Twin Cobra — stories left

Tatsuya Uemura, 1 of the developers, said they aimed at "a work that can flatly deny the opinion that a hard game is boring because you cannot play it for long".

In the feature "The 2nd Gamest Grand Prize" (for 1988) in the game magazine Gamest, it took 4th place for the Best Shooting Award and won the Pure Shooting Award, a special editorial prize, and in the Gamest Mook The Best Game (1991) it took 42nd place.

In "The 2nd Gamest Grand Prize" (for 1988), announced in the 1989-2 issue (Vol. 29) of the game magazine Gamest, it took 4th place for the Best Shooting Award and 9th for Hit Game of the Year in the reader vote, and won the Pure Shooting Award, a special editorial prize.

In the Gamest Mook The Best Game, based on a popularity vote of readers of Gamest held in 1991 and covering all arcade games in operation up to then, it took 42nd place.

In the "Cross Review" of the game magazine Famitsu it received 8, 9, 8 and 8, for a total of 33 out of 40, earning a place in the Gold Hall of Fame; in Marukatsu PC Engine it received 9, 8, 9 and 9, for a total of 35 out of 40; and its rating in the Game Report Card reader poll run by PC Engine FAN was as shown below, 24.37 out of 30.

This score also placed it 32nd among all PC Engine titles (485 titles in total, as of 1993).

In the "Cross Review" feature of the magazine Famitsu,the game scored a total of 22 out of 40. In the "Game Report Card" reader poll run by Family Computer Magazine,it scored 20.17 out of 30, as shown below.

In the "Cross Review" feature of the magazine Famitsu,the game scored a total of 21 out of 40.

In earlier arcade ports the maker logo drawn on the title screen of the main game differed from the original, but in this title the name "TAITO" is used as in the original, a first for a port.

Twin Cobra was first released across arcades worldwide in October 1987 by Taito in Japan and Europe, as well as Romstar in North America.

The NES port, developed by Micronics, was first released in Japan CBS/Sony and later in North America by Sammy.

The Genesis port, developed by GRC, was first published in Japan by Treco, then in North America by Sega (under license by Treco's American division), and later in Brazil by Tectoy.

In November 2019, Twin Cobra was re-released for iOS and Android mobile devices only in Japan by MOBIRIX Corporation under the name Kyukyoku Tiger Classic.

A sequel, Twin Cobra II, was originally under development by Toaplan but the studio closed down in 1994 until Taito allowed Toaplan offshoot Takumi Corporation to finish work on the project as their first release in 1995, before being ported to Sega Saturn in 1997 under the name Kyukyoku Tiger II Plus.

Yuge stated that the basic structure for the game was already decided during development of Slap Fight by pursuing the excitement of shooting and dodging, settling on the bomb and shot system, claiming that firing a bomb relieved stress from players, as they wanted to make a game that was fun by looking at and get passionate about it.

Yuge stated that cooperative gameplay was originally not developed but were requested in doing so after completing the single-player version due to simultaneous two-player titles being "a big trend" in overseas regions and being conscious of the American market, as the game had a realistic war setting.

Despite being published by Taito, Uemura stated that the publisher allowed them to reveal the project was made by Toaplan.

Yuge stated that cooperative gameplay was originally not developed but were requested in doing so after completing the single-player version due to simultaneous two-player titles being "a big trend" in overseas regions and being conscious of the American market, as the game had a realistic war setting.

A sequel, Twin Cobra II, was originally under development by Toaplan but the studio closed down in 1994 until Taito allowed Toaplan offshoot Takumi Corporation to finish work on the project as their first release in 1995, before being ported to Sega Saturn in 1997 under the name Kyukyoku Tiger II Plus.

In Japan, Game Machine listed it on their 1 January 1988 issue as being the fourth most-successful table arcade unit of the month, outperforming titles such as Thundercade and Rainbow Islands: The Story of Bubble Bobble 2.

The rights to Twin Cobra and many other IPs from Toaplan are now owned by Tatsujin, a company named after Truxtons Japanese title that was founded in 2017 by former Toaplan employee Masahiro Yuge, and is part of Embracer Group since 2022.