Seriously, how in the ever-loving heck did I miss this series growing up? A week or so ago, my mind was saying, “I’m not sure what the big deal is here.” Now, it is saying, “I need to finish this and move on. I’ve got things to do! Seriously, put Bubble Bobble down.”
Stupidly addictive.
The latest edition of the game is based on the 1986 classic by the same name from Taito. You play as a rather adorable Bubble Dragon that is tasked with blowing bubbles, capturing enemies within them, and then popping them viciously. It’s a simple control scheme that was perfectly geared for an NES generation. While the controls were easy, playing Bubble Dragons might have been fun, the joy of a classic game like this was in its stage designs.
The game stages in the original version of BB were strategically built to make life for your dragon tough. It means it’s not enough to simply bubble up enemies, you have to traverse the level design and do that, which could be a huge pain in the caboose. Sometimes the level design would force you to go the less straightforward routes to get to enemies, while other times the design would simply set you up for death. Like, a cute dragon death. An adorable squeaky dragon death. So sad.
Anyway, that’s the groundwork that the original laid down for the most recent version which is Bubble Bobble 4 Friends. While the new game wants to be its own updated thing, the groundwork is ever-present, which is probably just fine for most BB fans.
Bubble Bobble 4 Friends is billed as a hard push for a co-op four-player game, and honestly, during this downtime and quarantine, it’s not a bad idea — especially, if you have multiple children in the household, like yours truly. Essentially, you’re given some options to play with here — the game can be co-op, there is a party element to it, and you can go back and play the original, which is included with the package. Or you can straight go solo, which still adds a lot of challenge and value to the price paid.
But, we’re in quarantine right now, there is only one Switch in the household, and I ain’t paying $600 for one, and solo is the route I went for this review.
So, let’s get right to it.
The initial game for BB4F is five stages in length. Each stage has about 5-6 substages inside of it with one final unique boss fight at the end. It’s a pattern of gameplay construction that you would find with classic games, such as Super Mario and pretty much any platformer from past, present, or future. The design is a leftover reminder of where this game originated from in its history and wears it like a tattoo, so you fully understand it hasn’t lost sight of where it came from, should you ever wonder. To put it frankly, it’s certainly another brother from the same mother.
While the concept of the original game is obvious from the first play, the big difference is the power of the tech it’s running on. While you might mock that a bit, I mean the Switch isn’t the PlayStation 4, it’s above and beyond what an NES, so you can do more with the stage design. Taito doesn’t seem to waste the power to bring this game up a bit.
The stages are themed and delightfully themed. A good example of this is an arcade retro stage featuring space invaders. I mean, there aren’t actual space invaders in it, but the stage contains the design, which is a great throwback to one of the first Taito games licensed to Midway and brought over to America in the 70s. Like a ghost in the machine.
Anyway, the design of that stage, the difficulty of it especially, is geared towards its crafted creative theme. The stage presents an idea, like an arcade/Space Invaders, then brick by brick builds the design into a beautiful maze of sorts for the Bubble Dragons to get around in and through. BBF4’s themes are strategically mapped out with not only beautiful backgrounds and shiny-sparkly-things but are also built to make sure you get nice gradual difficulty as you play on through their design. You have to love that a lot.
Staying with difficulty, the one thing you have to do to make a great platformer is gradually turn up the difficulty through enemy and stage design. Too much, and your gamer will hate you. Too little, and your gamer will hate you. Gotta get it right in the sweet spot where gamers believe they have earned their progression through push back and push forward. It isn’t an easy task, especially for a game like Bubble Bobble. There were times in this game where I had to really take a deep breath but knew there was a way to push forward.
Each stage brings new enemies, new things to bring down your Dragon, while crescendo-ing (is that a word? Eh, leave it) at boss levels that start out easy, then become hard puzzles to solve. I love the difficulty as it is incredibly appropriate for this classic style. The developers certainly knew what they were doing to make this a motivating journey through all the initial stages. My favorite so far? Staying with the arcade level, there is a stage that is set up with small platforms that lead upward on the left and right side of the stage boss. Picture a triangle form, where stairs are left and right and you get the picture. Anyway, the boss sits in the middle. You might think to yourself, good lord this is simple. Then it becomes the most un-simple fight of your life. The boss controls the gravity in the room with his magnetism, while also throwing enemies at you relentlessly. That means if you hope to ride your bubbles up to smack on the boss, you’re going to find them pushed down at different moments. One big bubble problem, while enemies spawn all around you. It’s as insane as you think it is right now in your heads. The solution? It took me about 5-6 tries before figuring out his patterns, which were not immediately obvious. A few curse words might have slipped. I figured it out and then had to take a break. Now, to pull further back on this camera shot, while staying with the difficulty, getting to that fifth stage of the game wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t torture. My point? The difficulty is nice, the boss fights are gradual in their difficulty arc, and the journey is certainly worth your time. Who doesn’t enjoy a tricky platformer? This is pretty damn tricky.
The level design and gradual difficulty would be enough to keep me going with BB4F. There is clearly enough there to entertain for a day or two. The thing that sprinkles in more fun, and it’s simple, is that you are rewarded at the end of each boss fight with a suit. The suit gives you powers, such as firing horizontal electricity across a substage or blowing a bomb bubble and strategically packing it with other bubbles. You get cute suits for your dragons with superpowers in them. You can gain the suits, return to earlier levels, and do better. What more would you want?
This ‘do better’ part is an added bonus. The game almost insecurely adds a high score (old school) and a star-based quality meter, so that you can do better and keep playing the game to improve in both of those areas. Those sneaky Taito devils. It’s a cheap way of doing things to get people to replay your game, but damn is it motivating to get all the stars. In short, it works.
Despite the design, despite the power-up suits, despite the scoring and stars, the very core of this game still is Bubble Bobble. You will most certainly get that and you will find fun from its groundwork that is very much visible in its gameplay.
The only downer to this package is the high price tag included. I’m not sure a parent would pay $39.99 for this game when you could snag a used copy of Mario Party for cheaper. I know fans of the series will pay anything to play this, but everyone plays this for $24.99. That is my only caveat to this package, as everything else is where it should be. Free DLC is coming later this year for those who own this, so the price tag might be justified, but we’ll have to wait and see.
Overall, Bubble Bobble 4 Friends is every bit of Bubble Bobble and more. I’m just not sure the price tag justifies the gameplay.
