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On 17 February 2024, it was proposed that this article be moved from Bubble Bobble to Bubble Bobble (video game). The result of the discussion was moved. |
"The game featured 100 levels, each with intriguing puzzles and twists." Sorry but that is just no true.
The game description does not state the most crucial aspect of the game; which is to shoot bubbles at enemies, thus trapping the enemy inside - and then 'popping' these bubbles before they decompose, releasing the enemy. Currently the synopsis just says the gameplay is 'avoiding enemies and popping bubbles' —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.15.17.33 ( talk) 21:23, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
this game was also ported to the TI calculators, the port is very impressive, check it out if you have one... 136.186.1.118 03:31, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
Does anyone know if this game will show up on Wii virtual console? 193.180.229.50 22:56, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
Can anybody properly justify the comment "Examples include even comparatively recent versions such as the (1996) PC/Playstation/Sega Saturn version by Acclaim: it had completely wrong game physics (too fast dropping speed, barely working shoes, bubbles going through walls, different jumping physics and many non-implemented techniques) or different (hence, wrong) behaviour for some monsters (especially the time-up monster)"? To me it appears to be an exact emulation of the arcade original give or take the bodged fix to allow the start button to work which prevents the code for alternate versions of the 100 levels working. In particular dropping speed doesn't appear too fast, the shoes give an easily distinguishable moving and falling speed, bubbles cannot travel through walls (e.g. on level 99 you still have to be extremely careful in positioning to drop past and bubble the monster in the enclosed hole without hitting him and loosing a life) and the Bubbas act exactly as the description of them in this article. ThomasHarte 17:25, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
It has been saved to txt so I will just paste it here in preformatted form. WARNING: this review contains some obscene language.
REVIEW: Bubble Bobble / Rainbow Islands Enhanced CD-ROM (PC version)
Before I begin, I'll have to admit that I am somewhat biased against Acclaim since they already screwed up the conversion of another arcade game I liked a lot: NBA Jam / Jam TE (which, coincidentally, I co-wrote the FAQs for, as well as for most of the Bubble Bobble series). The SNES and Genesis versions played like a farm animal trying to avoid a horny, deranged escaped convict.
Now, I'll just cut to the chase: WHAT THE FUCK?! This is a poor excuse for a conversion, Acclaim, and I agree with the programmers: this was not ready to be released! (If you don't know about the programmers' dispute, check out Gareth Hall's Bubble Bobble Page.) Everything I wrote about the Saturn version applies to this game, and more. Here's a list of the problems I discovered in the first 5 minutes of playing Bubble Bobble:
1. Like the Saturn version, you and the monsters jump up and fall down too quickly. It looks like they're wearing rocket shoes. 2. If you pop the last guy just as "Hurry Up!" appears, the game will count each bubble you popped at that moment for 10 points -- as the game is temporarily paused! My points skyrocketed but shouldn't have... 3. The Bubble and Jump button placements are reversed! Bubble is supposed to be the left button, and Jump is supposed to be the right button. On the gamepad and joystick I used, the buttons were wrong. 4. The keyboard controls are kind of weird, and they are non-configurable. As on the Saturn, the enemies still look like light is hitting them wrong, and Bub and Bob look like they're from the Amiga version. No offense, Amiga users (I own an A500 and A1200 myself), but if you've seen the horrible Amiga version you know what I mean. 5. I got EXTEND bubbles for killing only two enemies at once. That's wrong; it should be at least three... 6. There's no way to enter the original codes (BJBJBJR$, LJL$LBL$, etc.) at the title screen that I could find. 7. The music's a bit different. They tried a little harmony by adding an extra musical layer to the basic song; it mostly works but sometimes the mix sounds weird. 8. You can't skip the opening screens. This means you have to wait about 30 seconds after running the game until the selection screen appears.
I tried to get to the first diamond room, but I died on level 13 so I quit Bubble Bobble. I wanted to see how the Rainbow Islands conversions fared. For the simple reason that Rainbow Islands is even better than Bubble Bobble (gasp!), I played it for over 30 minutes. Anyway: 1. The codes work on the title screen. YAY! 2. The Jump and Bubble buttons on Normal and Enhanced Rainbow Islands are correctly configured. YAY! 3. The theme music is the non-controversial version. The first part is not as catchy as the Amiga's original "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" rip-off (which caused some legal problems way back when), but the whole second half of the song is the same ("Tom-ay-to, tom-ah-to,. pot-ay-to, pot-ah-to, hey!"). Unfortunately, the music plays at a very low volume. The volume control in the game menu only controls the sound effects. 5. The graphics are very pretty on the Enhanced version, but the music does not play at all! I was hoping for an Enhanced soundtrack. 6. Jumping physics are screwed up on this game, too. 7. I killed the 1st-level boss (Giant Spider) before it even touched the ground. I think the rainbows are powered up too much when they fall; I defeated the 3rd-level boss (Giant Vampire) with double rainbows at single speed. 8. I assume that the credits were unchanged. I can't believe that Graftgold and Andrew Braybrook would allow create such a poorly programmed product. Nevertheless, Graftgold, rather than Acclaim and Probe, is listed in the credits. Perhaps the programmers, knowing that Acclaim would have been responsible in the future for causing their names to be unspoken in Bubble-Bobble-fandom, decided to remain anonymous.
Now that I've gone over the game's problems (and a couple of compliments),I will say that the compilation is playable. I'm judging the game from a purist's perspective. There is no doubt the game is playable, but the lack of attention paid to the game is to me disrepectful to video game players who remember the good old days.
