ST: Kyukyoku Tiger II (redux)

[Randorama]

2025/09/10

I deleted the material in the first post(s) of each ST/GD, as threads cannot be deleted once there are replies. The rest of the thread will remain in place, this being a measure of some sort that prevents people from doing something illegal (e.g. posting links to roms and such) and then deleting proof of their heinous crimes. Since I also want to retain control over my own posts, especially when they do not infringe any rules, I have deleted them now in order to avoid that somebody may quote them and keep them online without my consent. Those who are interested in the original post may contact me via PM, and we can arrange ad hoc solutions regarding the OP for this thread.

[D]

Saved it to a word doc, I'm going to print it and enjoy it.
Thanks and also thanks from those who didn't say thanks, but nevertheless appreciate it.

[Randorama]

Thanks to you for reading it

[Neon]

One thing never mentioned (unless I missed it) - the shot button must be pressed rapidly for maximum firepower.

[Randorama]

Uh, what exactly do you mean ?

[Neon]

first is if the shot button is held down, 2nd if tapped semi-rapidly, 3rd, tap the hell out of it. Note the difference in power level (and corresponding change in graphics) of the shot. This is maybe exclusive to MAME, I don't own the Saturn port as of yet.

[Randorama]

Can you investigate if it only happens with the red shot? I usually use only the overclocked autofire on Saturn and the Binchou laser, so i never inquired further

[Neon]

There are 3 levels for the blue shot as well, and four (!) after powering up once. Mayhap the same thing happens with the red shot.

Powering up had no effect with the green shot, as far as having to tap the button goes.

Nice to hear the SS conversion has an autofire function, KTII should be infinitely more fun without sore thumbs.

[cigsthecat]

For the stage 4 boss-

After the two parachuting tanks are destroyed, you can move up and just sit on the boss' main turret. You'll need to come back down after a couple of seconds though to dodge the missile attack. Then you get get back on top of it for the final four way bullet turret.

Nice game, it could really benefit from a remake with improved boss designs and added difficulty.

[SAM]

There are 3 levels for the blue shot as well, and four (!) after powering up once. Mayhap the same thing happens with the red shot.

Powering up had no effect with the green shot, as far as having to tap the button goes.

Yes, that what I found too.

Nice to hear the SS conversion has an autofire function, KTII should be infinitely more fun without sore thumbs.

Well, there is no auto fire function for the SS version. Randorama is just using the hardware auto fire on the controler.

[professor ganson]

OT:
Would someone who loves Twin Cobra like this game as well, do you think?

[Randorama]

OT:
Would someone who loves Twin Cobra like this game as well, do you think?

I don't want to sound like a tyrant, but no OTs in STs, please.

Neon, so you can confirm:

red --> three increases in power level by tapping
blue --> four increases in power level by tapping
green --> no increases at all (well, considering that green still needs to be overclocked for efficiency...)

[Neon]

My mistake. 4 levels by tapping on blue and red on any level of power.

Other minor corrections:

The game was going to be the first Toaplan's title on a "next-gen" hardware, but Toaplan bankrupted and the funds were not enough to complete the game.

According to this source it would seem the game was developed fully by Takumi. If this guy is to be believed, snow bros II was Toaplan's last release and not Batsugun as you said in that ST (excepting perhaps the Special version, dunno where I can check the exact dates).[/url]

[Randorama]

Edited the history part after a few more checks around (including the owner of the seemingly dead toaplan.com). To be exact, Taito commissioned this sequel and Toaplan went belly up when development was starting...in short, a couple of people jumped to Takumi and completed the commission with their help (the designer for sure, and apparently one programmer).

[Twiddle]

This is surprisingly easy (due to the relatively few bullets and small hitbox) and got to stage 6 on my tenth attempt.

Edit: Just completed it today!

I never kept my power level above 3 until the fourth and fifth stages where you're given a shitload of Ps that can jack up your score.

[zinger]

Extra powerups affect rank you say, does that include hypers or bombs?

Thanks!

[Randorama]

Getting extra points for power-up items is what increases rank, so switching from normal bombs to hypers doesn't affect it.

