Twinkle Star Sprites (Neo Geo)

Wish-granting star. Who doesn't want to try its power? You don't believe it. Well, there's one in ADK's Twinkle Star Sprites (1996) here.

  

Let's see! There's 2 rather ordinary stars and 1 star on P's hole that reminds me of monster level in Yu-Gi-Oh! card. I got to say the title screen isn't interesting. Let's proceed further!

There's 3 modes: 1) Character mode, which you choose from all playable character on quest to seek said wish-granting star. This the mode that i will play. 2) Story mode, follows the main character Load Ran and her adventure. 3) Competitive mode, which other words for Versus mode where you fight with your friend/rival/archenemy/relative/lover/volunteering stranger on same screen.

For the 1st pick i'll be Realy Till, the lass with green and blue hair because she's ridding fire-breathing dragon. I'm Pyro, you see. There's slight hint of the gameplay in character's status: speed, shoot, and wepon (snark!). So maybe you got the idea of what the game is all about.

My first opponent is Yan Yanyung, little girl that wears diaper and sarashi. And she's accompanied by flying pigs. Kind of wonder why there's some Japanese game depict swine with having wings.

 

If you answer my previous question with "It's shooter game". You're quite close to the truth. To best describe TSS's gameplay: imagine puzzle game with versus mode like Tetris or Columns, but in vertical shooter genre! You shoot the small fries (the game call them golems which is baffling) which blows up when die and the explosion can chain to others. You produce chain of explosion to make sentient fireball that attack your opponent directly either from top screen or in angled trajectory. Deplete opponent's hitpoint to win. The control is joystick to move your character, one button to shoot, and another button to unleash screen-clearing bomb to save you from emergency situation. You can only have 2 shots in the screen so the game discourages player that spam the shoots or treat it like your usual vertical shooter. Thus, planning the chain explosion carefully is crucial. So far, simple!

Sniper_autodejectedtie02.wav. I swear that i can pass 1st opponent like light breeze before this. Is it because the burden of making review or i lack sleep or both, that i totally lose to winged swine and a small girl with nothing but baby's wear? By the way i like Till's expression like saying "Ok, you win this one!"

 

This is better. You can blast the fireballs which result in faster/bigger fireballs to your opponent. And if you counter them again, you will make character's special attack like those flying pigs in my screen or those chubby dragons in her screen. Of course there's different among others. The swines fly from top to bottom with slightly side direction and bit air-break to trick their target. While the dragons fly straightly from top but suddenly turn left or right. Also the special attacks can't be destroyed or block your shoot. So evasion is the only way to deal with them.

 

Heavy_taunts05.wav. Yan got owned by normal attack. Now Till's expression like "I win! You lose, sucker!"

"...since you're just a baby". Till gives further "burn" on falling Yan. Such sportsmanship. [Hefty sarcasm]

 

My next opponent is Kim, hermit cat with accompany of stone robot. More often than not, computers waste their bombs at the start of the match like this. I didn't notice before that Kim's bomb where he summons wave to wash (hah!) the screen, has mermaid on it. Everyone! Wave back at waving mermaid! c:

When exclamation mark is on your screen that means either group of bubble-covered enemy or "Fever" power-up about to come. You have to blast said power-up to obtain its benefit but it's tough to crack. This is where you have to master the explosion chain trick! Instead shoot it directly, you should aim for the creeps around it. This trick also work for counter where the fireballs also have high durability. In fact, the key to success in this game is to plan chain explosion and execute it. The longer the better. What's the benefit of "Fever" power-up? It allow you to create more fireball from chain explosion. So, it's very valuable.

 

My next opponent: Tinker & Linker, the twin fairies. What a rhythmic names. Actually, they're also my favourite because their name reminds me of my favourite "goblin tinker" in Warcraft 3/Defense of the Ancients and "soul linker" class in Ragnarok Online which is my speciality. Also their special attack is bouncing fairy statue which remind me of Reimu Hakurei's bouncing yin-yang orb in Touhou Project 9: Phantasmagoria of Flower View. Actually, i consider TSS as arcade-y/faster version of PoFV. But to be fair, TSS comes first than Phantasmagoria of Dim Dream (Touhou Project 3) which is the prequel of PoFV with same genre, by roughly 1 year. In fact, ZUN suggests people play TSS first to familiarize with PoDD's gameplay. Here's another difference between TP 9  and TSS: In TP 9, you can slow your character's movement to avoid attacks better (as in every TP game). While in TSS, the framerate will drop if there's many attacks on the screen so you can avoid attack. Which one has better mechanism? You decide.     