Even the packaging is wrong. It has '70s-style artwork on it, even though the games are from the mid-eighties. It calls the games "retro", even though Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands are two of the most playable games of all time (Rainbow Islands is a two-time winner of Amiga Power's Top 100 Amiga games! Parasol Stars was #18 a couple of years ago...).
And why is it on CD-ROM? There's no impressive raytraced intro, no special music tracks that can be played from an audio CD player, it only takes 10MB on my hard drive... the only thing it uses the CD-ROM for is copy protection (you cannot run it solely from the hard drive).
If I were to assign the game a percentage (50% being average), I'd give this CD-ROM a 40%. No noticeable improvements, many noticeable omissions, no advantage of the CD-ROM format. Buy it if you're a die-hard Bubble Bobble fan (like me), or if you've never played Rainbow Islands and want to experience one of the best games of all time Acclaim-style. I hate Acclaim. Avoid the game otherwise. And don't buy it unless it's under $30.00!!!
These were also taken by 1996 Carl Chavez's BubAndBob site, but for some reason they cannot easily be traced online. I'm uploading this from my archive:
Bugs in Bubble Bobble PC PC-ROM
Here's a list of verified bugs in the first release of the Bubble Bobble PC CD-ROM. Hopefully there will be a patch, since the EXTEND bug can kill you (for example, if you need a T to get EXTEND and the T is floating above a monster) and there are sound card problems.
Last updated 11 December 1996.
1. EXTEND bubbles do not always appear on player's side when popped. 2. EXTEND bubbles sometimes appear on the Bub's side when popped by Bob (and vice versa). 3. Dragons don't flash after getting the heart, don't appear to speed up. 4. Mighta (ghost)'s rock went through Bob once 5. Bub had 32 potion items, Bob 24;Both players received 100,000 points (instead of 100,000 points for the one who has more potion items and 50,000 points for the one who has less. 6. 10-point score per popped bubble accumulates if a group of bubbles popped when "Hurry Up!" appears . 7. 500-point jump bonus with purple ring is awarded per jump button press instead of per jump. Thousands of possible points with an autofiring jump button. :( 8. Some walls can be fired through, even though they're not supposed to be fired through (example: levels 18 and 26, among others, are easier now because you can shoot through walls and get the enemies behind them). Similarly, mighta rocks are going through some walls instead of breaking on them. 9. The bubble-blowing sound can be played by pressing fire after a bomb goes off or a potion bonus round is completed, although no bubbles can be blown. 10. Points for group pops and giant point items sometimes appear on Bub's side when popped by Bob. 11. When popping multiple enemies, sometimes more than one banana appears. (instead of going banana, peach, lemon, watermelon... it goes banana, banana, lemon). 12. When you "ride" a water torrent and hit an enemy trapped inside a bubble,the enemy becomes a diamond instead of a fruit. 13. This is a weird one: on my machine at home, it plays at normal speed but the sound driver doesn't work well with my sound card. At my work machine, it plays sounds correctly but it plays slowly. 14. Enemies who break out of a bubble while floating through a wall cannot be recaptured when they get trapped inside a wall. So far I've had to quit only one game; other people have been more unlucky! 15. When using the cheat mode, if you press F3 to skip a level when "Hurry Up!" appears, all creatures trapped in bubbles will move on to the next level with you. This means that you can stock up on trapped monsters and pop more of them at once in order to get more points and EXTEND bubbles. However, if you end up allowing more than 8 free creatures, or if you pop 9 or more trapped monsters at once, the game will crash.
These are bugs I found myself, and the text is copied from an old email of mine to Carl Chavez. It might be written in a somehow personal and colloquial style and has a lot of grammatical errors, but it still conveys the useful info, I believe. Here goes:
1) Skel's behaviour is even more wrong than it was in the Novalogic version. There,if you remember,Skel started chasing you IMMEDIATELY,with NO STOPS and at FULL SPEED. On the new version,Skel pauses a bit at the beginning,then starts chasing you with NO STOPS,and at the same speed.Skel also never rises from the top of the screen to emerge from the bottom,nor viceversa,while in the arcade that was one of his deadliest tactics against you! (this feature seems disabled in general,see note 5)
2) The necklace bouncing spark (that bounces around killng enemies) still looks EXACTLY like it did in the old NovaLogic version: WRONG (and poor...)! In the arcade it looked almost magical...
3) Most rounds which had got walls with stripes (like 22,50,etc.) now have plain coloured walls (While even in the novalogic version they looked correctly)
4) The fire from the firebubbles generates only and always THREE fires(only on one occasion they generated FOUR),while in the arcade a single fire could light up over a half-screen width. On the novalogic version,fire behaved like a liquid (making it more deadly).
5) Bubbling yourself through (going through the ceiling to emerge from the bottom of the screen while riding on a bubble) is impossible.Try it! This makes a lot of rounds very difficult,if not IMPOSSIBLE...I dare not think what will happen if you ride an enemy bubble for this: it could just pop or... even "vanish"!
6) Fire and Thunder bubbles lack the static animation they had in the arcade, fires don't animate till they touch the ground and thunders don't flash yellow-orange when on the loose...No version that I know of has this feature, but hey,this is the year 2000,is it so difficult and power-consuming to apply?
7) The extend screen sucks! The music and SFX are quite out of sync,it lacks the stars that blinked around the popped letters,and the extend screen itself is SLOW! (on my 486DX/40,while the EMULATED version of SMS BB,runs much faster ON THE SAME SYSTEM! Not to mention that it has got the best extend screen I've seen...) Except from that,when you were awarded the life,a tinkling sound used to play... where is it now?
