Twinkle Star Sprites was an arcade "vs. shooting game" for the Neo-Geo, made by ADK company. This review is based on the "Saturn mode" in the Saturn version of the same game. In additional to being a game review, this article also explains the game system in some depth, and serves as a help document for players who cannot read Japanese.
Puyo-puyo has started the genre of vs. drop-stuff puzzle games. Twinkle Star Sprites combines the 2-player vs. format with the shooting game. As in most vs. puzzle games, the screen is split in two halves. Each player plays on his half of the screen, and tries to make "attacks" to knock out the opponent while staying alive.
Each player starts with 5 units of live. 'Minions' appear in one of 36 formation patterns. The player can shoot them up with normal shots, or he can use a powerful charged shot or an emergency bomb (limited). When a minion is destroyed, its explosion may involve other enemies, and this causes a chain. When the player makes a chain with 4 or more enemies, "normal attack" characters are sent raining onto the opponent's field: 1 character for a 4-chain, and 1 more for every 2 enemies beyond 4. If the opponent shoots or chains the normal attack characters, they come back to the player as "reverse attack" characters, flashing green. If the player then shoots or chains the reverse attack characters, he sends invincible "extra attack" characters, or a powerful "boss" character to harass the opponent. Unlike many vs. puzzle games, the attacks don't get transported to an "attack stock" and wait to be launched, but instead fly visibly from the point of generation on this side of the field, across the central border, and into the opponent's field. A good player can anticipate attacks and avoid being surprised by keeping an eye on the other half of the screen.
A player loses 1 unit of life (and be stunned then handicapped for a while) for touching a minion, but this will not kill him regardless of how low his life is. He loses 3 units of life for touching any attack character (or any attack from the boss character). A player absorbs some of the life that his opponent loses, but often not so much as to change the usual pattern that the match is decided by the losing player taking 2 hits from attacks.
A player can have only 2 shots on the screen at the same time, so hitting the fire button rapidly does not always give the best firepower, though it sometimes does. A nice feature of the Saturn version is that there are separate buttons for one-shot fire and rapid-fire. The minions appear in 5 sizes with corresponding sturdiness, and they are color-coded correspondingly too. When a minion explodes, the size and power of the explosion depends on the size of the minion, so for many formations it is necessary to set off the chain at the larger minions. The same formations appear in the same sequence for the two players, though there may be a time lapse if one player is clearing the minions more quickly than the other.
As the player shoots up enemies, the maximum level on his charge gauge builds up, and soon he can fire level 2 and level 3 charged shots. These are the same charged shots, but will also directly send extra or boss attack characters to the opponent. Using a high level charge shot depletes the charge gauge maximum level.
Every other while, an orb appears in place of a minion within a formation. The orb is immune to shots, but by blowing it up in a chain or with a bomb, the player enters "fever" time for a while. During "fever", a chain sends more (normal) attack characters to the opponent: as many as the size of the chain. The duration is dependent on the strength of the explosion that blows up the orb. Sometimes when both players enter fever time simultaneously, the players lose their calmness and shoot indiscriminately, and the screen becomes filled with a fury of all kinds of attack characters ...
Besides the orb, sometimes a spinning coin appears to help the player. One type replenishes a bomb; the player beings a round with 2 bombs, and he may hold up to 4. Another type (with a star on it) instantly destroys all bubbles in the current minion formation. In some of the formations, some or all of the minions show up encased in bubbles, which protect the minions until a brief duration after the bubbles are hit. Unless dealt with before setting off the chain, bubbles often interrupt the chain. A third type has been added in Saturn mode. It is inscribed with a P mark, and increases the charge gauge maximum by one level. The back of each coin is a dollar sign; if the player grabs the coin when that face is up, he gets only some bonus points.
When a player destroys all minions in a formation within one chain explosion, he gets a "perfect" bonus. In additional to bonus points, it will also increase the speed of his attacks, cause the next orb to appear sooner, and increase his charge gauge maximum more. Among the 36 patterns, some are straightforward for even beginners to get the perfect bonus, but some patterns may be hard to do (especially under pressure) even if one knows how it is supposed to be done.
If a round has been going on for too long (about 100 seconds), the "death" character appears. Touching it means instant death. It can be shot, but soon it will re-appear with more stamina. A round is usually over sooner than that; a 3-round match takes an average of about 3 minutes, according to my experience.