 

Bumping into lesser enemies will not only drain your health but also make you dizzy like what happen to Tinker where you can't control your character at all and you have to wiggle the joystick and mash the button to free yourself from said status. After that your movement speed and attack rate will be reduced. Moreover, your opponent will get health if you did that. You can't be defeated this way but during dizzy you're defenseless against opponent's attack. So be very careful!

 

I also like Linker's expression in the back like saying "Oh, noes! We lose". c=

 

Next i have to fight Macky & Pentell. Macky is the one who has cat ear and carries huge pencil and Pentell is the one who has rabbit ear and carries (what my acquaintance in Discord says) teddy bear. At first, i though Macky is male, judging by voice and by name. Macky sounds more appropriate to male's name, right? But Macky wears skirt. Maybe Macky is very tomboyish girl, who know? Thing for sure is, Macky lives up the words of "The pen(cil) is mightier than the sword" to our fight. But is pencil mightier than flame from mighty dragon? We shall see!

 

Welp! There's a seal cub being bullied by group of penguin, below me. Anyway, lesser enemies come in various color. This color determined their hitpoint. The color order from weak to strong: red - orange - yellow - green - blue - purple. They're in red when they're 1 hit away from their demise. Also the bigger the enemy, the bigger the explosion that it makes when it's goner.  

 

Wow, look at that fishing pool that shaped like fish. It's even connect between screens. Spy_positivevocalization03.wav

Well! Well! Looks like dragon win against pencil. But to be fair, Macky has summoned fierce giant teddy bear on my screen. She almost got me back there. Besides special attack, you can summon boss to your opponent by making many explosion combo within short time. Or so i thought. The instruction in game said that you have to move a lot during making chain explosion to summon Boss Attack.   

 

Between matches, you travel in this world map. You can see that Tinker & Linker are crying over their lose, Kim lays unconscious along with his robot, and Macky & Pentell feel very bitter with my victory. Slightly shown on the left corner is Yan Yanyung is sad that her pigs companion are knocked out cold. And my next opponent on right is...Dark Ran, your typical dark version of protagonist.

 

Instead of ordinary-smiling star, she unleashes explosion with evil-smirk star. Yep, she's evil alright.

Did you notice gauge on corner bottom? It will be filled if you destroy the enemies. Once filled, enough you can hold attack button and then release it to unleash charged attack. But, you have to hold it until charging meter reach at least level 1, in order to work. Charging until more than level 1 will create additional effect beside charged attack. Charging to level 2, will guarantee produce 3 special attacks to your opponent. While  charging to level 3, will guarantee summon boss to your opponent! Keep in mind that while charging you're defenseless but you can still bomb your screen provided if you still have any. Realy's charged attack is obviously close-range fire breath!   

Man! Look at that smug expression of my dragon over there! He knows that he inflicts enough misery to my opponent. Well, keep it up!     

 

Mevious is my opponent. He's Castlevania's Dracula if he got pretty anime transformation. Maybe, if i got the same transformation, i would be Realy Till...or the chubby dragon. 

See, he uses bats for his attacks! They're smaller but faster than the dragons. You can see that i have done well but he shrugs my attacks as if they're nothing. Though Boss can be damaged to reduce its duration/usefulness. That's the thing with this game. Sometime you do great but your opponent  is 100% fine, on the other occasion you do barely well but your opponent is knocked out. Maybe, it's just me who's just a player that rely on luck instead of skill at this game. You may try to look at your opponent's screen to see how well your attack but i don't advise you to do so because: 1) You will lose focus on dodging enemies or attack 2) You only get demoralized if your opponent can shrugs off your attack like nothing.

 

Yep, i got defeated again. But i'm not so disappointed with this fact as Mevious is the penultimate cpu character. So he's reasonable to be tough to defeat.

 

I switch to Tinker (& Linker). Do you see star coin near bottom on my screen? Picking it up is essential as it will pop up all of the bubble that shroud enemies. The bubble will burst by one or two shoots but during pop up's duration enemy will receive invincibility. So you can't just simply rapidly shoot at bubbled enemies. You have to delay your shooting to deal with them or you must collect the aforementioned star coin. Keep in mind that the coin can turn its side to be score-up pickup (presumably as consolation prize)! This also happen with extra bomb pickup. By the way, Tinker's boss attack is big fairy statue that resemble the Goddess Athena. Great!

 

Yaay! We won. The TSS's world is much better without the Dracula. Imagine if the vampire lord isn't defeated by some Belmont guy with legendary vampire-slaying whip but by twin magical fairies, instead. Wonderful, isn't?

Here's the final opponent: Queen Memory, Load Ran's mama. Don't be fooled by her pretty appearance as she's the most difficult of all ai opponent.

The enemies are sentient stars and none of them are the wish-granting ones so feel free to blast them! They're the cutest besides the clouds. So you probably don't want to shoot them but you must otherwise you'll be in trouble. If you don't shoot for 30 seconds, a grim reaper (who's also adorable) will appear and touching it will result in immediate death. You can send it to your opponent side by blasting it but everytime it re-appears, it will grows stronger. That's another way to play the game.

Memory's bomb is big image of her own portrait. She's certainly narcissist.  

And her boss attack is big sentient cake with 'ADK' chocolate plate on top of it.

Glutton and narcissistic is what she is. Her beauty appearance covers her ugly personality. No wonder she's the final boss. =P

Here's the reason why i call her the hardest of all ai opponent. Her special attack (or the game called it extra attack) is to summon sentient food (like that sushi and cake piece) on random spot and then track at your location. Everytime i get hit by it i will say "i hate cream puff/mug of coffee/hotdog/onigiri/etc". Everytime. You may become to hate foods throughout this battle. Repeating final battle with no successful result can be stressful/tiring. Fortunately, this stage's music: "Love Never Die" is really great. Check out yourself!

 I can hear this music all day/night. Fighting Memory during night is the closest for me to do Disco night. My parents should be freaking proud!

I haven't show you Till's bomb: 4 fireballs travel up or down with dragon's head at their end. Also turns all screens into red tint. While Tinker call Linker to shoot huge laser beam like Master Spark. Though visually different, every character's bomb has same function, in term of damage and such. At least that's what i feel. I develop a technique where you prepare the charged attack and bomb to defend yourself while doing so. I call it "Fire Hawk" technique. I named so because i do the same thing in the game with the same name. But charged attack in there isn't so worthy unlike in this game.

 

At long last, Memory is defeated while my health is still intact [You may insert Mortal Kombat's "Flawless Victory" voice here]. Moreover, she got final blow from the giant dragon's backside. That's very humiliating.

 

Here's the star that can grant your wish. He has strange accent of saying 'i' as 'ah'. At least, i can recognize his legit southern accent of saying Ya'll. What could be Till's wish? Flames engulf all over the world? Wait! That's my psychopathic wish. Let's hope something cheerful and nice! 

She want to be famous singer but his voice is bad even the star said that he can't fix that. I'm also bad at singing. We have something in common. I reckon Till's sing a parody/altered version of Whitney Houston's "I will always love you" on "and i will always love you" part. She has barely voice's quality as the late diva but she looks happy nonetheless. Good for her.

 

While Tinker & Linker wish: to make the runaway princess (Load Ran) to go back home so she's forced to study and not go adventuring. Ran is desperate to ask for the star's help but no, too late for that. If you found him before your servants, you won't be in this arduous fate, Ran.

 

ADK's Twinkle Star Sprites (1996) is certainly unique arcade game. It defines genre: vertical shooter duel, even. I know there's Change Air Blade that has the same genre but not in split-screen or same role, unlike TSS. The musics are range to good but bit neglible to wonderful. The sound effects are bombastic, very appropriate to sound mayhems that occur in the game. There's lots of charming-yet-funny voice acts in many occasions. The graphic is beautiful as you can see. The gameplay is basicaly simple but there's sophistication here and there. The characters are distinctively different but you don't need high adaptation to switch to other character. Some have single bullet per shot while other have double bullets per shot and Arthur Schmit has triple lasers per shot. In my opinion, the important features to identify character's quality beside the firepower and speed: charged attack and the charging rate. For example: Realy has the slowest charging rate and short-range charged attack but wide and has potential to deal heavy damage while Tinker has medium charging rate and her charged attack: piercing crystal that you can launch at any of 8 directions.

To summarize: ADK's Twinkle Star Sprites (1996) is splendid game especially for alternative way for 2-player match instead of fighting games. You don't need to memorize command input and such. Just shoot and dodge but still cunning mind to win, nonetheless. If the selection of character that mostly consist of female, turns you away. You can choose Kim the hermit cat with stone robot, Arthur Schmit who's boy with jetpack (that has attack patterns resemble of Marisa Kirisame and being speedy character too), Nanja (short for Japanese's 'What the Hell!') Monja that are fuzzy creatures that capable of casting Emperor Palpatine-esque lightning bolt or Gryphon who are group of griffin-ridding lad that serve as Mevious's bodyguards. Also the giant griffin that they summon has same roar as Mortal Kombat 3's Motaro. What is not to love?