November 2019 Shmup Club - Tiger-Heli

[MetalFRO]

[img width=400 height=568]https://66.media.tumblr.com/3f19de7d2d3052f761d7bab6adc5f5e2/tumblr_pkdf6k9ZgD1r7zc2ko1_400.png[/img]

Some game developers have an extensive repertoire of varying game genres that demonstrate their adeptness in game design. Other companies, however, no matter what they do, they are always associated with a particular genre. That's the story with legendary Japanese shooting game powerhouse Toaplan. Though they developed games of different styles, including the well regarded puzzle platform game Snow Bros.: Nick & Tom, they will forever be known as a shooting game company, due to their extensive history with the genre, and how prolific they were, from 1985 to 1993. During that 8-year span, they developed 16 different shoot-em-ups, many of which are considered essential classics. The first of those shooting games, released in arcades in 1985, is Tiger-Heli.

Tiger-Heli is the first game in the "Tiger" trilogy, which continued with Kyukyoku Tiger, commonly known in the west as Twin Cobra, and culminating with Kyukyoku Tiger II, which released after Toaplan had disbanded. After Toaplan declared bankruptcy, many employees went on to join, or form, other development houses, many of which continued to innovate in the shooting game space. Namely, former Toaplan developers went on to companies like Cave, Raizing, and Takumi, all of whom developed groundbreaking and influential shooters during the 90's and 2000's. Every great has to start somewhere, however, so we're taking a look at Toaplan's very first shooter development, published by Taito in Japan, and Romstar in North America. Come join the RF Generation Shmup Club, as we look at Tiger-Heli in November 2019 - both the arcade original, and the Famicom/NES conversion by Micronics!

Participants:
MetalFRO
Addicted
Duke.Togo
EZ Racer
zoydo
dtungsten
bickman2k

High Score:
Arcade version:
NES/Famicom Version:

[Duke.Togo]

Ooh. I had the NES version even way back. I'm in for this one.

[EZ Racer]

Just ordered a NES copy and should have it in the next few weeks, so I'm in.

[zoydo]

Just found out there was a PAL-release of Tiger Heli, i never knew that. Ordered a cheap copy, so i will be back for november.

50Hz-PAL-shmupping here i come! 

[MetalFRO]

Excellent! Glad to have you gents on board

[dtungsten]

Sign me up!

[bickman2k]

I'm going to try to play this one if possible!

[dtungsten]

074390 so far. This game (NES version) has lots of nostalgia for me, as I borrowed and/or rented it, maybe a few times. It's up there on my list of favorite old games/shmups.

I discovered the bonus for the red roof on the right in the first level back in the day.

Another bonus is the racecar in the first level. You get that by firing exactly 16 shots by the time you get to the tracks. Not coincidentally, there are 16 enemy targets to hit by that point.

The crosses will give you different things depending on the color they are when you collect them. Red: side shooting mini Heli, White: front shooting mini Heli, Green: Bomb

The first mini Heli obtained flies on your left and the second on your right.  When you collect a bomb and you already have 2 you get 5000 bonus points.

Your mini Heli and even your bombs can be hit. Destroying the mni Heli or triggering the bomb, but sparing your helicopter.

10 of those red diamonds give you an extra life.
You get 1 life at 20,000 points and one every 80,000 after that.

[MetalFRO]

Thanks for the helpful hints, dtungsten! That should help give everyone a leg up for scoring, at least in the NES version. I'll be curious to see if those same Easter eggs are in the arcade original. I can say with confidence that the red roof trick is, so that's a relatively easy 10K points for anyone who wants to try for that in the first stage.

[dtungsten]

96,330 I did score over 100,000, but the display went weird and only showed 17,000. I have only a blurry picture of the >100,000 score.

That race car can show up in multiple places. I read about the 16 shots thing and there are actually only 12 targets before the tracks. It seems to intermittent, so I'm not sure exactly what triggers it.

I've seen the race car at the beach, and before another set of tracks.

[dtungsten]

117,520 blurry but readable. When it cycled through, the first 1 changed to a 0, so the clear picture I got says only 017,520.

[dtungsten]

146,120

[MetalFRO]

Some good scores already! Here's my latest, from earlier this evening. As you mentioned on stream dtungsten, the game loops after stage 4, though it starts over at stage 2. It seems there's no way to "beat" this game, so this month will definitely be all about scoring, and maximizing that as best as possible.

[zoydo]

Hey guys. Haven't been able to play a score yet, seems like my copy of the game is broken. I tried cleaning the connectors, but i wasn't able to get the thing working yet.

Maybe i have to look for another copy.

[MetalFRO]

Hey guys. Haven't been able to play a score yet, seems like my copy of the game is broken. I tried cleaning the connectors, but i wasn't able to get the thing working yet.

Maybe i have to look for another copy.

That's no good! Hopefully you can get it working. If nothing else, try some Brasso (or other metal polish) on the contacts, and then chase that with rubbing alcohol, to make sure all the residue is cleaned off. That usually saves the worst carts for me. And don't forget, you can also emulate the arcade version, if you like. I'll be doing that as well.