Tumble Pop

The Good
Tumblepop is a fixed screen platformer (FSP) released in 1991 by Data East for the Arcades. You control one of two kids with a vacuum cleaner on their backs fighting monsters (mutants, creeps, goons, and even aliens! says the original japanese flyer) that have flooded the world due to pollution. Very simple, one button lets you suck the other one jump, and that's it. This actually wasn't Data East first attempt in the genre, they amassed some experience with their now forgotten BurgerTime series. But you can tell that wasn't as influential for this at the time as the new type of FSP games of which Bubble Bobble (1986, Taito) is the classic example, and Snow Bros (1990, Toaplan) in my opinion the best game; in fact this one feels kind of similar to that last one - like a natural progression, and I was surprised to discover that it wasn't made by Toaplan. Their mechanics are almost identical.
The shooting button creates a sucking ray while holding it, that stuns any enemy you touch, keep hitting them and you will eventually suck them and be able to use them as a projectile when you release the button against other enemies, you can even make bigger projectiles by sucking more than one enemy... but don't hold them in your cleaner too much or you'll get a hit.

By the way, you touch anything you die: Of Course! The objective is to literally clear the floor of enemies, then go to the next floor: but don't take too long or an invincible vampire creature will appear and start chasing you. You can sort of pick the order of the nations you gonna visit, because the game lets you choose which country to clean first, and then, upon that first choice, trace a route for you; which is nice, cause you get to see - perhaps through different playthroughs - the variety in levels and enemies it has to offer.

The Bad
Speaking of which, there are tons of enemies and bosses, beautiful in design and color, 10 worlds with 10 stages each ... But here's the minor: there isn't much difference in enemy movement patterns, some of them are slower and some very fast and nasty but that's it. It's challenging but if you compare it with other FSP games it is way easier, and you could probably clear it back in the day with just one quarter (quite rare for a Data East game on the Arcades) There's little risk of getting trapped because you can jump up or down through platforms, and you can suck through walls... also the power ups are a bit boring (and players probably won't care much about them). The challenge is just not here...

The Bottom Line
All of which makes for a fine game, for sure one of the best arcade machines to fool around with a quarter... but at the same time all these tiny things makes you really notice the lack of variety, and the somewhat generic design approach to backgrounds and music (America has the statue of liberty as a BG, Egypt the Sphynx and mummies, etc). Being a Data East game there's some cameos by Karnov, Atomic Runner Chelnov and Joe & Mac, a nice wink from the devs to the players. All and all, I stand by my opinion that Snow Bros is the better game, but this is a fine machine and I love my memories to it. When It's cleaning time in the house, while holding my very own vaculator, I always scream to my kids: Tumblepop! But they just stare at me...