[Limbrooke]

I wanted to mention that I believe there is a distinct difficulty difference between Twin Cobra 2 (World/US) and Kyukyoku Tiger 2 (Japan).

While dip and test menu settings are the same between the two on factory settings the strength of enemies or of the weapon is clearly not the same.

I began to look into this when watching LUNardei's 1CC replay which is using Twin Cobra 2. I have the Sega Saturn Kyukyoku Tiger 2 and mainly run in Arcade mode (so TATE). I thought when I first watched the video that enemies and game in general seemed more manageable than what I ever encountered.

This is mostly evident on Stage 2 before the 2x large red aircraft appear. The white medium sized aircraft that initially appears in groups of 3, later appearing one-by-one from either left or right seem to be less of a threat in TC2 versus KT2.


In TC2 using Thunder Claw at full level, the side projectiles make short work of these enemies in the last part before the large red aircraft appear. Barely any problems occur with correct positioning on the left side of the screen to destroy the 3-shot water tanks, without auto-fire no less. The island fort also goes down without any trouble while the speed of the projectiles from the first (leftmost) red aircraft make it no threat and it too can be downed before the second (rightmost) aircraft appears. Today I managed without any effort to no-miss, no-bomb Stage 2 in TC2 for the first time.

Meanwhile in KT2, I couldn't hope to dream to do this. The medium white aircraft are stronger and require a bit higher fire frequency while the water tanks can actually fire off a volley before you can destroy them. The island too is a little stronger while destroying the first red aircraft before #2 appears is also a pipe-dream without auto-fire. The speed and aggressiveness I believe is best exemplified in this section here since it is early although the first boss and the first sub-boss (St1 in canal, versus red aircraft) can be downed much quicker in TC2 than in KT2.

So the biggest difference is how much damage an enemy can take, KT2 specifically requires more damage dealt. Afterwards comes the aggressive nature of the enemies. Max rank between TC2 and KT2 don't feel 100% the same but this is possibly affected by the initial point of enemies being destroyed faster or lasting longer.

TC2 World and US appear to be the same but I haven't spent too long in US to notice much difference.

One other point to address would be that scoring is slightly higher in the Saturn game (TATE/Arcade anyway). It's very marginal but in KT2 MAME the best I've managed on St1 is 499,190 while on Saturn it's around 530,000 after the EOS bonus. I cannot seem to get more than 90,000 after the St1 sub-boss in MAME while on Saturn I am consistent with 100,000+. It's noticeable even earlier on but that's where the score difference is first apparent.

I'd ask if others would at least compare arcade TC2 and KT2 to verify what I speak of here but I'm pretty confident in my findings.

[Ruldra]

I played both versions for a few minutes, and yeah, the japanese version seems to be a bit harder. The ships Limbrooke mentioned are firing faster and more often, and enemies are taking longer to kill too. I always manage to kill the first big tank in stage 3 before the second one appears in the world version, but in the japanese one the second one appears before I'm done with the first.

I wish I knew about this earlier

[Limbrooke]

I've resolved why the scoring in Kyukyoku Tiger 2 Plus (Sega Saturn) is higher than the original arcade game.

In the arcade a player is awarded 500pts for picking up a 'like' or current weapon power-up. This does not change until Level 5 where 10,000pts are awarded, and each level after sees an increase of 10,000 more until 100,000pts are acheived from pick-up of a power-up while at max power.

In Saturn, a player is awarded a whooping 10,500pts for the 1st like power-up. The next level sees 20,500pts awarded and the max level gives 30,500pts. However, after Level 4 is reached the normal 10,000pts rolling max bonus picks up from the arcade game.

These rules apply even when switching weapons, so it relies simply on what level is being reached, meaning there is no way to avoid these 'like' weapon bonuses.

Code: Select all

Saturn    Player1                                      Arcade      Player1
Level 1     *                                          Level 1       *
L2        10,500                                       L2          500pts
L3        20,500                                       L3          500pts
L4        30,500                                       L4          500pts
L5!       10,000                                       L5!         10,000pts
          20,000                                                   20,000pts
          30,000                                                   30,000pts
(continues at 10k increases until...)
LMax      100,000 (each power-up thereafter is 100k)   LMax        100,000pts (each power-up thereafter is 100k)

Edit: As I just discovered, the crazy part about this point glitch for 'like' weapon bonus is that it affects the blue ship (P1) only. P2/red ship is unaffected and has the normal 500pts bonus for picking up the next level of a current weapon. I wonder how Naxat messed this up.

