Twin Hawk

Twin Hawk is a military-themed vertically scrolling shoot 'em up game reminiscent of Flying Shark, in which players assume the role of a wing commander from the Daisenpū squadron taking control of a Flying Fortress fighter aircraft (known as the A6M Zero Fighter) through multiple levels to defeat an assortment of military enemy forces like tanks, battleships, and artillery to overthrow general Giovanni and his army as the main objective. Like Tiger-Heli, there are no flying enemies in the game. The title initially appears to be a standard vertical scrolling shooter, with players controlling their craft over a constantly scrolling background and the scenery never stops moving. Enemies are shot down using the main shot that travels a max distance of the screen's height. Common to Toaplan arcade titles, there are various differences between the Japanese and western versions, such as Twin Hawk versions containing co-operative play.

A unique gameplay feature is the bomb mechanic in the form of a group of friendly planes; pressing the bomb button will call in six Flying Fortresses to surround and protect the player's plane and provide back-up fire. After taking enemy fire, the friendly planes perform a kamikaze attack against nearest enemies below but players can also lead them to perform kamikaze as well by pressing the bomb button once all planes are already in formation. Double tapping the bomb button activates a bomb capable of obliterating any enemy caught within its blast radius. There are also various types of items scattered through every level: "P" icons to upgrade the player's main gun, extra helper/bomb stocks and 1UPs.

The plot summary of Twin Hawk varies between each region and version. At the end of an alternate World War II, a new European country is formed called Gorongo. General Giovanni of the Gorongo military was infuriated with the results of the war and what it meant to the country of Gorongo, initiating a rebellion against the country's government that was widely followed by his soldiers. Holing themselves up on Bobo Island, south of Gorongo, Giovanni declared the occupation as the independent state of Fuangania and plotted to take over Gorongo.

After taking over the town of Kusunoki, the Fuangania invasion – consisting of massive ground and sea attack forces – started to spread. Gorongo President Bratt ordered a counterattack that focused on the one type of firepower Giovanni lacked: an air force. The special air force "Daisenpū" sets up a mountain base after spotting a secret Fuangania fortress under construction. Nearing the end of their training, however, the airforce is spotted by the Fuangania and are preparing to attack.

Twin Hawk was created as a commission for Taito by most of the same team that worked on previous projects at Toaplan and made use of the former's Taito X System board. Yuichirō Nozawa, who until then had not been working exclusively on shoot 'em up titles, served as its game designer. Both Sanae Nitō and Yuko Tataka also acted as designers in the development cycle. Osamu "Lee" Ōta scored the soundtrack, becoming his sole work as composer for a shoot 'em up title.

The game was released by Taito in Japanese and European arcades in June 1989. An album containing its audio, as well as from other Toaplan titles was published exclusively in Japan by City Connection under their Clarice Disk label in August 2018. It was also featured on a Japanese TV show, with Pokémon creator Satoshi Tajiri reviewing the arcade version.

In Japan, Game Machine listed Twin Hawk on their August 1, 1989 issue as being the seventh most-successful table arcade unit of the month, outperforming titles such as Flipull and Golden Axe. On release, Famitsu scored the Mega Drive version of the game a 30 out of 40.

In more recent years, the rights to the game and many other IPs from Toaplan are now owned by Tatsujin, a company named after its Japanese title that was founded in 2017 by Masahiro Yuge and is part of Embracer Group since 2022.