8) It seems that the game,apart from buggy,is also VERY poorly coded: When I get a potion,the game SLOOOWS DOWN a lot! Only when most items are picked up starts the game to regain SOME speed... Please note that this happens with a 486DX/40,while the old version and ALL emulated versions I have,do not have this problem (they usually run much faster, and I mean on THE ABOVE system!) The same problem arises when in secret rounds,stars fall,giant thunders cross the screen,etc. and generally,when there are a lot of objects on the screen. This happens in the arcade too but only with lots of bubbles,and the arcade was designed in 1986 and is based on Z80 8-bit technology,while the PC version runs anyway on 32-bit hardware (since it uses protected mode...),and any 486 PC can run much more complex and demanding games than a simple old-style platformer...
9) Oww,here comes a really BAD one: In the arcade,when you make the two pre-last digits of your score the same,eg. 550,660 etc. and popped myself a bunch of enemies,then NO MATTER how many enemies,empty bubbles,extend bubbles, fire bubbles etc. there were,the "trick" would always work (you know which...). This works the same way on the SMS version,and there was no such feature on the old Novalogic version. On the "new" version,all that I've mentioned heavily influences your score when popping enemy bubbles.When the bunch is kind of separated in two or more sections,then 10 points per section are added (e.g. on round 2,the 4 bubbled enemies split into a 1-3 formation,although they are popped together,and add 20 points,so you have to pop'em with scores such as 420,640,860,etc. to get the trick to work...in other rounds and with more bubbles,it might not be that simple!) Also,every extend bubble in the bunch adds 10 points,and so do special bubbles. At least that's how I think it works. You realize that you have to think a bit too much to calculate how to work out your score in...real time! Not really what you need when chased by Skel and trying to pop these last damned,ready-to-pop bubbles (and do the trick!)... Please note that even the above notes are not 100% correct, since I have even popped a bunch with only 2 enemy bubbles,and I was given 20 pts! This game is hopeless!
10) In the arcade,if you blown 10 bubbles and then popped them together,you would get 10*10=100 pts.If you do the same on the new PC version,you'll only get 10 points! Bubble bunches are always worth 10 pts,even if they have 10-20 bubbles! (this partially explains bug Number 9!)
11) Thunders pop enemy bubbles,and generate first a diamond,then the rest of the popped enemies become sometimes fruits,sometimes diamonds. So do the flames from the red cross.
12) After a bomb has blown,the screen's background doesn't become grey.
13) Many flashing effects in the game seem to have been disabled: E.g. when you get the heart,the fire from the Super Sockets (which looks like it did on the old novalogic version:static and with a creme colour...),the bubbles with your girlfriends that appear on some rounds accompanied by huge monsters,the killer spark from the necklace,the thunder flashes...all of these should have been flashing in some way but they don't (at least the heart does (wrongly)!).
14) Ahh,here is a bad,BAD one: if a water stream carries away many monsters at once,then you will also be awarded multiple bubble popping bonus! E.g. if you kill 4 monsters with a water stream,then the number "8000!!" will proudly cross the screen,as if those monsters were in bubbles and you popped them together... Also,it works the same way for thunders,fires and fire from the red cross!
15) If there are two well distanced bubble bunches with 2 bubbled monsters each,and first blow one,and while the dead monsters are flying,you blow the other one,how many points will you get? 2000 + 2000=4000 ? NO! You will get 8000!! It seems that multiple bubble bunches,when popped quickly one after another even if they are too far away to blow by "chain reaction" are considered a single bunch."Quickly" sometimes means over 2 sec!
16) On the round that Bub appears as a bonus (round 93 I think?),he doesn't. Some pink birds appear instead. 17) While carried away in a water stream,you can't fire bubbles!
18) I was on round 22,and hadn't even tried to bubble any of the monsters... an aqua cross appeared,and instead of 4 blue diamonds I got: a banana,an orange,a lemon and a waterlemon! Now how's that?
19) When you get a candy cane,clear the stage and you're don't collect the big item immediately...it will "vanish" very soon,before the round ends! Unacceptable! It didn't happen like this at all in the arcade and it doesn't in ANY other version I know of...
OK, so that's all so far. Please note that these apply to the PC/CD-ROM version of the game of 1996, bundled with "Rainbow Islands Enhanced", and a lot of comparisons were deliberately done with the older 1989 Novalogic version of the game, as well with other versions avaiable at the time, including the Arcade one.
What made my (and others') judgement so harsh is that this was essentially a 32-bit conversion of a 10-year old (in 1996, it is almost 20 by now) game, which performed extremely poorly on a much more capable system and was lacking in too many aspects. This is not meant to be a personal attack towards Acclaim, TAITO or anyone else involved with the game, but just exposing the facts. EpiVictor 11:00, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
About the other games in the pack, well, they were more robust (but Rainbow Islands, on the PC version at least, lacked the secret Mirror islands).
To keep the language more in line with Wikipedia's ideal of neutral point of view ( NPOV), I've softened the language slightly on the port comparison section without changing any factual details:
(It's helpful to keep in mind that the judgment is partly biased towards those who have played the arcade version. It is conceivable that someone who's first experience is with a differen version of the game might reach different or even opposite conclusions when comparing with the arcade version. Moreover, we have no sources regarding the true intentions of some of the game behavior in the arcade version (eg. say, "kissing"), so we can't be 100% certain that some arcade behaviors aren't bugs rather than fully intended behavior.)
I believe the consensus will agree that the change does not affect the spirit of the section but will provide a better appearance of "balanced" treatment expected for an encyclopedia entry.
Aside: I'm not entirely sure about the comment on the PC version regarding diagonal jumping. Isn't the same possible on the arcade version with a combination of jump + left/right? Just curious.
