At this point in time, Bubble Bobble had already made a name for itself as a simple, yet addictive and consistently great series of arcade platformers, ones that you and a buddy could easily pick up and enjoy for a good couple of hours, even if it can get repetitive at times. Of course though, like with any major video game franchise, the series would have plenty of spin-off and side games that would be released over the years, with some of these games, like the Rainbow Islands series, continuing the same platforming gimmicks that Bubble Bobble would introduce, while also shaking them up in new, interesting ways. But of course, the series wouldn’t be limited to just platformers, as there would be another game made right alongside the mainline games that would take on the puzzle genre, spawning its own successful series that would get plenty of sequels for years to come, and that game in question would be Puzzle Bobble………………. no, I am not calling it Bust-A-Move, I REFUSE to call it that.

While I am somewhat familiar with the mainline Bubble Bobble games, I had never played any of the Puzzle Bobble games before now, primarily just because I wasn’t interested. Like with most puzzle games out there, if it wasn’t something like Bejewled or Dr. Mario, it just didn’t interest me as a kid, and I figured that Puzzle Bobble would just fall right alongside those other games as just being another series of generic puzzle games. But hey, since I have been trying out more puzzle games recently, I figured I would go ahead and give the first game a shot, and I am glad that I did, because it’s actually really goddamn good! It is pretty simple, all things considered, and it probably doesn’t offer as much as later games in the series, but for what we got here, it’s still fun, addicting, and pleasant enough to make me wanna check out the sequels at some point.

The graphics are great, having that cute-sy feel that a Bubble Bobble game should have, while also having simple, yet engaging enough visuals for the main puzzle element that keeps your eyes glued to the screen, the music is good, being cheerful and energetic enough to where you will remember it after playing the game, but as is tradition with these games, it is pretty much the only track that plays for the entire game, and it can get pretty repetitive after a while, and the control/gameplay is pretty basic once you figure it all out (which won’t take long for you to do at all), but it manages to keep you hooked long enough to where you wanna see just how far you can get before your sanity won’t let you anymore.

The game is a typical arcade puzzle game, where you take control of Bub, go through a set of 32 very similar levels filled with plenty of multi-colored bubble, shoot your own set of multi-colored bubbles at them to link them together in plenty of places, match three or more to have them pop to give yourself more points and clear them all out, and panic frequently when the bubbles are pushed towards the bottom of the screen, making it easier for you to fuck up and lose. It is a very simple game, and upon going into it, you can easily assess what you are meant to do and how to do it, but not only does the game switch up the bubble formations to trick you up as you keep going, it also makes this simple concept that much more fun to take on and try to get a high score in.

Back when I reviewed Puyo Puyo, I mentioned how, when it comes to any successful puzzle game series, having a formula that works right from the get-go with the first entry is essential, otherwise you are just going to have a bunch of mediocre, or just plain bad, games that I don’t wanna play or even look at. Thankfully though, when it comes to Puzzle Bobble, this just may be my favorite set-up for a traditional puzzle game that I have seen yet. It isn’t perfect by any means, but it does provide that sense of satisfaction a puzzle game should give off, it isn’t too challenging to where you feel like you can’t properly succeed, and unlike with Puyo Puyo, I am smart enough to actually figure this one out! And let me tell ya, the feeling that you get whenever you manage to shoot a bubble at a series of bubbles along the top of the column that manages to drop them all down to where you instantly win………… it may actually feel better than sex, it is so great. Not to mention, there is a 2-player vs. mode, so if you have been looking for a simple enough puzzle game to play with your friends, then look no further than this.

Now, with all that being said, I can’t say that this game is perfect by any means, as it does have several issues that hold it back in certain different ways. In terms of the game itself, there isn’t really much I can say that I don’t like about it, except for the fact that it does have a certain luck factor to it that can make it frustrating at points. There were plenty of times where the bubbles would be close to reaching the bottom of the screen, and I couldn’t clear them out in time simply due to the fact that the game wouldn’t give me the right color of bubble that I needed at that time, and I would have to keep building up on the column I had until it ultimately crashed and burned. Of course, that is to be expected from a game like this, but it still worth pointing out regardless. Outside of the game though, the only real other complaint I could have about it is that, most likely, it is just outdated at this point. There have been plenty of sequels to this game, each one I imagine expanding upon the gameplay and visuals in ways that make it much better to play and enjoy, so there isn’t much this game has going for it in comparison to its sequels, other then that it is the first one. That doesn’t make the game bad, mind you, but it just makes it less desirable over the other games.

Overall, despite some luck that could screw you over and being outdated in comparison to other games, the original Puzzle Bobble was a really fun time, being one of the best old-school puzzle games that I have ever played, and I am now really looking forward to trying out some of the other games in the series at some point in the future. I would recommend it for those who are big fans of old-school puzzle games in general, as well as those who enjoy some of the later titles in the series, because while this may not be as good as those other titles, it still manages to stand on its own and be enjoyable to this very day. And people were saying that Tetris was the biggest, baddest puzzle game out there, but does that game have tiny, adorable dragons shooting bubbles from their mouths? I don’t think so!

Game #516