Bubble Bobble (1986)

Beat all 100 levels to get the bad ending, then used password to play the bonus levels for the good ending. I remember playing this back in the day and beating it coop with my sister. Possibly also with my cousin. Now after playing through the entire thing solo with save states and slow motion, I have a hard time understanding how we beat the game as kids! It started off simple; blow bubbles to trap enemies then jump on, crush into walls or cut with your back/head spikes to kill the enemy. The level design was very primitive with just a single screen filled with different layouts of space vs blocks. The jumping was extremely floaty but it did make sense for the bubble theme; must be very low gravity or something. I soon realized that pits on the bottom connected to the top of the screen so there were no falling deaths. The level design became more and more obnoxious as the game went on, significantly reducing the fun. There was nothing wrong with having to use powerups and pits but I disliked the later game reliance on instant pops (perfectly timing bubble shots at melee range to instantly kill enemies) and bubble jumping. The amount of time before enemies escaped bubbles reduced significantly as the game went on and I often could not catch them as they floated up. This lead to more insta pops. More enemies were placed into tight confines with no way out, forcing me to use extremely risky insta pops. Bubble jumping was extremely difficult to pull off as I could only do it by holding down both turbo buttons. It seemed like it was far too easy to destroy your own bubbles with your spikes. Maybe this was easier in 2 player but it should have been much easier, possibly even riding a single bubble up or enclosing yourself in a bubble to float or fly up.

I could not beat level 57, which was a barren map with a single long platform at the top filled with enemies that shoot down. It was nearly impossible to bubble jump up without getting killed, and this was only around the half point of the game. This was by far the hardest level, and showed how the difficulty did not progress from easier to more difficult but rather jumped back and forth. This level was so frustrating that I skipped it by looking up the password. It should never have been created, or at least hidden deep into the good ending path. Later levels also annoyed me with blocks that were not solid. At least they never put in invisible blocks. The final boss took way too many hits to defeat and the good ending ruined the game for me. I thought it was about dinosaurs that could blow bubbles but the ending showed they were actually humans that somehow transformed into bubble dinosaurs to rescue their kidnapped girls. Lame.

This game did not live up to my childhood memories but was still a classic. Innovative fun gameplay for the time but it was too difficult at times. Using passwords to pick up at any level regardless of deaths was much better than having to start over from scratch. These bubble mechanics would work well with larger levels more akin to Super Mario and Kirby.

7.0/10

Welp I was going to do my full playtest on MAME to try to get through the whole game but sheeeeesh 100 Rounds. That's too much! Unless I really truly love it like with 1942. Today I had the opportunity to play it with my younger brother! Finally, getting to play 2-player games (we also played Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 yay).

I got the high score (154,870) which was largely thanks to a Round with one of those Flower power up things. On future plays with family or friends over, I think we could def do bette rnow that we know the mechanics and how to avoid dying (which I kept doing lol, thank goodness for infinite coins :-p)

We got to Round 23 could have gotten further but we both felt we had played enough. Imma count this as my playtest. Fun to play, not worth playing all 100 rounds tho. Full of interesting powerups, quirks you have to trial and error to learn, and ostensibly fun gameplay. Oh, and a top-notch jingle. Unfortunately wasn't captivating enough for me or my brother to be worth the full 100 rounds though! Especially with some of the can't-pass-through-gaps mechanics without certain power ups. I mean, the level design was clearly clever and they'd provide you the power up needed to slip through as the Water or the Lightning power up, etc., but again, I'd probly just prefer if you could slip through those cracks anyway and just have fun with chaos and shooting out bubbles :-p

Through 100 Levels of puzzles, monsters, riches and candy, Bubble Bobble takes you on a pleasant but challenging journey. This game was all the rage when I was little, but I never really got into it back then. I appreciate it way more today as both my patience and skill has evolved. The bubbly design in BB is great, so is the music and the gameplay in general. You blow your enemies inside bubbles and pop them! - Collect the fruit/treasure - advance to the next stage. Simple, fun, challenging game by Taito that stands the test of time and spawned a few good sequels.

[3] / [5]

Platform:

Sega Master System version.

Graphics/Sound:

The graphics on the Master System are I think closest to the Arcade original, that's why I chose this version for playthrough. The dinosaur characters are extremely cute which is one of the major reasons why people go and try this game, the game's sequels don't have this as a main character anymore and remained quite a tad more obscure I think. The sound through the Master System sound chip might feel a bit more annoying over time, but at the same time it sounds so pleasantly retro, and fits the simple graphics well. Of course it's the same loop over and over, but that also kind of fits the theme.

Gameplay:

It's an early platformer but it's very unique in several aspects. First off, each level is only screen sized, but they make up for that with sheer quantity (200 levels in the Master System version). Second and most notable while playing is the way to get rid of monsters. First you trap monsters in bubbles and pop them. But that's only the most simple way. There is tons of possibilities to get rid of monsters throughout the levels, be it fireballs, waterfalls, lightning or magic spells. Everything can happen, and that's part of the charm of this game. You have a bunch of items popping up in the levels but there is so many different ones that you don't know what will happen when you take the item. Might be that you jump 5 levels, or you suddenly can run faster, or all the enemies are afraid of you. Or you simply get some points. Both a flaw and the strength of this game is that the game rules seem to largely reset in each level. So you never know what's gonna happen.

Difficulty:

It starts out pretty easy, first 15 levels or so you think this is a kids game. But let me tell you later on this becomes a real challenge. I kind of have a feeling that the Master System is unnecessarily tedious in some aspects (you can ride your bubbles by jumping correctly on them, but it's mindbogglingly difficult to do without popping the bubble), but I haven't tried other versions so I don't know if it's an inherent mechanic in the game or this version. Some levels you can pass in mere seconds, some took me about half an hour of tries until I finally made it. The weird physics also make it harder. It seems that you can always kind of jump through all blocks but only from below and not the sides and on some other edge cases but you never know if a jump will work unless you try it.

It starts off as a pretty simple and kind of boring game. But later on it becomes a really trippy addicting little game, that offers many surprises, wtf moments and laughs. Of course this game is dated and is far from being flawless, the controls are a bit wonky at times. But overall this is a very charming game, which I recommend you play further than the first 20 levels to see what makes it great.

History:
Another game I'd probably seen a million times as a kid and never played. What I did play a metric TON of though was Bust-A-Move in the arcades.

Expectations:
When I first got this game, my cousin and I played a bit of it and had NO idea what was going on. Now that I've done just a tiny bit of research, I know what I'm supposed to do, and it actually looks really fun! Making it all the way to level 99 though? We'll see...

Night 1:

Understanding it is one thing. "Getting it" is another entirely.

I played up to lv30, and every stage had me thinking, "Why am I doing this?" The game, to me, just wasn't clicking. I gave it about an hour and a half to try to grab and it just kept missing.

Right, blow bubbles at the guys, eat the fruits, drink the martini, pop the bubbles, next stage, blow bubbles, eat fruits, pop lightning, ride water slide... Ever level makes it harder to reach the guys, or makes the guys do different things. I understand what the game wants me to do, I just don't see the incentive.

I'm sure the game is fun for some people, probably more so back then than now. I am not those people.

Liked:
That damn music. It looped over and over and over and I never got sick of it. Some of the levels made me laugh.

Disliked:
Level design was awkward in the sense that it was never clear where you could actually jump to, walk through, etc. The gravity and physics in the game are completely bizarre, and I never knew how my character was going to jump or fall, making jumping around extremely tedious.

Play it Again?
Probably not, unless someone really wants to fire up multiplayer. I just didn't find this one fun.

Personal Score: