Together Retro: Bubble Bobble

[someone3760]

I'm playing the NES version.

[sevin0seven]

finished the game (NES version) few days ago. shall i keep playing (replaying) since it's still February? or maybe i shall try the arcade version now from PS2 version Anthology...

[TEKTORO]

Well I got as far as level 12 using 9 continues lol, I've never practiced BB before always was a Rainbow guy. BB maybe impossible to finish without a partner I assume?

Great game tho, classic shit for sure!

[pierrot]

First time playing Bubble Bobble tonight, although I don't actually own it for anything, so I did the cheaper, more uncouth thing. Also I played around with a few different versions.

Tried the arcade version in MAME first, and on 1 credit I got 222,768 points and down to floor 16 or 18. Can't remember which, but it was definitely farther than 15 and definitely not up to 20. Score got progressively worse from there. (I don't know why this always happens to me with arcade games.) I encountered a lamp on the first level on one of the crappy plays, though, and that thing does some really weird stuff. Is there any kind of rhyme or reason to item appearance, or is it just a crap shoot?

From there I tried the SMS version, and very briefly (because I didn't like it) the NES version. I got a high score of 192,000-something on floor 10 in the SMS version. I have no idea what's going on in this game. All of a sudden I started kicking serious ass, and somehow got a massive piece of cake worth 30,000 points on floor 5. Before that I was getting all kinds of 10,000 point diamonds and stuff. Extend bubbles were flying at me 2-3 per level. It was madness.

I'll probably stick with the SMS version, since aside from looking really purdy (besides the flicker) it was the most fun for me. I don't know if the power ups are different between the home ports and the arcade version, but I was getting some really nutty stuff in the SMS version. (Like a tome that slowed the game down to a crawl while ice spiraled around the screen, killing me in the process because an enemy was chasing me and I couldn't shoot bubbles, then gave me 10,000 points for touching each frozen enemy.) At one point I saw a little door up in the corner that I just barely missed, too. I really wanna know what was behind that door....


Also, while fiddling around in MAME, I found some NMK games that are heavily inspired by the Bubble Bobble series: Saboten Bomber and something else bomb related. Saboten Bomber is pretty quirky and fun. The other one, is rage-level frustrating.

[ExedExes]

I highly recommend you check out Arcade History's "Tips & Tricks" section on Bubble Bobble here (near the bottom). Certain scoring techniques are explained here, and not all power ups are random.

[Violent By Design]

So I tried this game out..


and I have no idea what's going on.

[pierrot]

^Sounds about right.

[jay_red]

Decided to boot this up on my MAME cab to see what it was about, I had never played Bubble Bobble in any form, nor had I really even known what it was about. I went into it kind of expecting something like puzzle bobble, and man was I wrong! My first game was a mess, I had no idea what was happening, or what I was supposed to do, and quickly saw the game over screen, yep, no matter how many credits you have, its game over! My second round was much better, and I started to get the hang of it and made it 10 rounds before dying. It starts off slow, but gets really hectic as you go on. A lot of fun for sure, and I will be playing it again.

[Jmustang1968]

I should bust out my NES copy and play along. I dont think I have played it since back in the 80s

[Nemoide]

I'm 80-something levels into the SMS version and will probably beat it later today. I missed the crystal ball in stage 10 (which I only learned about after looking up version differences online) so I'll be getting the bad ending... OH WELL. I'll save a full 200-level/good ending playthrough for when I have a second player.
Since I also plan on playing through the Game Gear version later this month, I'll aim for the good ending with that - assuming it's the same deal as the SMS version.

I thought the "Let's Compare" for this game was really interesting I knew different consoles had different versions but I had no idea HOW different they were!