Toaplan's Tiger-Heli made quite the impact when it arrived in arcades in 1985. Created by the core team of Masahiro Yuge, Tatsuya Uemura, and Yuichirō Nozawa, it was one of the first games to make use of a screen-clearing bomb and was commercially successful thanks to its intense challenge and tight, engaging gameplay.

Tiger-Heli is the game that launched Toaplan into the arcade mainstream, and was a sizeable hit all over the world – and it's now the foundation of the fourth entry in the Polymega Collection series.

This pack includes the arcade original (and its Japanese variant), the sequel Twin Cobra (as well as Kyukyoku Tiger, the Japanese equivalent), Sky Shark (alongside the Flying Shark and Hishou Zame regional versions), Fire Shark / Same! Same! Same! and Twin Hawk / Daisenpuu. That's five different coin-op classics, split across eleven different variations. There are also notable differences between these variants, too; for example, the international version of Twin Cobra allows you to respawn in the same spot when you die, while the Japanese version, Kyukyoku Tiger, requires you to restart from the nearest checkpoint.

As these are the original arcade versions, you're getting the 'full' experience here, alongside some attractive cabinet borders which attempt to offer an immersive perspective. Like other entries in this series, the package is sadly a little thin on historical context, although it does include a full-colour manual which gives a brief description of each game alongside the recognised high score and small pieces of trivia.

Unlike other entries in the Polymega Collection series, home ports of these games have not been included this time around, which is a bit of a shame; it would have been fun to see how, say, the NES port of Tiger-Heli compares to the original (spoiler alert: not very well). The Genesis / Mega Drive conversions of Twin Cobra, Twin Hawk and Flying Shark would also have made nice additions, as they were all pretty faithful to the originals, despite running on weaker hardware.

There's no denying the quality of the games on offer here – this series of shmups is one of the most beloved in the history of the genre, and all five games included titles are worthy of your attention. The biggest issue with Polymega Collection Vol. 3 - Tiger-Heli is that you may already own some (or all) of these games on another collection, as Toaplan rights holder Tatsujin has been pretty generous when it comes to licensing them out in recent years.

That doesn't detract from the fact that this is a solid option for series shoot 'em up addicts, however.