Қос Кобра: 1987 жылғы аркадалық ойынның тарихы

the 1987 arcade game

Twin Cobra was a success for Toaplan, garnering positive reception from western critics and earning several awards from Gamest. The game was met with mixed response from magazines, specifically the home versions. In 1995, the sequel Twin Cobra II was released. The rights to the game are owned by Tatsujin, a Japanese company formed by Masahiro Yuge.

The game ran on the Toaplan Twin Cobra hardware (PCB), featuring a Motorola 68000 CPU clocked at 7 MHz with additional chips (a Z80 CPU clocked at 3.5 MHz and a 320C10 chip at 3.5 MHz) as well as a Yamaha YM3812 sound chip clocked at 3.5 MHz. Toaplan's Flying Shark used the same arcade hardware board.

Twin Cobra is a military themed vertically scrolling shoot 'em up game, in which players take control of the titular attack helicopter through ten increasingly difficult levels, each with a boss at the end that must be fought before progressing any further, in order to defeat an assortment of military enemy forces like tanks, battleships, and artillery as the main objective. The title initially appears to be very standard, as players control their craft over a constantly scrolling background and the scenery never stops moving until a helipad is reached. Players have only two weapons at their disposal: the standard shot that travels a max distance of the screen's height and three bombs. The bombs are powerful weapons capable of obliterating any enemy caught within its blast radius and collecting "B" icons adds an extra bomb stock. Yuge stated that the basic structure for the game was already decided during development of Slap Fight by pursuing the excitement of shooting and dodging, settling on the bomb and shot system, claiming that firing a bomb relieved stress from players, as they wanted to make a game that was fun by looking at and get passionate about it. Yuge also claimed that the word "Kyūkyoku" for its Japanese title derived from a translation of Going for the One, the eight studio album by English progressive rock band Yes, as it was not a popular word at the time and although the Japanese title was initially rejected by then president of Toaplan, he was determined to implement it. The concept of using a bomb came up during development of Tiger Heli, where the team questioned how to make a shoot 'em up game more engaging for players but it was never intended for defensive purposes according to them, as the mechanic was instead implemented to provide an aggressive feeling against enemies on difficult situations, however enemies were made tougher to keep gameplay balance. Twin Cobra was also, alongside Slap Fight, one of the earliest projects Toaplan made use of game design documents, with both Uemura and Yuge stating that ideas by the team were first written in text using A4 paper before reading it during meetings. Yuge stated that cooperative gameplay was originally not developed but were requested in doing so after completing the single player version due to simultaneous two player titles being "a big trend" in overseas regions and being conscious of the American market, as the game had a realistic war setting. The NES port, developed by Micronics, was first released in Japan CBS/Sony and later in North America by Sammy. The Genesis port, developed by GRC, was first published in Japan by Treco, then in North America by Sega and later in Brazil by Tectoy. On 30 August 1996, Banpresto released a compilation for the PlayStation exclusively in Japan titled Toaplan Shooting Battle 1, which included both arcade versions of Twin Cobra and its prequel, an arranged soundtrack by Uemura and other additions. In November 2019, Twin Cobra was re released for iOS and Android mobile devices only in Japan by MOBIRIX Corporation under the name Kyukyoku Tiger Classic. A port for Samsung Smart TV platform is also available through a Samsung TV's games panel.

Twin Cobra was later included by M2 as part of their M2 ShotTriggers publishing label. An arcade version, alongside the PC Engine, Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Genesis versions, were included in the Kyukyoku Tiger Heli compilation for Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 as part of M2's Toaplan Arcade Garage label in 2022.

Twin Cobra was released on Steam in February 2023. Bitwave Games was responsible for the port of this version.

Reception Review scores Publication Scores Arcade PC Engine NES SMD/GEN X68K FMT AllGame 3.5/5 4/5 ASM 10/12 7/12 Beep! Mega Drive 28/40 Commodore User 6/10 CVG Positive 91% 66% CVG Mean Machines 88% Edge 8/10 EGM 26/40 30/40 Famimaga 20.17/30 Famitsu 33/40 22/40 21/40 The Games Machine 86/100 Hippon Super! 20/100 Joystick 78% Marukatsu PC Engine 35/40 MDAG 78% Mega Drive Fan 17.26/30 MegaTech 81% Oh!X 10/10 PC Engine Fan 24.37/30 Power Play 82/100 80% Sega Force 71% Sega Power 3/5 Sega Pro 87/100 Tilt 17/20 14/20 VideoGame 3/5 Video Games 80% Awards Publication(s) Award(s) Gamest (1991) The Best Game #42 Gamest Mook (1998) Best Shooting Award 4th<br/ >Annual Hit Game 9th<br/ >Pure Shooting Award

According to Masahiro Yuge and Tatsuya Uemura, Twin Cobra proved to be a popular hit for Toaplan, though Flying Shark was "the biggest" hit for them. It went on to become Japan's highest grossing arcade conversion kit of 1988. Computer and Video Games reviewer Clare Edgeley gave an overall positive outlook to the arcade original.

A sequel, Twin Cobra II, was originally under development by Toaplan but the studio closed down in 1994 until Taito allowed Toaplan offshoot Takumi Corporation to finish work on the project as their first release in 1995, before being ported to Sega Saturn in 1997 under the name Kyukyoku Tiger II Plus. Former Seibu Kaihatsu artist Toshinobu Komazawa claimed that Seibu borrowed ideas from Twin Cobra when developing Raiden. Artist Perry "Gryzor/Rozyrg" Sessions cited Twin Cobra as one of the main influences for Super XYX. The rights to Twin Cobra and many other IPs from Toaplan are now owned by Tatsujin, a company named after Truxton's Japanese title that was founded in 2017 by former Toaplan employee Masahiro Yuge, who are now affiliated with arcade manufacturer exA Arcadia.