The game features 2D anime-style graphics. Everything is very cute and colorful (though sometimes too colorful to see game objects clearly). There is minimal story: LordRun, a 10-year-old magical girl, transforms into 14-year-old Sprites on her quest for "Twinkle Star", which realizes one's wish. The Saturn version has spoken speech, and it is quite good. The lines spoken by the characters (before and after matches) are very funny. (The female characters are cute, and the male characters, be they human, cat, panda or rabbit, are all lusting for the girls.) It also has a quality opening animation, with a nice song sung in the heroine's voice. It is said that the opening animation is so cute that elder male fans may be embarrassed to watch it. ^_^ The package also includes an omake (extra) disc, with fan drawings, self-introductions of the characters, etc. In the game disc, in certain days of the year, in the ADK logo screen which is shown when the game is turned on, LordRun comes in special festive costumes.
The Saturn version includes an authentic arcade mode; the other one, the "Saturn mode", is simply an improved version of the game. (This is unlike Cotton, where we get essentially two different courses to play the game in.) The arcade mode even recreates the slow-down on the arcade machine. Some of the slow-down (such as when using bomb) is retained in the Saturn mode, but this feature can be turned off in the option menu once one has cleared the game, under which setting the game has little slow-down.
There are 13 characters, all "selectable", in the Saturn mode (one is Saturn original), though one is merely a clone of the heroine with identical abilities. Each character is rated in the areas of move speed, shot speed, and charge speed. Each character also has his or her unique charge shot, extra attack, and boss attack, which are often cute and funny. Some of the extra attack characters have weird movement patterns, and would often catch unwary players by surprise.
Between good players, the primary strategy is to get the expert bonus and send normal attack characters. Most good players try to dodge normal attacks rather than return them, because reverse attacks become extra attacks and boss attacks when in turn returned, and those are much more threatening. (Though the best experts would know the right timing for sending reverse attacks, when it is difficult for the opponent to return them.) On the other hand, one should try to return reverse attacks. The players wait for opportunities when they can send many attacks in combination to overwhelm the opponent. A fine point I like about this game is this counterattack system. In many vs. puzzle games, counterattacks are both easier to make and more effective than original attacks. This may cause the game to lose focus because there would be less point in making original attacks: they become merely fuel for counterattacks. In Twinkle Star Sprites, though reverse attacks are easier to send than normal attacks and are as effective, the player who send the original attacks may in turn return them as extra attacks and boss attacks, which are more threatening than normal and reverse attacks, and cannot be further returned. Thus it remains definitely in a player's advantage to send normal attacks; a player cannot just shoot indiscriminately and rely on counterattacking alone to win, though countering is often an effective defense, and sometimes offense. This is the first vs. game I see (fighting games excepted) which offers the excitement of counterattacks without causing the game to lose focus.
The different ratings and special attacks of the characters provide varied, colorful game play. At higher skill levels, the characters involve quite different strategies to play and to play against. Another thing I like about this game is that the player can begin playing and appreciating this game after just learning a few basic rules. He can begin to develop some strategies outright, such as how to get the perfect bonus against various formations. He can figure out the character traits while playing the game. In this game, the strategy begins with intuitive, easily grasped elements, such as patterns, chains and perfect bonus, evasion, use of charged shots and bombs, etc. and ends with character traits. This is unlike typical vs. fighting games, where there can't really be any strategy until one has figured out what "moves" the characters have; the strategy begins with character traits, and that makes those games hard to grasp by the casual player. With basic strategies which are more or less character-independent, Twinkle Star Sprites can be quickly picked up and enjoyed by any game player, while character-dependent advanced strategies add color and variety, and all the strategy elements together give us a good, deep game, with the excitement of shooting action.
There is a bug in the Saturn version. When one takes more than 100 seconds to defeat his opponent, he is supposed to get 0 points for time bonus, but in the program, he is awarded the same time bonus as that in the last round. Fortunately, this bug does not affect the all-important life-and-death results of the versus game. (This bug is probably because the programmer used a global variable to store the time bonus, and he left out the clause of the conditional statement which deals with clear times over 100 seconds.)
Twinkle Star Sprites is an excellent vs. shooting game, with a polished game system and excellent game play. This game is highly recommended to players who like innovative games, vs. puzzle game players who are looking for something more different, and shooting game players who are tired of the brainlessness of most of the genre. Japanese literacy is not a problem, especially with this document (hopefully), though one might miss the humor in the text. It is also arguably recommendable to the elder male audience of "magical girl" anime shows ^_^ (which are originally intended for little girls): the characters in this game are seriously cute. Players of all skill levels can enjoy this game: the Saturn version offers a choice of 8 difficulty levels when playing against the computer, and the best human opponents can send attacks that you and I can't evade. Needless to say, having a human opponent would enhance the enjoyment. The Saturn version is not released in the West; players who want it would have to "import" the Japanese version of the game.
Copyright 14 Aug 1998 Alan Shiu Ho Kwan
maker's HP for this game (some screen shots in character descriptions)
Alan Kwan / tarot@netvigator.com / created 14 Aug 98