131.107.0.73 00:58, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Which title is correct? The first monster refers to Beluga, which I assume means Blubba (do to the order of names mentioned, and that he is a whale), so should I list Beluga as an alternate name to Blubba, or just change the reference to Blubba? Tyciol 15:33, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Well, I provided a link to the
NES manual. Hopefully that should state most enemy names. Also, I changed the enemies section to contain only the names in the NES manual, as well as the enemy names from Bust-A-Move for the SNES (see above).
--
Addict 2006 21:26, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Wait. They're the same! However, that's just it. ---- Addict 2006 21:26, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
It's difficult to get the Image:Ghost.gif and Image:Baron.gif enemy sprites to show up properly on the article since they're mostly white and blend in with the page background. I added an HTML background color to help make them more visible -- does anyone know an easier way to do this, perhaps in wikitext? Stratadrake 09:41, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
There is some info missing about the arcade version trick to get started with all the power ups combo of joystick moves and buttons... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.84.103.213 ( talk • contribs) .
Has anyone seen these remixes? They are class
http://remix.kwed.org/index.php?search=bubble JHJPDJKDKHI! 14:23, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
This article has been copied to StrategyWiki:Bubble Bobble. -- Prod-You 03:28, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Quoting from Grumple Gromit description: In Super Mode, the last boss is not the real Gromit, but Bub and Bob's parents who were turned into it by a mysterious villain (whose identity is revealed in Rainbow Islands). I checked Rainbow Islands and couldn't find anything related; can someone add pointers to the identity of the villain?
The name of the Boss in Bubble Bobble is 'Super Drunk'. He's a large version of one of the later enemies. At least this is what the NES version describes.
I've tagged many of the images in this article as needing rationale. If they do not receive fair use rationale with a period of a week, they will most likely be deleted. -- ZeWrestler Talk 16:21, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
Despite the section header, some lazy wikipedians seem to be using the section as a kind of hazy "bubble bobble in popular culture" dumping ground. Should those items be budded off into such a forbidden section or just removed as, uh, not development notes? Pseudo Intellectual ( talk) 15:04, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Was N really harder then D (6 simultaneous bubbles one would presume)? Nil Einne ( talk) 12:51, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm 99% sure that the player characters are supposed to brontosaurs, which would make them dinosaurs, not dragons. I'm struggling to find a reliable reference for this though. Can anyone assist? Oenone575 ( talk) 10:50, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
I noticed that someone (or, perhaps, a group) had a field day editing this page, "dumbing it down" to less than the essentials. The worst aspect is that everyone that expanded the once-detailed page was charged everyone with vandalism. Did any of you realize that the release date for the Nintendo version, November 28, 1988, is a critical date for Bubble Bobble fans?
I stopped trying to make Wikipedia a reliable place for just this reason, and anyone that remembers when Wikipedia had information on it, should reverse this trend with me. Nijon76 ( talk) 00:32, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
Alright, a this point you're just repeating the same ridiculous accusations about me, even when you've been told by others its not the case, and its now degenerated in to violation of WP:NOTSOAPBOX. Very specifically, point blank, everyone is allowed to contribute to Wikipedia. That however does not mean everything that's contributed is automatically accepted or does not have to meet the policies and guidelines set out by consensus, as you have been explained by all of us. And the flip side of everyone being able to contribute is that everyone is also able to "police" articles to make sure content is up to the previously mentioned standards. And knock off the personal and untrue attacks - there is not one entry in the edit history of Bubble Bobble where I've called anyones attempts at adding material "vandalism". All you've done so far is throw out personal accusations, and state how you don't care about policies and guidelines if they interfere with you're view on what content should be here. Wikipedia is not a personal fan site, and in fact everything Wikipedia is not is pretty clearly laid out. The fact that your only contributions here to date have simply been on this talk page on this content subject, doesn't lend a lot of credibility to your stated positions and is looked down on suspiciously as well. -- Marty Goldberg ( talk) 04:01, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
What is the source for the music being a folk song called "Sing, Jemima, Sing"? This is suspicious. Do a search - on ANY search engine - for such a song, and the only things that come up are "Bubble Bobble" links. You'd think if it were a "popular" folk song, there'd be a lot more than just "Bubble Bobble" links. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ScatteredFrog ( talk • contribs) 20:16, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
I concur.... I've never seen this reference before, and I love the theme tune.... So an actual 'real life' tune that had the same melody would have been a nice find on the internet...
However, it seems that, in the almost infinite online polyverse, no such song exists...
Who can offer some proof of such a song???? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.208.221.249 ( talk) 00:41, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
Hi @ Lowtrucks:,
It's great that you're very interested in Bubble Bobble. Thing is, images still need to adhere to guidelines on images, even if you created it. It's a huge image that shows the release of the Bubble Bobble games, but it does not say anything that can't be explained in text. Which it already is. Listing all the released in an image does not communicate any new or relevant information. -- Soetermans. T / C 13:12, 21 January 2016 (UTC)
FYI. WP:3RR and WP:Edit warring seem to be in play here. WP:BRD. Resolve the content dispute here and get on with it. 7&6=thirteen ( ☎) 11:33, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
As i said, Bubble Bobble series chart is relevant, because it lists ALL Taito Bubble Bobble official and licensed games. This section lists only most important releases. That's why i reverted Soetermans edits. Lowtrucks ( talk) 11:45, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
I brought back Bubble Bobble Series chart. Now it's in SVG format, so can be easily text-edited, if needed. Lowtrucks ( talk) 02:24, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
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On 17 February 2024, it was proposed that this article be moved from Bubble Bobble to Bubble Bobble (video game). The result of the discussion was moved. |
"The game featured 100 levels, each with intriguing puzzles and twists." Sorry but that is just no true.
