Dual Force

Dual Force is an unreleased shooter game by Human. Thanks to nz136x for the tip on the tweet. By: Evan G Last updated: January 20, 2025

Dual Force is an unreleased shooting game by Human Entertainment. Nothing was known of this game until a Tweet on May 31, 2023 by the developer "木枯らし文次郎" (Monjiro Kogarashi). If the website he linked is his, this is a psudonym for Shun Moriya (who is credited on The Firemen). Anyways, this was the tweet:

専門学校在籍中に開発していたけど、残念ながら未発売に終わった人生初のスーパーファミコン用シューティングゲームを30数年ぶりに起動した。世界で唯一のROMというだけで良い思い出。ROMを快く渡してくれた増田先生に感謝。ご冥福をお祈りいたします。

My translation (any mistakes are my own):

I made this Super Famicom shooter game 30 years ago while I was attending a specialist school (Human Creative School). Unfortunately, it was cancelled just after it was finished. I recalled that I have the only prototype of the game. I am thankful to Professor Masuda for giving it to me (Fire Pro Wrestling creator Masato Masuda). May he rest in peace (Masuda passed away in 2014).

Human Entertainment created the Human Creative School in 1992 to train the next generation of video game creators, with instruction by former employees. There is some great info on this from interviews within The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers Volume 2 by John Szczepaniak. The unique thing about this school is that the final project was for the students to make a game, which could be picked up by Human for publication. Septentrion (SOS) and The Firemen both originated as student projects. It seems that Dual Force was also from this school, but none of the interviews in The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers make mention of it. Since Shun Moriya worked on The Firemen, it would make sense that he also worked on Dual Force while a student there.

Based on the screenshot, it appears to have an above-the-craft view, and has a split screen 2-player. The second screen has some text, which I have tried to transcribe:

そして、さらにバイオテクノロジーの融合から生まれた技術バイオ・フォース理論。

My translation:

Furthermore, from fused biotechnology, a new art "Bio Force Theory" was born.

Anyways, here are the images from the Tweet.

The title screen

Two player gameplay

Text about the story

Picture of the prototype