Get that Jumbo Lolly before it disappears! (Bubble Bobble)

Member Name: Squalls_Lover

Product:	Bubble Bobble
Date:	22/02/06 (117 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Addictive and fun

Disadvantages: Can get a little repetitive

GENERAL INFO

Oh the joys of Bubble Bobble are endless.

Once I played it as a child on nintendo, and again I was playing it on the pc version not long ago.

It's addictive, engaging, light-hearted, mind-boggling fun!

The storyline is linear, but the gameplay more than makes up for that.

I never knew that Bubble and Bobble were two brothers who were enchanted and transformed into dinosaur/reptile thingies until I read about it online somewhere. Because it doesn't actually tell you that, but nevertheless, that is besides the point and even without ANY background info, the game is ridiculously amazing fun!

Every single person I have met likes this game, from my little brother who's also a halo fan, to my little sister who likes to play with barbies, to my cousin who thinks videogames are retarded, despite this one, to women with grandchildren and grown pilot men I've acquaintances with.

STORY

As mentioned, Bubble and Bobble are two brothers who have a spell cast on them and turn into funny looking, cute dinosaur creatures. And if that wasn't bad enough, their girlfriends get carried away by monsters and they have to venture into the cave of monsters, as it's called and rescue them.


GAMEPLAY

You basically see two dragon/dinosaur creatures encased in bubbles whilst the opening music plays and a few lines appear against a black background telling you of your fantastic journey into the cave of monsters.

Then the main theme pops up and you are seen floating down into a box with a pink or red thick outline some lines which you can jump onto and go back and forth on, a few monsters that look like wind-up toys.

You can jump, move up, down, left, right, make bubbles with your mouth, pop them, encase monsters within your bubbles and gently bounce on your bubbles to reach higher targets.

You encase all three monsters and pop them. If you encase all three, wait, and make as many bubbles as possible and THEN pop the three monsters your other bubbles turn into small prizes of 300 to 500 points, depending on what it is, as it's always different.

The prizes are usually food items, occasionally McDonald's food, jewels and so on.

Your points are indicated on the top right hand side and left handside of the page, and your lives are indicated in numbers at the bottom left handside and right handsides - It's a two player game.

Your points accumulate, but when you lose a life by physically touching a monster, receiving a blow from them (i.e. bottles or breaths of fire) then you lose all your points and re-enter with 0.

Popping your own bubbles (without anything inside) also gets you points - but only 10 points per popped bubble.

When you've killed the monsters in one box, you will move down the screen onto the next level, and may encounter different monsters, different settings, layouts, colours, tasks etc.

The rule is that if you fall down a hole in bubble bobble, you come back down from the top of the screen, so that if you were falling down a hole continously, you'd be forever falling - this can be used to your advantage, if something is out of reach and you cna just slip to the bottom and come out on top.

Sometimes strange objects just appear from nowhere, sometimes on set places, sometimes randomly.

For an example there's an umbrella, and depending on the colour it takes you down a few levels, sometimes 5, sometimes 8 and so on.

This enables you to skip levels and is a great advantage.


Sometimes you'll see a cross which will let you spit fire instead of bubbles, sometimes you'll see a small red and yellow house which will initiate a bonus round where there are no monsters, just flowers, musical notes or circles to collect in a short space of time.

You also collect letters, and they get added to your side of the wall to spell "EXTEND" and this gives you 1 up (1 extra life).

Your objective is of course to go through all levels and get to the boss who then hands over your girlfriends and you turn back to normal.

Pertaining to my title... fruits and other prizes often disappear after a while if you don't get them. They appear in place of destroyed monsters, and if you kill all monsters in one level in the same go, one prize will be greater than the next, for example you'll get an apple-1000, a paprika 2000, grapes-3000 and so forth.

If you kill them seperately they all turn to apples or, depending on the level, something else.

Sometimes bubbles that are not your own appear and cause special effects, for example if you pop them and are falling down in doing so, it drags you away at great speed and any monster that comes in its way is instantly killed, and when the prizes appear shortly after they are almost always crystals which give you around 7000 per crystal.

Many other such things happen in this game, which makes it very addictive, and gameplay is absolutely great even now when we have PS2s, Xbox 360's and advanced consoles.

10/10 for gameplay

GRAPHICS

The graphics, although not what an audience nowadays wants, is stil cleverly executed. They didn't try making it realistic, and in doing so did themselves a great favour as it looks cute and it has its own air of originality and style which we wouldn't feel if the game were re-made into a game with highly-acclaimed graphics, controls and so forth.

it's a simple game, with cute, endearing, simple graphics and that's exactly how it should be.

Nevertheless, for today's standards, it is very primitive.

5/10 for graphics

SOUND

The melody is quite addictive, and it grows on you after a while, and whenever you hear it it reminds of the time when you first played it.

Its an original tune, and it reflects the characters well, and also doesn't distract from the gameplay, which is very good.

I wouldn't listen to it in my own time though, like I would for other game's soundtracks like Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VIII.


5/10 for sound.


Yet, I still give it an overall of 8/10 for still being a successful, fun, addictive game even in these times of advanced technology.

Great stuff!

Summary: A classic game which makes you rush greedily to get all the prizes and rescue the day