The game description does not state the most crucial aspect of the game; which is to shoot bubbles at enemies, thus trapping the enemy inside - and then 'popping' these bubbles before they decompose, releasing the enemy. Currently the synopsis just says the gameplay is 'avoiding enemies and popping bubbles' —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.15.17.33 ( talk) 21:23, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
this game was also ported to the TI calculators, the port is very impressive, check it out if you have one... 136.186.1.118 03:31, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
Does anyone know if this game will show up on Wii virtual console? 193.180.229.50 22:56, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
Can anybody properly justify the comment "Examples include even comparatively recent versions such as the (1996) PC/Playstation/Sega Saturn version by Acclaim: it had completely wrong game physics (too fast dropping speed, barely working shoes, bubbles going through walls, different jumping physics and many non-implemented techniques) or different (hence, wrong) behaviour for some monsters (especially the time-up monster)"? To me it appears to be an exact emulation of the arcade original give or take the bodged fix to allow the start button to work which prevents the code for alternate versions of the 100 levels working. In particular dropping speed doesn't appear too fast, the shoes give an easily distinguishable moving and falling speed, bubbles cannot travel through walls (e.g. on level 99 you still have to be extremely careful in positioning to drop past and bubble the monster in the enclosed hole without hitting him and loosing a life) and the Bubbas act exactly as the description of them in this article. ThomasHarte 17:25, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
It has been saved to txt so I will just paste it here in preformatted form. WARNING: this review contains some obscene language.
REVIEW: Bubble Bobble / Rainbow Islands Enhanced CD-ROM (PC version)
Before I begin, I'll have to admit that I am somewhat biased against Acclaim since they already screwed up the conversion of another arcade game I liked a lot: NBA Jam / Jam TE (which, coincidentally, I co-wrote the FAQs for, as well as for most of the Bubble Bobble series). The SNES and Genesis versions played like a farm animal trying to avoid a horny, deranged escaped convict.
Now, I'll just cut to the chase: WHAT THE FUCK?! This is a poor excuse for a conversion, Acclaim, and I agree with the programmers: this was not ready to be released! (If you don't know about the programmers' dispute, check out Gareth Hall's Bubble Bobble Page.) Everything I wrote about the Saturn version applies to this game, and more. Here's a list of the problems I discovered in the first 5 minutes of playing Bubble Bobble:
1. Like the Saturn version, you and the monsters jump up and fall down too quickly. It looks like they're wearing rocket shoes. 2. If you pop the last guy just as "Hurry Up!" appears, the game will count each bubble you popped at that moment for 10 points -- as the game is temporarily paused! My points skyrocketed but shouldn't have... 3. The Bubble and Jump button placements are reversed! Bubble is supposed to be the left button, and Jump is supposed to be the right button. On the gamepad and joystick I used, the buttons were wrong. 4. The keyboard controls are kind of weird, and they are non-configurable. As on the Saturn, the enemies still look like light is hitting them wrong, and Bub and Bob look like they're from the Amiga version. No offense, Amiga users (I own an A500 and A1200 myself), but if you've seen the horrible Amiga version you know what I mean. 5. I got EXTEND bubbles for killing only two enemies at once. That's wrong; it should be at least three... 6. There's no way to enter the original codes (BJBJBJR$, LJL$LBL$, etc.) at the title screen that I could find. 7. The music's a bit different. They tried a little harmony by adding an extra musical layer to the basic song; it mostly works but sometimes the mix sounds weird. 8. You can't skip the opening screens. This means you have to wait about 30 seconds after running the game until the selection screen appears.
I tried to get to the first diamond room, but I died on level 13 so I quit Bubble Bobble. I wanted to see how the Rainbow Islands conversions fared. For the simple reason that Rainbow Islands is even better than Bubble Bobble (gasp!), I played it for over 30 minutes. Anyway: 1. The codes work on the title screen. YAY! 2. The Jump and Bubble buttons on Normal and Enhanced Rainbow Islands are correctly configured. YAY! 3. The theme music is the non-controversial version. The first part is not as catchy as the Amiga's original "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" rip-off (which caused some legal problems way back when), but the whole second half of the song is the same ("Tom-ay-to, tom-ah-to,. pot-ay-to, pot-ah-to, hey!"). Unfortunately, the music plays at a very low volume. The volume control in the game menu only controls the sound effects. 5. The graphics are very pretty on the Enhanced version, but the music does not play at all! I was hoping for an Enhanced soundtrack. 6. Jumping physics are screwed up on this game, too. 7. I killed the 1st-level boss (Giant Spider) before it even touched the ground. I think the rainbows are powered up too much when they fall; I defeated the 3rd-level boss (Giant Vampire) with double rainbows at single speed. 8. I assume that the credits were unchanged. I can't believe that Graftgold and Andrew Braybrook would allow create such a poorly programmed product. Nevertheless, Graftgold, rather than Acclaim and Probe, is listed in the credits. Perhaps the programmers, knowing that Acclaim would have been responsible in the future for causing their names to be unspoken in Bubble-Bobble-fandom, decided to remain anonymous.
Now that I've gone over the game's problems (and a couple of compliments),I will say that the compilation is playable. I'm judging the game from a purist's perspective. There is no doubt the game is playable, but the lack of attention paid to the game is to me disrepectful to video game players who remember the good old days.
