Review: Bubble Bobble - 01/05/2008 by Andrew
Platform
First released in the arcades back in 1986 this game was a smash hit. The brilliance of this game is that beneath the simplicity of blowing bubbles to trap your enemies there are hidden secrets, false endings, happy endings (though not the kind that you're probably thinking of), warp levels and hints to cheats (cheats were enabled by default on the arcade – how cool is that!) that can be entered before starting the game. It didn't take gamers long to work out that there was much more to this game and the popularity soared, with numerous ports, clones (remember 'bobble bobble'?) and spin-offs.
The NES version was released back in 1987 meaning this game was still fresh in the arcades allowing people to save their pennies and to try to unlock all of the secrets in the comfort of their own filth. Graphically the game isn't bad, not as good as the arcade, but not that far off. The game 'feels' slower though and I notice that you blow bubbles slower, which makes some of your arcade tactics unusable on the NES. This isn't a major problem though and you learn to adapt pretty quickly.
You have a nifty password option, which allows you to skip to different parts of the game as well as enter in cheat codes (a good collection can be found here). This is a welcome addition as it makes practicing certain levels much easier.
There's really not much more I can say about this game. It's a classic, no matter what console you're playing it on. Now that it's part of the Wii's Virtual Console there's the ability to relive the magic of this game.
Easily in my top 10 games for the NES.
90/100