Two Tigers

In the mid-1980s, vertically scrolling shooters flooded the arcades, and among them appeared the title Two Tigers from Taito. The game placed players in the cockpits of two biplanes and offered cooperative play for two people at once on a single machine – at a time when most arcade shooters were built around a single player taking turns, this was a welcome exception. The visual style built on Taito's older aviation titles, but the smooth scrolling and legible graphics made the game an easily digestible spectacle even for passersby in the arcade who only stopped at the machine for a moment.

After dropping in a coin, players faced a gradually escalating mission over sea and land, where enemy fighters, ships, and ground defenses stood against the pair of biplanes. Collected bonuses gradually improved firepower, which kept the game at the pace typical of Taito shooters of the era – short, intense, and based on memorizing enemy patterns. Eight-directional controls with a single fire button matched the standard of the mid-1980s and allowed even players seeing the machine for the first time to jump in quickly, while a more experienced pair could benefit from dividing roles between attacking aerial and ground targets.

Today Two Tigers remains more of a curiosity for collectors and emulation fans than a genre-defining title, but its cooperative mode secured it a place in the memory of regular 1980s arcade-goers. In an era dominated by solo shooters, it offered a simple reason to come and play as a pair, and it is precisely this social aspect of the game that makes it an interesting piece for today's retro arcades as well.

Why play it: For cooperative aerial action for two players at one machine, typical of mid-1980s Taito.