Even the packaging is wrong. It has '70s-style artwork on it, even though the games are from the mid-eighties. It calls the games "retro", even though Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands are two of the most playable games of all time (Rainbow Islands is a two-time winner of Amiga Power's Top 100 Amiga games! Parasol Stars was #18 a couple of years ago...).
And why is it on CD-ROM? There's no impressive raytraced intro, no special music tracks that can be played from an audio CD player, it only takes 10MB on my hard drive... the only thing it uses the CD-ROM for is copy protection (you cannot run it solely from the hard drive).
If I were to assign the game a percentage (50% being average), I'd give this CD-ROM a 40%. No noticeable improvements, many noticeable omissions, no advantage of the CD-ROM format. Buy it if you're a die-hard Bubble Bobble fan (like me), or if you've never played Rainbow Islands and want to experience one of the best games of all time Acclaim-style. I hate Acclaim. Avoid the game otherwise. And don't buy it unless it's under $30.00!!!
These were also taken by 1996 Carl Chavez's BubAndBob site, but for some reason they cannot easily be traced online. I'm uploading this from my archive:
Bugs in Bubble Bobble PC PC-ROM
Here's a list of verified bugs in the first release of the Bubble Bobble PC CD-ROM. Hopefully there will be a patch, since the EXTEND bug can kill you (for example, if you need a T to get EXTEND and the T is floating above a monster) and there are sound card problems.
Last updated 11 December 1996.
1. EXTEND bubbles do not always appear on player's side when popped. 2. EXTEND bubbles sometimes appear on the Bub's side when popped by Bob (and vice versa). 3. Dragons don't flash after getting the heart, don't appear to speed up. 4. Mighta (ghost)'s rock went through Bob once 5. Bub had 32 potion items, Bob 24;Both players received 100,000 points (instead of 100,000 points for the one who has more potion items and 50,000 points for the one who has less. 6. 10-point score per popped bubble accumulates if a group of bubbles popped when "Hurry Up!" appears . 7. 500-point jump bonus with purple ring is awarded per jump button press instead of per jump. Thousands of possible points with an autofiring jump button. :( 8. Some walls can be fired through, even though they're not supposed to be fired through (example: levels 18 and 26, among others, are easier now because you can shoot through walls and get the enemies behind them). Similarly, mighta rocks are going through some walls instead of breaking on them. 9. The bubble-blowing sound can be played by pressing fire after a bomb goes off or a potion bonus round is completed, although no bubbles can be blown. 10. Points for group pops and giant point items sometimes appear on Bub's side when popped by Bob. 11. When popping multiple enemies, sometimes more than one banana appears. (instead of going banana, peach, lemon, watermelon... it goes banana, banana, lemon). 12. When you "ride" a water torrent and hit an enemy trapped inside a bubble,the enemy becomes a diamond instead of a fruit. 13. This is a weird one: on my machine at home, it plays at normal speed but the sound driver doesn't work well with my sound card. At my work machine, it plays sounds correctly but it plays slowly. 14. Enemies who break out of a bubble while floating through a wall cannot be recaptured when they get trapped inside a wall. So far I've had to quit only one game; other people have been more unlucky! 15. When using the cheat mode, if you press F3 to skip a level when "Hurry Up!" appears, all creatures trapped in bubbles will move on to the next level with you. This means that you can stock up on trapped monsters and pop more of them at once in order to get more points and EXTEND bubbles. However, if you end up allowing more than 8 free creatures, or if you pop 9 or more trapped monsters at once, the game will crash.
These are bugs I found myself, and the text is copied from an old email of mine to Carl Chavez. It might be written in a somehow personal and colloquial style and has a lot of grammatical errors, but it still conveys the useful info, I believe. Here goes:
1) Skel's behaviour is even more wrong than it was in the Novalogic version. There,if you remember,Skel started chasing you IMMEDIATELY,with NO STOPS and at FULL SPEED. On the new version,Skel pauses a bit at the beginning,then starts chasing you with NO STOPS,and at the same speed.Skel also never rises from the top of the screen to emerge from the bottom,nor viceversa,while in the arcade that was one of his deadliest tactics against you! (this feature seems disabled in general,see note 5)
2) The necklace bouncing spark (that bounces around killng enemies) still looks EXACTLY like it did in the old NovaLogic version: WRONG (and poor...)! In the arcade it looked almost magical...
3) Most rounds which had got walls with stripes (like 22,50,etc.) now have plain coloured walls (While even in the novalogic version they looked correctly)
4) The fire from the firebubbles generates only and always THREE fires(only on one occasion they generated FOUR),while in the arcade a single fire could light up over a half-screen width. On the novalogic version,fire behaved like a liquid (making it more deadly).
5) Bubbling yourself through (going through the ceiling to emerge from the bottom of the screen while riding on a bubble) is impossible.Try it! This makes a lot of rounds very difficult,if not IMPOSSIBLE...I dare not think what will happen if you ride an enemy bubble for this: it could just pop or... even "vanish"!
6) Fire and Thunder bubbles lack the static animation they had in the arcade, fires don't animate till they touch the ground and thunders don't flash yellow-orange when on the loose...No version that I know of has this feature, but hey,this is the year 2000,is it so difficult and power-consuming to apply?
7) The extend screen sucks! The music and SFX are quite out of sync,it lacks the stars that blinked around the popped letters,and the extend screen itself is SLOW! (on my 486DX/40,while the EMULATED version of SMS BB,runs much faster ON THE SAME SYSTEM! Not to mention that it has got the best extend screen I've seen...) Except from that,when you were awarded the life,a tinkling sound used to play... where is it now?
