sDeveloper: Konami Publisher: Konami Release: 01/07/94 Genre: Action
It is not fair. Konami brought many of their Japanese shooters and platformers to Europe but not the US and I am still jealous to this day. Many of these are some of my favorite games on the system, especially Pop‘n Twinbee. The Twinbee renaissance of the 16-bit era would continue with Pop ‘n Twinbee: Rainbow Bell Adventures, a 2d platformer rather than a shooter. While the change in genre is abrupt the game’s quality is not. Rainbow Bell Adventure combines elements from Sonic the Hedgehog and Konami’s own Rocket Knight Adventures to create a hybrid that just as good if not better than its inspirations. This is an incredible game that reminds me of why I love that generation so much.
The plot is simple. The legendary seven rainbow bells have been stolen by Warumon, who plans to use them to rule the world. Dr. Cinnamon sends his three apprentices, Twinbee, Winbee, and Gwinbee to recover the rainbow bells and restore hope to the world.
All three characters are playable and have distinct characteristics that affect gameplay. Everyone has a default punch but different weapons. Twinbee gains a melee hammer, Gwinbee throws rattles, and Winbee tosses a lasso. They can all fly by charging a meter like Sparkster and hover as well. The main differences come in the charge time for their rocket and punch wave. Twinbee is average at both making him well rounded. Winbee charges her rocket pack the fastest; her meter is half as short as the others! But her punch wave takes the longest to charge. Gwinbee can unleash punch waves in rapid succession. But for heavy platforming involving the rocket pack he sucks.
The annoying bell power-ups that are a hallmark of Twinbee return. But you do not have to do any bell juggling. Instead each different colored bell is a specific power-up dropped by enemies and as a bonus you can use all of them simultaneously outside of invincibility. These include the shield, a laser pistol separate from your melee attack, their signature weapon, drone like options, and shoes to power up your stomp attack. Taking a hit will drop all of your bells like Sonic. But like that game you can collect most of them before they fall off screen. Depending on the attack enemies will almost always drop bells and you will rarely ever be without at least one.
The gameplay borrows heavily from Rocket Knight Adventures and Sparkster. Like those games you charge your rocket pack to blast off in the desired direction. But the mechanic is dare I say it more advanced. You can rebound off walls too however if they are packed tight enough you will keep bouncing and follow the path laid out. You can also build up another charge while boosting and with Winbee it is possible to blast through an entire level, at least early on. While the rocket pack is fun to play with as in those title there is plenty of reason to explore. Your punch wave destroys walls and there are secrets practically everywhere. Each level is massive, so big in fact that you have a map that shows the goal. This is a general position however as the levels loop around themselves. Finding the exit is half the fun.
If I had to sum up why Rainbow Bell Adventures is so great it would be variety. The game arms you with so many mechanics and provides so many different ways to use them. The first few stages are simple enough that you can easily avoid all enemies and rocket to the goal. But soon enough it evolves and challenges you in new ways. The maps become tight mazes that you can explore in numerous ways depending on the character. Each new area introduces a new mechanic that keeps gameplay fresh. Like Rocket Knight the game revels in throwing from one inventive scenario to another along with challenging boss battles. While bee lining to the exit is fun finding all of the fairies and keys provides a real challenge and reason for all that space to earn one of many endings. At least in the Japanese version.
Rainbow Bell Adventures was released in Europe. Unfortunately a lot of content was removed during the localization. The Super Famicom version used battery back-up to save progress. Instead the game now uses passwords. This affects the game in multiple ways. To earn the alternate endings you had to find all of the game’s hidden items. The password system does not record all the items you have collected, just how many stages you have cleared. The game is linear now which makes searching for keys to open up different paths on the map like Super Mario World useless as they no longer exist. In addition the different endings, which were the point of collecting stuff, are cut. The replay value suffers as a result. Don’t get me wrong, the game is still great as is. But the original is a phenomenal game and one of the best platformers on the system.
In Closing
Pop‘n Twinbee: Rainbow Bell Adventures is a fantastic game and one of my top ten favorite platformers on the SNES. It is full of the charm and tight gameplay that made Konami one of the best developers in the industry. Mechanically brilliant, technically perfect, and aurally excellent, there were not many better in that generation. Play a fan translation of the Japanese version to experience video game greatness.
