M2 Is Bringing Toaplan's 'Tiger-Heli' And 'Ultimate Tiger' To Nintendo Switch This October

The Nes Tiger Heli music has never left my brain. It wasn't a great game but that same song playing on a constant loop on every level sure stuck with me. I started hearing it the minute i read the title of this article. It's what i always played in the early Nes days when i was sick of mario.

I played so much Tiger-Heli way back when! Might have to check this out.

More shmups! Yeah. More m2 versions? Double yeah!

A shame they aren't including Kyukyoku Tiger II Plus (Tiger Heli 2) as its a great addition to the series too.

hell yes Tiger Heli!! Second video game I ever after Super Mario Bros!! I was terrible at it, but was a sucker for punishment.

Anybody remember Desert Strike?

Speaking of NES shmups who remembers XEXYZ? It was a shooter with a little pointy nosed dude and the bosses looked like sea creatures.

Cool, cool, cool!

Time to keep my eyes on my import sites!

So I'm excited, because they're two classic games. I'm not wild on the pricing though. Probably going to translate to around £35-£40 here for two games. The M2 gadgets are great don't get me wrong, but with Toaplan shooters being a bit older than Cave - not to mention the recent Mushihimesama release only costing £15.00 - I was hoping for a Capcom-style compilation or two. This could get expensive.

@Scrubicius I would love to see M2 work their magic on the Strike series — or at least the first three.

Great news! No doubt will be Japan-only and another expensive import, but I'm down.

Hell yes I'm getting this physical

This is sick! I'm super excited to get this and play it. The Aleste collection is my favorite shoot em up release on Switch, so I'd be thrilled if M2 just keeps cranking out these kind of compilations. I do wish they released everywhere, and for lower prices, but I'll snap this up from playasia on release day.

YES YES YES!!!! OMG!! TIGER HELI!! My brother and I played this so much in the arcades and on the NES I think!!

@HIGHscores85 Physical is not physical anymore ( unlike up to 3ds generation where saves were on cartridge )

My childhood right here. Instant purchase.

Can’t have too many releases from these guys. Awesome, bring em on!

@romanista Switch is about to go down in history as the greatest shmup console of all time! (Might already have that title.)

@BlubberWhale I doubt it, there aren't that many exclusive Switch shooters. I reckon the greatest is the PC Engine if you include card and CD titles followed by the Saturn, Megadrive third.

@X68000

Nah, no chance. The PCE was brilliant in its time, but every arcade port on there was compromised in some way. Thw Switch is home to a stupid number of (some previously unconverted) classics through the Arcade Archive series, we've got Cave ports coming, Ikaruga, Psyvarier, Sisters Royale, Rolling Gunner, Devil Engine, the Thunderforce games on AGES, the stuff on Capcom's comp.... there's no other machine that can match this breadth and depth.

Still waiting for the Aleste collection.. what happened?

@Zeldafan79 XEXYZ? That was game alternated between platformer and shooter levels.
I actually played the Japanese version long before someone told me there was an English version.
It's one of the games where apparently there's actually a pretty huge difference in localization.
I had actually afterwards attempted to fan-translate the Japanese version, but it proved a comparatively difficult game to work on.

A little confused here. How many titles are going to be there? 2 with variants? And how do we count the unrelated ones also included?

Brings back Arcade memories....and since I got the holder that is lengthwise I forgot the name I can play with enough screen to see.

@X68000 No I get that. Just talking pure volume here. But yeah, might have higher quality titles elsewhere... but even if so, Switch is steadily gaining ground!

@SpringDivorce Yeah, and Cotton. And The Game Paradise Cruisin Mix Special Super Ultra Flower Fun Adventure Ride or whatever it’s called lol. (I ordered it like 2 years ago, forgot the title.) And other weird titles that rarely leave Japan. I’d like to see an in-depth console comparison so we can officially crown Switch “King of the Shmups” ...or “Shooter King”... never loved the word “shmup” lol.

@SpringDivorce virtually everything you mentioned is a port of an old game. Nothing comes close to 16/32bit systems for the sheer amount of grade A ports and conversions of titles never played outside of an arcade before so close to their initial release. The switch just regurgitates So many previously released games.

@BlubberWhale totally agree that it’s great to get so many titles in 1 place, but also annoying that when new titles get released such as t type final 2 the Switch version is so inferior to the other consoles.

Would be great If you could buy them all on a single console but I guess that was never the case.

I used to love playing this game on Genesis...even though I keep getting slaughtered in the early levels. I'll be looking into this.

YES! I hope this is the first of many Toaplan releases, they're my all-time favorite shmup company. I'd love to get Fire Shark and Truxton or even my favorite shmup of all time, Batsugun.

@Zeldafan79 wasn’t a great game but you played the crap out of it lol. Most games weren’t great back then but they were fun.

@premko1 saves are on the system so it is still physical. With that being said the originals of these had no saves

@X68000 you thing the switch is the only one regurgitating these games? All these regurgitated games are on all other platforms as well not just switch. Regardless it is nice to see the classics getting the much love they deserve as the newer games 90% of the time are crap or regurgitated ideas stolen from these classics.

@Zeldafan79 actually have XEXYZ in my NES collection. Great classic

Yesireebob!

Honestly, it's very difficult to miss the virtual console. So many games! (And M2 doing the honours no less!)

Wow. Tiger-Heli. I haven't heard that name in years...

@SpringDivorce no doubt about it! In 4 short years the Switch has become an Arcade retro powerhouse! Might have even surpassed the PS2 by now. Only thing still sorely missing is the Midway/Atari Games arcade classics and there’s a truck ton of them- which Warner Bros hasn’t done a damn thing with and doesn’t seem likely anytime soon. But that would surely complete this picture!

