Bubble Bobble

The Good
In Bubble Bobble, you play one of two dinosaurs trying to get their girlfriends back. In order to do this, you must get through 100 rounds by getting rid of enemies by trapping them in bubbles, and then popping them. In the last round, you are faced with one of the bigger versions of an enemy, and it is so big that bubbles don’t even work, so you have to use something else instead. When enemies get knocked out, they turn into fruit, which you can get for points. Some enemies defend themselves by throwing weapons such as boulders, hammers, or lasers at you. If you waste too much time trying to accomplish your tasks, the words “Hurry Up” will scroll across the screen, giving you a warning that a ghost will appear and try to eat you. You can avoid being eaten by usually going off the bottom of the screen to get to the top.

During the game, as well as giving off bubbles, other bubbles appear from the bottom of the screen, which may help kill enemies. When you pop a water bubble, the water from the bubble flows across every platform in the round, as long as there are no gaps in the platforms. Bubbles with thunderbolts can be popped and this will cause the bolts to go left or right, depending on the direction you were facing when you popped the bubble, and strike everything in its path. Popping bubbles with flames inside them causes these flames to drop down and start a fire on the nearest platform.

Six colored bubbles will appear from the top or bottom of the screen, and will spell out EXTEND. If you collect all six bubbles, you get an extra life. Besides fruit, you can get other items that will regularly appear. These items serve different purposes. For example, getting the cross floods the round and drowns enemies, and getting a flashing crown makes enemies turn blue and stop what theyÂ’re doing, allowing you to eat them. A door will appear every 20 rounds if you do not lose a life. Entering that door will lead to a secret round rather than the normal one, and this room is filled with diamonds or fruits. Each secret round has a message that tells you how to play the game.

There are two endings to this game: one good, one bad. For those of you who have already played Bubble Bobble, but havenÂ’t been able to read any one of them, one of the messages say that it always helps to take a friend along with you, meaning that the game is best played with someone else. If you choose to ignore this advice, you may receive the bad ending.

I believe that this game is addictive because most gamers will more often than not lose all their lives before they reach Round 100, or beat the game and then get to see the bad ending. They will then try to beat the game again, but only to see the good ending.

The Bad
When I played the MS-DOS version of Bubble Bobble, the game behaved like a dinosaur, making it impossible to play the game. If youÂ’re experiencing problems like this, but havenÂ’t got a 486 or this 1996 remake, then I suggest that you download MAME plus a copy of Bubble Bobble floating around many arcade ROM sites. The arcade version is twice as good.

The Bottom Line
The sort of game that will keep you addicted for several hours. Followed by two other great games that were only in arcades, Bubble Memories and Bubble Symphony, though Bubble Memories is a complete rehash of Bubble Bobble with updated graphics and sound. MAME can emulate both these games. ***½