8) It seems that the game,apart from buggy,is also VERY poorly coded: When I get a potion,the game SLOOOWS DOWN a lot! Only when most items are picked up starts the game to regain SOME speed... Please note that this happens with a 486DX/40,while the old version and ALL emulated versions I have,do not have this problem (they usually run much faster, and I mean on THE ABOVE system!) The same problem arises when in secret rounds,stars fall,giant thunders cross the screen,etc. and generally,when there are a lot of objects on the screen. This happens in the arcade too but only with lots of bubbles,and the arcade was designed in 1986 and is based on Z80 8-bit technology,while the PC version runs anyway on 32-bit hardware (since it uses protected mode...),and any 486 PC can run much more complex and demanding games than a simple old-style platformer...
9) Oww,here comes a really BAD one: In the arcade,when you make the two pre-last digits of your score the same,eg. 550,660 etc. and popped myself a bunch of enemies,then NO MATTER how many enemies,empty bubbles,extend bubbles, fire bubbles etc. there were,the "trick" would always work (you know which...). This works the same way on the SMS version,and there was no such feature on the old Novalogic version. On the "new" version,all that I've mentioned heavily influences your score when popping enemy bubbles.When the bunch is kind of separated in two or more sections,then 10 points per section are added (e.g. on round 2,the 4 bubbled enemies split into a 1-3 formation,although they are popped together,and add 20 points,so you have to pop'em with scores such as 420,640,860,etc. to get the trick to work...in other rounds and with more bubbles,it might not be that simple!) Also,every extend bubble in the bunch adds 10 points,and so do special bubbles. At least that's how I think it works. You realize that you have to think a bit too much to calculate how to work out your score in...real time! Not really what you need when chased by Skel and trying to pop these last damned,ready-to-pop bubbles (and do the trick!)... Please note that even the above notes are not 100% correct, since I have even popped a bunch with only 2 enemy bubbles,and I was given 20 pts! This game is hopeless!
10) In the arcade,if you blown 10 bubbles and then popped them together,you would get 10*10=100 pts.If you do the same on the new PC version,you'll only get 10 points! Bubble bunches are always worth 10 pts,even if they have 10-20 bubbles! (this partially explains bug Number 9!)
11) Thunders pop enemy bubbles,and generate first a diamond,then the rest of the popped enemies become sometimes fruits,sometimes diamonds. So do the flames from the red cross.
12) After a bomb has blown,the screen's background doesn't become grey.
13) Many flashing effects in the game seem to have been disabled: E.g. when you get the heart,the fire from the Super Sockets (which looks like it did on the old novalogic version:static and with a creme colour...),the bubbles with your girlfriends that appear on some rounds accompanied by huge monsters,the killer spark from the necklace,the thunder flashes...all of these should have been flashing in some way but they don't (at least the heart does (wrongly)!).
14) Ahh,here is a bad,BAD one: if a water stream carries away many monsters at once,then you will also be awarded multiple bubble popping bonus! E.g. if you kill 4 monsters with a water stream,then the number "8000!!" will proudly cross the screen,as if those monsters were in bubbles and you popped them together... Also,it works the same way for thunders,fires and fire from the red cross!
15) If there are two well distanced bubble bunches with 2 bubbled monsters each,and first blow one,and while the dead monsters are flying,you blow the other one,how many points will you get? 2000 + 2000=4000 ? NO! You will get 8000!! It seems that multiple bubble bunches,when popped quickly one after another even if they are too far away to blow by "chain reaction" are considered a single bunch."Quickly" sometimes means over 2 sec!
16) On the round that Bub appears as a bonus (round 93 I think?),he doesn't. Some pink birds appear instead. 17) While carried away in a water stream,you can't fire bubbles!
18) I was on round 22,and hadn't even tried to bubble any of the monsters... an aqua cross appeared,and instead of 4 blue diamonds I got: a banana,an orange,a lemon and a waterlemon! Now how's that?
19) When you get a candy cane,clear the stage and you're don't collect the big item immediately...it will "vanish" very soon,before the round ends! Unacceptable! It didn't happen like this at all in the arcade and it doesn't in ANY other version I know of...
OK, so that's all so far. Please note that these apply to the PC/CD-ROM version of the game of 1996, bundled with "Rainbow Islands Enhanced", and a lot of comparisons were deliberately done with the older 1989 Novalogic version of the game, as well with other versions avaiable at the time, including the Arcade one.
What made my (and others') judgement so harsh is that this was essentially a 32-bit conversion of a 10-year old (in 1996, it is almost 20 by now) game, which performed extremely poorly on a much more capable system and was lacking in too many aspects. This is not meant to be a personal attack towards Acclaim, TAITO or anyone else involved with the game, but just exposing the facts. EpiVictor 11:00, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
About the other games in the pack, well, they were more robust (but Rainbow Islands, on the PC version at least, lacked the secret Mirror islands).
To keep the language more in line with Wikipedia's ideal of neutral point of view ( NPOV), I've softened the language slightly on the port comparison section without changing any factual details:
(It's helpful to keep in mind that the judgment is partly biased towards those who have played the arcade version. It is conceivable that someone who's first experience is with a differen version of the game might reach different or even opposite conclusions when comparing with the arcade version. Moreover, we have no sources regarding the true intentions of some of the game behavior in the arcade version (eg. say, "kissing"), so we can't be 100% certain that some arcade behaviors aren't bugs rather than fully intended behavior.)
I believe the consensus will agree that the change does not affect the spirit of the section but will provide a better appearance of "balanced" treatment expected for an encyclopedia entry.
Aside: I'm not entirely sure about the comment on the PC version regarding diagonal jumping. Isn't the same possible on the arcade version with a combination of jump + left/right? Just curious.
