Bubble Bobble: Old & New Longplay (Game Boy Advance) [60 FPS]
269Developed by Taito and published by Empire Interactive in 2004
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Any gamer growing up during the 1980's should be familiar with Bubble Bobble, a Taito classic coin-up title that was converted to just about every platform available back in the day. The developers obviously thought that the game would still be fun to play, so they decided to create a new version for a modern audience.
Bubble Bobble: Old and New includes two games on the cartridge. The first is the original arcade version (Old) and the second, a new version featuring completely redone graphics and updated music. I didn't bother to include any footage of the "Old" game because I figured it wasn't of much interest, so the focus of the review is the "New" version.
As always, you must take Bubby or Bobby on a journey through the cave of monsters on a mission to not only reclaim their human forms, but to also rescue their girlfriends. The game is set across 100 different levels, each of which contains a set number of enemies to defeat before you can progress to the next.
Your bubble dragon is able to spit bubbles from it's mouth and these are used to temporarily trap monsters, causing them to float around the level. To defeat an enemy, the bubble must be popped by running (or jumping) into the bubble, upon which the enemy is sent hurtling across the screen before coming to rest.
Defeated enemies will leave behind an item of fruit, jewellery, or something else of value that can be collected for bonus points. Players on the hunt for even higher scores should try to group together trapped enemies and burst the bubbles together for a huge point bonus. One of the things I really love about the game is the fact that the developers used food stuffs for bonus items, as well as the fact that cakes, puddings and anything gooey tends to be worth more points than the fruit and vegetables (I'll take an eclair over a banana any day of the week!)
If you've read this far then you're probably wondering what is actually "new" about this version of the game. After all, it sounds pretty much the same as the original so far.
Firstly, the game has received a fresh lick of paint in the form of completely reworked graphics, background art and a general overhaul in the visual department. The new art work is something in two minds about: on the one hand it does look quite nice and it's certainly interesting to see how the dev team decided to bring it up to date, but I also really like the enemy designs and sprites from the original version and I'm not so sure that they needed to look quite so different.
The second thing most players will notice is the fact that the levels in this version of the game are bigger than a single screen in height, meaning that the play-field has to scroll vertically as you move around. This makes it more difficult to keep track of enemies since the top and bottom of the screen is cut off. Pressing the left shoulder button causes the view to zoom out so as to show the whole level on the screen at once, but the down-side to this is it makes everything look quite ugly, so you'll probably only want to do it when checking whether the top or bottom of a level is clear.
One interesting feature that has been added to the game is the addition of an AI-controlled player 2. Once you beat the game, it's possible to activate the second player and have it play alongside you. Personally, I decided not to use it apart from on the final boss (to get the proper endings) as it tends to fill up the screen with bubbles and make things more difficult to see.
Of course, one can't talk about Bubble Bobble without thinking of (or humming) the famous in-game music, which has been rearranged and updated to take advantage of modern sound hardware. Naturally, it now features instruments and samples rather than just a simple chip-tune melody, but it sounds as great and I'm glad that it hasn't been messed with.
Most of the sound effects have been touched up and enhanced, rather than completely replaced. In all honesty, the effects used in the original game really suited the game and changing them would probably have done more harm than good.
The only thing that disappointed me about this game is that, updated and graphics aside, the game doesn't really introduce anything new. Nevertheless, I still really enjoy the game and it's still as fun to play now as it was back then. The core gameplay and mechanics fit well with portable format where you typically play a game to kill time for an hour or so (or don't have access to a main console) and is certainly a great way to spend an afternoon.
#retrogaming