Ludography
TwinBee RPG cover

1998 · Role-playing

TwinBee RPG

PlayStation exclusive

A role-playing spinoff to the TwinBee shoot-em-up series in which a new protagonist is summoned to Donburi Island to serve as a temporary pilot for TwinBee following the mysterious disappearance of TwinBee's regular pilot Light.

Released
2 April 1998
Platforms
PlayStation
Genres
Role-playing
Developers
—
Publishers
Konami
Modes
Single-player
Themes
Fantasy
Country
Japan

About

TwinBee RPG (ツインビーRPG; fully titled TwinBee Role Playing Game on the game's packaging) is a 1998 role-playing video game developed and published by Konami for the PlayStation. Released exclusively in Japan, it is a spin-off of the TwinBee shoot 'em up series, featuring a storyline based on the TwinBee Paradise audio drama serial.

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

The game is a 3D RPG, and not a shooting game like the other TwinBee titles.

The player controls a new protagonist who is summoned to Donburi Island to serve as a temporary pilot for TwinBee following the mysterious disappearance of TwinBee's regular pilot Light. Although the TwinBee series had previous installments that were not shoot-'em-ups, such as Pop'n TwinBee: Rainbow Bell Adventures and TwinBee: Taisen Puzzle-Dama, TwinBee RPG featured an entirely different illustrator and developing team. Konami developed TwinBee RPG primarily to cater fans of the TwinBee Paradise radio and anime series who were not good at playing shoot-'em-ups. Although Konami hoped to use the popularity of the radio and anime voice cast to promote the game, the game's sales were not enough to cover its production values and TwinBee RPG became the final game in the TwinBee series (excluding later ports and mobile applications).

Story

The unnamed protagonist is the player's alter-ego whose name can be decided at the start of the game. He is summoned by Princess Melora from the real world in order to save the TwinBee world. His distinguishing characters includes an outfit consists of a cap, knee-long trousers, and a vest, and an androgynous face with shoulder-long hair. His personality can be changed by the player from serious to rebellious or even perverted depending on the player's actions. Although the protagonist was designed so that his age and gender would be ambiguous according to interviews with the developers, the game's supporting cast such as Madoka and Vieren refer to the protagonist by male pronouns.

Development

The game is based on the radio drama Twinbee Paradise.

It was released on April 2, 1998, and was re-released for the Konami the Best in December 1999. It was later released again for the PSone Books in November 2003.

Reception

Famitsu upon release gave it a score of 24 out of 40.

Three reviewers in Dengeki PlayStation gave it scores of 55, 50, 65, and 85 for a total of 255/400.

Releases by platformdates and regions as published

PlatformReleasedRegions
PlayStation2 April 1998Japan

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Platform libraries

Description adapted from its source, CC BY-SA 4.0.