I had posted that I cleared the first loop (aka Stage 1 through 5) in the original arcade TwinBee via TwinBee Portable on PSP, but what I did specifically was make it partway through Stage 7. The harder loop isn't just the exact same enemy patterns and groupings but faster and with more bullets, like in some games. Rather, they throw at you a new mix of all the previous enemies, plus a handful of new ones, so I wanted to see how far I could get just to check out what differences I could see. That, and I wanted to see how high I could get my score. I just fell short of 1 million, but that was nearly double my previous high. Not that I was making any huge effort to boost my score. I just wanted to get past the fifth boss, but I did grab and chain yellow bells whenever I could (if only to get them out of the way). It seems like Stage 6 mostly exists to get your ship powered up again after Stage 5. The regular enemies didn't put up much of a fight. But the hard loop version of the first boss, Onion Head...oof. It's like a bullet hell shmup. I don't know how it'd even be possible to dodge the endless waves of bullets. But I got to it with a barrier, so I managed to survive long enough to beat it. But at that point, I had already died and was a sitting duck with no power-ups. I was waiting and waiting for Stage 7 to give me some bells, but there was just nothing. Barely any clouds and what did pass by seemed to be empty. So I eventually lost my remaining lives and couldn't make it to the boss of Stage 7.
Moving on, I decided to start up Brain Lord on Super Nintendo. I had been wanting to play it for a while, but I was waiting for a good time. I didn't want to play it right after another overhead 2D adventure game, so I wanted to give some space from my playthroughs of Illusion of Gaia and Metal Gear 2. Speaking of the former, that was the only home console game I actually played on a home console last year, so maybe this year I could at least do two, haha. I mean, I play plenty of home console games on handhelds, thanks to ports and such, but sometimes it's nice to sit down at a TV, even if it's not as convenient for me. Anyway, I haven't even left the first town in Brain Lord, but I'm liking it so far. As shallow as it sounds, I was always turned off by the ugly protagonist sprite. He reminds me of the hero in Virtual Hydlide, haha. But the rest of the game looks pretty nice, and the script has more personality than I expected. I really like the music too. My husband is a fan of the game and has beaten it at least once, so I watched him play it some many, many years ago, but I think it'll be nice to finally give it a go myself.
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