258. Kyuukyoku Tiger (Micronics, Famicom, 1989)

Kyuukyoku Tiger ("Ultimate Tiger", and known as Twin Cobra outside of Japan) is the sequel to our previous game# 257, Tiger Heli. Also a port of a Toaplan vertical shooter starring a helicopter, Kyuukyoku Tiger benefits over its predecessor by being a mid-life Famicom game. The core of the gameplay is a significant step forward, as enemies appear more frequently, have more complicated movement patterns, and most importantly, your helicopter moves much faster. This increased speed coupled with more interesting enemies makes the minute-to-minute gameplay of Kyuukyoku Tiger so much more of a breeze than Tiger Heli.

That said, the games are mechanically pretty different form each other. While Tiger Heli had powerups in the form of instant-trigger bombs and small satellite helicopters, Kyuukyoku Tiger instead has a weapon powerup system. After you power up your main shot 3 times, instead of another increase in power, you get the option to choose from one of 4 weapons. While each weapon is not very visually exciting, they are each tactically useful in different ways, and none of them felt like a huge advantage or disadvantage over each other.

While Kyuukyoku Tiger tries to differentiate itself from its predecessor, it also removes some of my favorite features. Destructible environments have been traded out for less frequent destructible bonuses, and your bombs no longer trigger upon getting hit by an enemy. The inclusion of more enemies and a faster fire rate is always appreciated, but the one quality of life feature missing here is auto rapid fire, as I was wishing for a turbo button by the end of each level after all the mashing I was doing. On one boss I actually timed the boss fight out because of my mash fatigue.

One of the most modern features of Kyuukyoku Tiger is that you respawn right where you die, which was pretty uncommon in 8-bit shooters but makes the play experience so much smoother. There is a merciful continue system that also simulates the arcade experience, and even when you use a continue you restart in the same part of the level as where you expired. Early shooting game bosses are seldom impressive, so I consider it a positive that the bosses in Kyuukyou Tiger have simple patterns and pose just enough of a threat to be satisfying to defeat.

4/5, a rock solid 8-bit scrolling shooter