Catch enemies in bubbles and turn them into delicious items in this action packed platformer.

Story

Two jolly dinosaurs named Bub and Bob live in a strange and magical forest where everything is good to eat. Everything is fine and peaceful until one day when Bub and Bob finds out that two of their best friends have been kidnapped by Baron von Blubba. He is said to be an evil baron who lives in the evil forest located just beyond the horizon. The two dinosaurs decide to help their friends out and set off to the evil forest only to find out that the baron has sent numerous legions of beasties to the magical forest to stop Bub and Bob. Now they must fight for their lives and rescue their friends!

The Game

Bubble Bobble is a sugar sweet platform game where you play as either Bub or Bob on the quest to rescue their abducted friends. The game is played on one screen at a time, and when all the beasties have been eliminated, you are automatically taken to the next stage. The game has over 100 such stages and with two player co-op support this turns out to be a fun and action-packed game.

The NES version is a rather faithful conversion of the arcade original, and the game has been converted to multiple other platforms as well.

Bub and Bob can blow bubbles, and in order to defeat enemies they blow bubbles on them. This in turn will catch the enemy inside the bubble which then must be burst in order to knock the enemy over. Bursting bubbles is done by either crushing them against a wall or jumping into them. When an enemy has been knocked over it will turn into an item which can be picked up to collect points. The game has an emphasis on collecting various items – most of which will give you points, but other power-ups can be found too albeit they are rare. These power-ups include fire breathing abilities, shoes to speed you up and temporary invincibility.

The game requires you to have lightning fast reflexes because you need to keep avoiding the enemies and at the same time try to catch them in your bubbles. Some enemies can fly and others can shoot projectiles. Death comes quickly if you touch an enemy – and the enemies will be jumping all over the screen. The fire rate on the bubbles will often fail you in stressful situations because you simply can’t blow them quick enough. There is a power-up to allow for quicker fire rates, but it is very rare – and should you get lucky enough to collect it, you’ll lose it when you die.

Your only goal is really to defeat all the enemies on each stage. Later stages will introduce some new elements into the game that allows you to defeat enemies in some new ways. You could, for example, burst a bubble filled with water that will cause a stream of water to flush across the stage. If an enemy gets hit by this stream, it will immediately get knocked over, and this is a very efficient way to defeat beasties. Then there is also the flash-bubbles that will shoot a flash across the screen when burst.

When there’s only one beastie left on the stage or if you aren’t defeating them quickly enough, they will become angered. This means that they turn red and move much faster, and thus become harder to catch and avoid.

There is some kind of combo-system in place, too, but I will admit that I don’t fully understand how it works. Bursting multiple bubbles in one big pop yields bigger and more valuable items (sometimes), and other times it turns your bubbles into items, too.

Bubble Bobble for the NES allows you to continue the game on your current stage once you’ve lost all your three lives. You’ll also be granted a password when the game is over. This allows you to continue at the current stage even if you need to take a break and turn the console off. Basically this means that getting though the stages is more a test of endurance and persistency than anything else. Overall, the stages aren’t all that varied, but there are a lot of them, so you’ll basically be repeating the same procedures over and over again.

Controls

The controls are easy enough – there’s one button for blowing bubbles and one button for jumping. It takes some time to get used to the short jumping trajectory, and the weird way you can jump through floors, or even walls if you hit it in just the right angle.

There is one special maneuver that can be done, and it is using your own bubbles platforms – you can jump on your own bubbles and this can take you to hard-to-reach areas. This is done by repeatedly tapping the jump button as you are about to land on a bubble. It can be hard to aim your jumps off of the bubbles mainly because the bubbles are floating around randomly, as if they are carried by the currents in the air. Bubbles can also gently be pushed around, which can be used to your advantage.

Multiplayer

The two player mode is great. Bubble Bobble can work as a co-op game, a score competition or both at the same time. You’ll co-operate by watching each other’s backs, together fight the monsters, and you could also blow bubbles for the other one to jump on. This gives the game some strategic depth which is a nice touch. With two players blowing bubbles like crazy the graphics will start to flicker and slow down a lot and this of course deducts some from the potential enjoyment, but overall it’s not game breaking.

Graphics

The graphics are colorful and looks great – at least until too many sprites appear on the screen. You can easily start to blow bubbles until the hardware is so strained that the sprites start to flicker – and then bubbles will start disappearing. Normally bubbles that are expiring turn red until they finally pop. The items you collect gives you more points depending on their color, so you’ll need to keep an eye out for the valuable items.

Sound

The music and sound are perhaps the weakest link in the whole presentation. While playing, you’ll be hearing the same music and the very same sound effects all the time, and it can quickly become repetitive. The music is cute and all – and it is a classic tune that once you hear it, you’ll never forget, but it appears quite thin with the NES sound chip in this game.

Summary

Bubble Bobble is a game that most people know about and have fond associations with. It’s a classic that you probably will enjoy revisiting over and over again. It has that all-time arcade classic stamp on it, and it does offer a wealth of fast-paced action. The theme is friendly and approachable enough to appeal to young kids and adults alike. As a two player game it is great fun, but playing alone can feel very uninspiring and spiritless. This NES version suffers quite a lot from flaky sprite flickering because the game needs to render a multitude of sprites on the screen at the same time, but otherwise it’s a blast.

Developed By: Taito
Published By: Taito
Version Reviewed: NES
Genre: Platform
Players: 1-2
Alternate Title:
Also Available On: Arcade, Commodore 64, Sega Master System
Released in EU: 1990-10-26
Released in US: 1988-11-28
Released in JP: 1987-10-30