131.107.0.73 00:58, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Which title is correct? The first monster refers to Beluga, which I assume means Blubba (do to the order of names mentioned, and that he is a whale), so should I list Beluga as an alternate name to Blubba, or just change the reference to Blubba? Tyciol 15:33, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Well, I provided a link to the
NES manual. Hopefully that should state most enemy names. Also, I changed the enemies section to contain only the names in the NES manual, as well as the enemy names from Bust-A-Move for the SNES (see above).
--
Addict 2006 21:26, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Wait. They're the same! However, that's just it. ---- Addict 2006 21:26, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
It's difficult to get the Image:Ghost.gif and Image:Baron.gif enemy sprites to show up properly on the article since they're mostly white and blend in with the page background. I added an HTML background color to help make them more visible -- does anyone know an easier way to do this, perhaps in wikitext? Stratadrake 09:41, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
There is some info missing about the arcade version trick to get started with all the power ups combo of joystick moves and buttons... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.84.103.213 ( talk • contribs) .
Has anyone seen these remixes? They are class
http://remix.kwed.org/index.php?search=bubble JHJPDJKDKHI! 14:23, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
This article has been copied to StrategyWiki:Bubble Bobble. -- Prod-You 03:28, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Quoting from Grumple Gromit description: In Super Mode, the last boss is not the real Gromit, but Bub and Bob's parents who were turned into it by a mysterious villain (whose identity is revealed in Rainbow Islands). I checked Rainbow Islands and couldn't find anything related; can someone add pointers to the identity of the villain?
The name of the Boss in Bubble Bobble is 'Super Drunk'. He's a large version of one of the later enemies. At least this is what the NES version describes.
I've tagged many of the images in this article as needing rationale. If they do not receive fair use rationale with a period of a week, they will most likely be deleted. -- ZeWrestler Talk 16:21, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
Despite the section header, some lazy wikipedians seem to be using the section as a kind of hazy "bubble bobble in popular culture" dumping ground. Should those items be budded off into such a forbidden section or just removed as, uh, not development notes? Pseudo Intellectual ( talk) 15:04, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Was N really harder then D (6 simultaneous bubbles one would presume)? Nil Einne ( talk) 12:51, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm 99% sure that the player characters are supposed to brontosaurs, which would make them dinosaurs, not dragons. I'm struggling to find a reliable reference for this though. Can anyone assist? Oenone575 ( talk) 10:50, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
I noticed that someone (or, perhaps, a group) had a field day editing this page, "dumbing it down" to less than the essentials. The worst aspect is that everyone that expanded the once-detailed page was charged everyone with vandalism. Did any of you realize that the release date for the Nintendo version, November 28, 1988, is a critical date for Bubble Bobble fans?
I stopped trying to make Wikipedia a reliable place for just this reason, and anyone that remembers when Wikipedia had information on it, should reverse this trend with me. Nijon76 ( talk) 00:32, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
Alright, a this point you're just repeating the same ridiculous accusations about me, even when you've been told by others its not the case, and its now degenerated in to violation of WP:NOTSOAPBOX. Very specifically, point blank, everyone is allowed to contribute to Wikipedia. That however does not mean everything that's contributed is automatically accepted or does not have to meet the policies and guidelines set out by consensus, as you have been explained by all of us. And the flip side of everyone being able to contribute is that everyone is also able to "police" articles to make sure content is up to the previously mentioned standards. And knock off the personal and untrue attacks - there is not one entry in the edit history of Bubble Bobble where I've called anyones attempts at adding material "vandalism". All you've done so far is throw out personal accusations, and state how you don't care about policies and guidelines if they interfere with you're view on what content should be here. Wikipedia is not a personal fan site, and in fact everything Wikipedia is not is pretty clearly laid out. The fact that your only contributions here to date have simply been on this talk page on this content subject, doesn't lend a lot of credibility to your stated positions and is looked down on suspiciously as well. -- Marty Goldberg ( talk) 04:01, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
What is the source for the music being a folk song called "Sing, Jemima, Sing"? This is suspicious. Do a search - on ANY search engine - for such a song, and the only things that come up are "Bubble Bobble" links. You'd think if it were a "popular" folk song, there'd be a lot more than just "Bubble Bobble" links. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ScatteredFrog ( talk • contribs) 20:16, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
I concur.... I've never seen this reference before, and I love the theme tune.... So an actual 'real life' tune that had the same melody would have been a nice find on the internet...
However, it seems that, in the almost infinite online polyverse, no such song exists...
Who can offer some proof of such a song???? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.208.221.249 ( talk) 00:41, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
Hi @ Lowtrucks:,
It's great that you're very interested in Bubble Bobble. Thing is, images still need to adhere to guidelines on images, even if you created it. It's a huge image that shows the release of the Bubble Bobble games, but it does not say anything that can't be explained in text. Which it already is. Listing all the released in an image does not communicate any new or relevant information. -- Soetermans. T / C 13:12, 21 January 2016 (UTC)
FYI. WP:3RR and WP:Edit warring seem to be in play here. WP:BRD. Resolve the content dispute here and get on with it. 7&6=thirteen ( ☎) 11:33, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
As i said, Bubble Bobble series chart is relevant, because it lists ALL Taito Bubble Bobble official and licensed games. This section lists only most important releases. That's why i reverted Soetermans edits. Lowtrucks ( talk) 11:45, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
I brought back Bubble Bobble Series chart. Now it's in SVG format, so can be easily text-edited, if needed. Lowtrucks ( talk) 02:24, 26 January 2016 (UTC)
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