has to do a stupid “I’m on to you” bit.

He zips through the game and reaches the final level and acts excited because it’s in space. Wow, he really knows nothing about shmups.
He reaches the boss, which is a snake. He kills it, it turns into bells, and he leaves through a sudden “excape hatch” that appears (yes that’s part of the game). Then it cuts to IG wondering “What the hell” as the hatch appears in his room and TwinBee flies by him. Pointless!
He sees the ending with the professor thanking him and he goes to Level 8, which annoys him because there’s no true ending and the game doesn’t get harder. Except it does, this is the Harder Mode. I looked it up. You should have done that as well.

So I guess we get to the “scandal” part of the video now because IG goes on about how he thought Stinger was just some obscure NES game that just came and went. But he “just found out” (that I believe) that it was big in Japan and is part of a trilogy. He does an over-the-top “say whuuu”.
Then he says “Dip my dingleberries into a deep fryer” Ewwww…
He starts talking about the first TwinBee game, comparing it to Tiger-Heli. Really? That’s your example? There’s hundreds of shoot-em-ups out there…
He shows the Arcade version, then the Famicom version, and points out the second game has “Cinnamon” in the title and that’s why you’re fighting food. No, it’s in the title because the old man you rescue is “Cinnamon-hakase” or Professor Cinnamon. You probably should have consulted some Japanese experts.

He emulates a Japanese copy, shows the intro with TwinBee, GwinBee, and WinBee, and notes how this “preludes” to the other big scandal. The Japanese version has a three-player mode. With dramatic stings and an OTT “What da fuuuuuuuck”. The NES wasn’t capable of three players in 1987 Chris, the Four Score and Satellite didn’t come out until 1990. They removed it because they knew it wouldn’t work. Also, the original Japanese version was on the Famicom Disc System, which allowed for a bit more space than cartridges.
He gets all “angreh”, says this “flips his shit” blah blah blah.
And then he goes into what I said above, how the NES wasn’t capable of more than two players. What the fuck? If you know the answer, then why are you mad? Were you that dedicated to making this over 14 minutes long? Quality over Quantity Chris.
He notes they had four-player adapters already made. I don’t know, I can’t find the when the adapter came out, and I have heard that the Famicom’s peripheral port could take a third controller. Someone with more knowledge please let me know.

He’s still upset there was no three-player mode. I have my doubts you played this as a kid.
He also notes that the Japanese version has a real ending because there’s credits. That… what? How do credits make it an ending?
Also, I looked into it. He didn’t beat the Japanese version. In fact, the ending screen with the Professor is different in the two versions. Plus, the Japanese version does have a story, which he briefly mentions, but doesn’t mention that there’s ending text. Lending further credence that he didn’t beat it. Also, the credits in Chris’ video look different from the credits on the Longplay I found. Fan translation maybe?

Then he says it “gets worse” because there’s a third TwinBee on the Famicom, and this one is better. You sure about that?
He describes what you see in the first level, but doesn’t explain how that makes it better than the last game. Just that it’s “awesome”. You’re a terrible critic.
He thinks the reason it didn’t get released was so Konami could make room to release RollerGames. He then goes on about how he doesn’t actually have the game, and he had to paste a picture of it. So you can do that. Also, if you don’t have it, how do you know it’s bad? Looking it up, it looks decent. At least bring up Snake’s Revenge.

And the likely reason that Konami didn’t release the follow-up is that Stinger may have bombed. The shoot-em-up genre was heavily oversaturated, and the game likely got lost in the shuffle. On top of that, Nintendo of America had a five-game per year cap for third parties. That’s the reason Konami founded Ultra Games, to make it ten games. They still had to pick and choose which games to bring over as they had a prolific Famicom library. They probably didn’t see any financial incentive to bring TwinBee 3 over.

He then brings up more of the TwinBee games, slowly listing them off. Then showing an Arcade game (I presume TwinBee Yahho) as he gushes over the graphics. Because of course…
Then he brings up the TwinBee cartoon (because he still refuses to say anime). He’s mad that we didn’t we get it. How would we? I looked it up, and the anime only consists of two short films and three OVAs. Not enough for a TV series, and back in the 90’s anime distributors wanted hard violent shit not light-hearted goofy stuff. That’s what TwinBee was, light-hearted and goofy.
Then he continues being mad about how we didn’t get anything else and takes his anger out by… eating Willie the Watermelon Head. With a cheap blood effect. Master Blaster sees it and runs. That’s it. No credit to anyone that helped, meaning all this shit was his idea.

That was dumb. You know, I imagine there’s legitimate TwinBee fans out there, but I can’t see this video appealing to them. It says so little, and unless a brave E-to-J translator is willing to do the work, it will likely go unseen by those fans.
It kind of feels like he just found out about this game a month or so ago, did a little digging, and found that Stinger was more than just one game. I still don’t believe this was a cherished childhood treasure.

Hell, the fans cared more for the Sonic lamp (which got so much screentime, was he really so proud of it).

He did mention on Facebook that this was the “season finale” so… I guess we’re going on break! Probably the end if he’s not happy with the views he got. Then again, he’s claiming he has “sooooo many” projects in the works so who knows what the hell he’s doing.
Stay safe everyone!