Patreon button  Steam curated reviews  Discord button  Facebook button  Twitter button 
3DS | PC | PS4 | PS5 | SWITCH | VITA | XB1 | XSX | All

Bubble Bobble (NES) artwork

Bubble Bobble (NES) review


""Now it is the beginning of a fantastic story! Let us make a journey to the cave of monsters! "

"Now it is the beginning of a fantastic story! Let us make a journey to the cave of monsters!

Good luck!"

Those words kick off a grand adventure. While I'll never be sure what's so fantastic about the story, the introduction to the game paints a small but enthusiastic picture of things to come as you venture into a cave of monsters. Fitting, too, because there isn't much better way to describe Bubble Bobble than "small but enthusiastic." It's not the kind of game to have sprawling maps, or a myriad of gameplay modes, or a deep, engaging plot, but it does have simple unbridled enthusiasm for what it does. Also, it has Bub.

Bub is a dragon, and at first glance he seems to be a mockery of everything Dragons stand for. He's three feet tall, his head comprises most of his mass, and he has cartoonishly huge puppy eyes. Also, he spits bubbles instead of fire, making the game's title into a series of puns. Right about the time you start to wonder if things could get any more obnoxiously adorable, you find out that Bub's bubbles are tools for slaughter, encasing all who stand in his way in a wistfully floating transparent coffin. For when Bub (or his companion Bob. Puns!) pops the bubbles, their contents are destroyed, sending monster corpses tumbling through the air like so many snowflakes. When they land, they turn into berries or hamburger or martinis or diamonds or any number of other score-padding artifacts, which you must collect because dragons adore treasure, and pizza. Bub loves his job.

Wanton destruction isn't Bub's game, though, and you won't progress by simply spraying at random. Never underestimate the bubbles. Even empty ones act as temporary floating platforms which you can jump on to reach previously inaccessible terrain.

As you might have guessed, the eventual goal of the game is to descend to the bottom of the cave of monsters, 100 floors due down from the beginning. Each floor has a predesigned layout of the same dimensions as the screen, and a set of monsters that you must dispatch to move on to the next one. Even though it's basically constant action, the design makes the game almost half puzzle. Every level has the same layout every time, they're very compact and straight forward, and that makes figuring each one out a science. In addition to a unique layout and enemy composition, each level also has its own invisible air currents, which affect the way errant bubbles drift about the stage. Often the solution involves finding the right place to shoot a bubble so that you can ride it to otherwise unreachable areas and get that one nagging bad guy.

Whatever the case, find the solution quickly, because if you don't Baron von Blubba will make his appearance, and he's out for blood. The single most potent foe you will face, von Blubba is a flying ghost whale that is determined to make your life hell from the moment he appears. Seeing a white whale has only ever led to tragedy, there's no point in fighting him. The only way to get rid of him is to complete the level before he gets to you, and he will. With increasing vigor, he will stalk you, travelling through walls and bubbles. Technically, letting him kill you gets rid of him as well...for a little while, but by then he's already chilled your blood and reduced your stock of lives.

The best that can be done is to never let him appear out of spite. You'll have plenty of that for him by the end of your adventure.

Even with von Blubba and his hoarde of assistants, not everything is out to get you. For every bouncing foe with springs for legs there's a bubble filled with fire that will cleanse anything that touches it. For every space invader knock-off raining lasers on you from above, there's a cleansing torrent of water to wash them away. The power ups factor heavily into the puzzle aspect of the game. Sometimes you'll stumble across trinkets that bluntly help you on your way. The coveted umbrella does this quite literally, letting you skip over a number of levels without the hassle of clearing them first. Not all of the items are as dramatically helpful, but you'll be thankful for lightning when you can shoot it into otherwise inaccessible coves nestled deep within the level.

Bubble Bobble is an exercise in everything memorable about old school gaming. It requires coordination, pinpoint jumps, problem solving, and speed, the lack of any of which which will see you falling to your death, forgotten in some dark corner of a monster infested cave. The intro might be wrong about the story, but it was indeed the beginning of something fantastic. And though it's fantastically simple, Bubble Bobble is no less a marvel for it.



dragoon_of_infinity's avatar
Community review by dragoon_of_infinity (September 30, 2008)

A bio for this contributor is currently unavailable, but check back soon to see if that changes. If you are the author of this review, you can update your bio from the Settings page.

More Reviews by dragoon_of_infinity [+]
Antipole (Xbox 360) artwork
Antipole (Xbox 360)

The gimmick is simple. Go to the right and win. You can jump, you can shoot, and you can invert gravity within a certain radius of the character. And that's it. There's no plot or villain, just you, a plasma rifle, and a hellish maze of circular saws, moving platforms, and angry robots.
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 (PlayStation 2) artwork
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 (PlayStation 2)

Think back to a normal day in high school. Specifically, remember the routine. Every day, you wake up, you go to class, eat lunch, take tests, talk to friends, and do the same thing you've done a thousand times in real life. Yet through some trickery, it's actually a great game that excels in taking the mundane and mak...
Saira (PC) artwork
Saira (PC)

Nifflas makes a very specific kind of game. You can generally pick them out at a glance, it's the kind of game you can sum up in a single sentence.

Feedback

If you enjoyed this Bubble Bobble review, you're encouraged to discuss it with the author and with other members of the site's community. If you don't already have an HonestGamers account, you can sign up for one in a snap. Thank you for reading!

board icon
psychopenguin posted October 07, 2008:

The reason the storyline is so awesome is because it's not complicated. They're a couple of dinosaurs on a magical journey! Can't get much better than that for a game about blowing bubbles at weird enemies.

Great review, this game is vastly underappreciated in terms of people playing it. Everyone who plays it seems to love it though.

You must be signed into an HonestGamers user account to leave feedback on this review.

User Help | Contact | Ethics | Sponsor Guide | Links

eXTReMe Tracker
© 1998 - 2024 HonestGamers
None of the material contained within this site may be reproduced in any conceivable fashion without permission from the author(s) of said material. This site is not sponsored or endorsed by Nintendo, Sega, Sony, Microsoft, or any other such party. Opinions expressed on this site do not necessarily represent the opinion of site staff or sponsors. Staff and freelance reviews are typically written based on time spent with a retail review copy or review key for the game that is provided by its publisher.