@X68000

Thundercross 1&2, Kotetsu Yousai Strahl, P-47 Thunderbolt, A-Jax, Trigon, Flak Attack, Omega Fighter just off the top of my head... all previously unconverted. How's that regurgitating?

Then there are the Arcade Archive releases that got home ports of some description, all of them compromised in some way.

These Toaplan games have never received perfect ports previously (I suppose Toaplan Shooting Battle on PS1 counts if you're into stupidly priced imports).

I'm not seeing your point at all.

Yes, the PCE was impressive in its day (I owned an extensive collection until a decade ago, so this is first hand), but every one of its ports was gimped in some way - bar Nemesis and Salamander, which actually may have been better than the originals. It's original games, looking back, were really nothing special - Gunhed, Super Star Soldier and Sapphire were good, but not great.

I know which machine I'd rather own if I had to pick one.

@joey302

Yeah that's a big hole. Fortunately for me, Midway Arcade Collection is one of this month's Xbox live games. I've got the disc, but I'm so much more likely to play five minutes of Robotron when I don't have to get out of my chain to do it!

Honestlly, Illvelo Swamp getting a solid release date and a physical release (including Radirgy Swag on the cart!) is the bigger piece of shmup news for me this week.

@X68000 Everything you're saying is right, I just want to say there's probably about 40 stg games that I never tried until I got them on Switch. X-multiply? I probably wouldn't have gotten to play it if not on Switch. The Aleste Collection? I've played 2 of the games a little bit (and enjoyed them) on a decent pirate handheld system I own, but M2's release is infinitely superior. Blackbird, Dezatopia, Rolling Gunner, Cotton Reboot - all games I've only tried on Switch. Now I'm just waiting impatiently for Konami to put out a Parodius collection...

@SpringDivorce Omega Fighter has been surprisingly fun to play. I'd never heard of it till it released on Switch, like so many stg games. Not that it matters, but I disagree about Gunhed. Blazing Lazers is one of my favorites. Compile was the best. Awesome that Compile is kinda still here, what with GG Aleste 3 releasing on Switch and PS4.

@alpha5099 Yeah, I've got Hardcore Gaming 101's newest shoot'em'up book, vol. 2. It covers all Toaplan games and got me dreaming of a Switch cartridge with all them together courtesy of M2. I'd really like to try the Truxtons, Fire Shark, and Batsugun.

@60frames-please

Parodius breaks my balls. I 1CC'd one of the SNES games, but the arcade versions..... Ouch.

@SpringDivorce I guess I've always just used continues. The main Parodius I've played was the Playstation launch game. I used to have a Hong Kong disc of it that I played on my U.S. Playstation with a paperclip holding down the button, the disc spinning with the cover popped open. It didn't seem too difficult. All I know is I had a blast playing it and showing it to friends and family.

@Dethmunk I think the best we're going to get is the alphabatize by title option, which does a good job of grouping arcade games.

@Dethmunk It would be nice, and even fun for game organizer nerds like me, but I doubt they'll do it. I think it might be difficult technically. It's embarrassing, but I've reached the limit of games on my 3DS, so I can't download another digital game I own unless I delete one that's already on the system. I think the limit is 250 games. I'm just glad Switch doesn't have a limit like that. I'm sure they have to work a lot just to keep the Switch stable for everyone, including ridiculous people like me who have thousands of digital games and thus thousands of game saves filling up the system memory.

@60frames-please So do you have basically every arcade style shmup on Switch? If so, you should make a top ten list including announced games, and a short bit about why... like what you like in your shmups.

Due by Friday. 😜

@BlubberWhale No, I don't think I'm anywhere close to having every arcade shmup on Switch. I have a lot of the arcade and Neo Geo games though. Most of my digital games I've bought on sale (well, that's true for my physical games too, plus bought a lot of them used), so they might have been $0.05 or $0.60 or something very low like that. I don't buy as many now since Nintendo raised the minimum price for Switch games, which is fine (I don't need so many!).

@60frames-please No I understand about trying to budget for this hobby and snagging deals whenever possible, heh. Just figured you played a lot more shmups than me so thought I’d look into any favorites you have. I haven gotten them yet, I’ll be buying Mushihimesama and Cotton Reboot soon. (And still waiting... year after year... for my physical copy of Game Tengoku CruisinMix Special. Fortunately Dispatch Games re-emerged on Twitter with promises to send out a free digital code to all who have been waiting so long... and supposedly the physical copies are still happening.)

@BlubberWhale Yeah, I'm waiting for Game Tengoku also...
I've been enjoying Mushihimesama and Cotton Reboot, you won't be disappointed. I've also loved Dezatopia, Black Bird, Omega Force, Anger Force, Missile Dancer, Raiden, Raiden 4 with all the soundtracks added Mikado Mix, and a bunch of others I'd have to look at my Switch to remember.

I can't believe the love for Tiger-Heli!
I thought I was the only one who even knew about it!

Love this but RIP my wallet yet again. 😔

I'm happy M2 is finally following through on the Toaplan games; but this release also screams every reason Cave gave them the finger.

@NinChocolate

They don't know how to push the button that sends your virtual product to every eshop other than your home country.

@alpha5099

M2 plans to release every Toaplan title. According to almost two years ago when they were showing off gameplay footage of more than just Tiger Heli. You may have to wait a decade so that they can program an entire dating sim or tamagotchi content that we never asked for.

@Scrubicius IT DOESN'T EXIST.

@YANDMAN

Ahhhh okay.

@Scrubicius

https://youtu.be/D5DMMTuwQhs

It has been replaced by a breathtaking cinema masterpiece.

@robr what did you just showed us!?

😂

@Scrubicius

I, myself, do not know. But I want to believe it is part of the EA Strike and Punch-Out universe.