Player 1, Arcade mode, KT2+, SSF


Player 2, Arcade mode, KT2+, SSF

[lgb]

Can I get all possible options and the default options for the Saturn game?

[TransatlanticFoe]

Resurrecting this old one...

In the Saturn version, the options menu has "power up" and a choice between A, B or C. What does this actually do? I changed it but didn't notice any difference.

This guide is awesome btw. The stage 3 boss was owning me until I read about the safe spot!

[Limbrooke]

Resurrecting this old one...

In the Saturn version, the options menu has "power up" and a choice between A, B or C. What does this actually do? I changed it but didn't notice any difference.

Here's the transcribed description from the manual.

A-業務用と同仕様。

B-最初から最強POWER UP。POWER UP ITEM を取得すると、ＩＴＥＭの　変更と得点が入ります。ＰＬＡＹＥＲ機がやられた場合も、ＰＯＷＥＲ　ＤＯＷＮません。

Ｃ-基本的には、業務用と同仕様。ＰＬＡＹＥＲ機がやられた時、１段階のＰＯＷＥＲ　ＤＯＷＮしかしません。

Obviously, it's not much help if you don't read Japanese. However A is definitely default meaning business as usual and power ups behave normally.
It seems to talk about powering down but I'm not clear on what it means, even after some trial and error I too didn't notice much difference. Perhaps someone can effectively translate it.

[TransatlanticFoe]

Cheers - having it posted means I can at least run it through translators online and get something (I tried to get free translator apps to take a picture of the manual but they were useless). Google translate seems to suggest that it's to do with scoring off power ups - since you get bonus points per item once you're fully powered up, that would make sense.

If anyone can muster a proper translation that'd be grand please. Maybe it's not talking about points but is talking about rank?

[Randorama]

Thank you for the recent posts, it is nice to see that this game, and its ST, can still get some love.

I would like to clean up the original post once we have a translation of the options menu. Since we are here, anyone would like to discuss problematic parts, tricks, aspects of the game that are still not clear, etc.?

[pc945]

Resurrecting this old one...

In the Saturn version, the options menu has "power up" and a choice between A, B or C. What does this actually do? I changed it but didn't notice any difference.

Here's the transcribed description from the manual.

A-業務用と同仕様。

B-最初から最強POWER UP。POWER UP ITEM を取得すると、ＩＴＥＭの　変更と得点が入ります。ＰＬＡＹＥＲ機がやられた場合も、ＰＯＷＥＲ　ＤＯＷＮません。

Ｃ-基本的には、業務用と同仕様。ＰＬＡＹＥＲ機がやられた時、１段階のＰＯＷＥＲ　ＤＯＷＮしかしません。

A means: Just like the arcade version(You start from weapon level 1, and when you are shot down, your weapon resets to level one).

B means: You start the game with max weapon level. The power-up items means just changing weapons or boost your score. When you are shot down, your weapon does not reset.

C means: Initially like the arcade version, but when you are shot down, your weapon will be just downgraded by one level rather than reset to level one.(Example: If I get shot down with green level 4, the next one will be green level "3", not green level 1 when you are using setting A.)

[TransatlanticFoe]

Awesome, thanks very much

[gabrielesquaratti]

the fact that you must tap like crazy to crave out some decent firepower from red and blue simply (almost) ruined gameplay

too bad.i've bought it today

[Randorama]

I will delete this ST on the 2025/09/30. Anyone who is willing the incorporate information from this ST in future STs is welcome to do so before that date. The STG wiki page for the game represents a simply superior source, but some readers might want to preserve parts of this now obsolete ST for their own personal reasons. Readers who wish to complain about this decision can read Sistem11's message in the DonPachi ST from 10 years ago for some background.

[CStarFlare]

There is no STG Wiki page for this page.

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