The Konami World games operate on the same cross-over principles seen in Konami Krazy Racers and, to a lesser extent the Parodius series. Between them, the two instalments include characters and levels from Goemon, Gradius, Castlevania, Contra, Getsufuu Maden, and many other games. Naturally, Twinbee is involved as well. Here's how:

Let me say this first - Konami World 1 is bloody difficult...and the Twinbee section is right at the end. I've only actually seen it because the nice people at the SHMUPS site had an emulator save-state which bypassed the tricky 90% or so of the game that I was having trouble with - so many thanks to them. The preceding levels are platformers in which you guide Konami Man & Konami Girl (useless, the pair of them) around individual stages rescuing heroes such as Simon Belmont, Goemon and the Maoi Head who in turn become playable. Back at Konami HQ, you're directed by none less than Dr. Cinnamon (and his evil twin, who looks rather like Warumon). Once all that's done, there's a shooter section which is actually a Gradius / Twinbee crossover. You choose to pilot either Twinbee or Vic Viper, and then fly through a long level which accommodates the kind of backgrounds and characters seen in both games. To be honest, the Twinbee section is nothing special - it's very similar to the original Twinbee (especially, in graphical terms, the NES release). You do get a better selection of powerups than usual, which makes a change. Because the level is equally themed around Gradius, you also get to take Twinbee into space, where he fights aliens in an asteroid field, and stuff like that. It's not going to set the world on fire, but it's definitely worth checking out. On to the sequel - SOS Parsley Castle...

Konami World 2 does a lot, lot more with Twinbee than the first game. It's also easier, so the average gamer will probably be more than capable of actually getting to the relevant stages - they're quite early anyway. After clearing out the Goemon levels, you board Twinbee and are then given a choice between two shooter stages. The first (pictured above) is fairly similar to the original Twinbee, but has much better graphics, more on a par with Twinbee 3: Poko Poko Dai. The second is exactly the same in terms of gameplay, but is set against an RPG backdrop and sees you fighting dragons and things like that. What is worth seeing though is what comes after either level - a psuedo-3D perspective that puts the camera behind Twinbee and sees him flying into the screen. It's most obviously comparable to Space Harrier, though not quite as advanced, given that the stages are actually empty of anything other than clouds. There's no actual combat, and all you have to do is collect as many bells as possible before the time runs out. Impressive, nonetheless.

That's about it. Later in the game there's a puzzle section where you have to rearrange tiles to make various character portraits - including Twinbee's. In all, given the selectable paths, there are 4 Twinbee levels in total. SOS Parsley Castle is actually an excellent game - much easier than it's predecessor and, basically, a really interesting tour of some of Konami's older series. Neither title was released outside of Japan, presumably on the not unreasonable grounds that few of the characters would have been familiar to foreign audiences. Let's just be thankful that they didn't use the same reasoning when they decided to translate Konami Krazy Racers ten years later.

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