Bubble Bobble Universe - Review

 

As a kid one of the first games I played on a games console was Bubble Bobble. It had cute baby dinosaurs that could blow bubbles to trap enemies, eat cake and sweets. Each level was quite short, but don't let that fool you though, they are not easy and get tough, really tough, if I am honest I have never been able to complete it. Pursing the shelves of CEX the other day I came across Puzzle Bobble Universe one of the shoots of the original and thought for €10 why not?

Sherbet Fountain, does anyone remember these from their childhood? Small yellow tube, filled with  lemon-flavored cocaine-esque powder, with a black stick of licorice use to pull it out. It was kind of fun to eat and tasty not like lemon but something else.  I tried it in my late teens and you know what I discovered?  It tasted terrible, was a pain to eat, and the packet seemed to just fall apart. Playing Bubble Bobble Universe I found myself asking was it like the Sherbet Fountain I remember enjoying as a child or the one I tried as a teen?

Story

The story is that some bad guys have imprisoned your dragon friends, your mission is to play some crazy bubble game, unlock keys and free your friends and that is all she wrote.

There is no story, it would have been nice but not truly necessary for a puzzle game. 

Visuals

The visuals are cute and colorful but are in need of much work, and the background of each level differs little from the next. They feel quite flat, I don't mean the 3D version I mean the standard visuals which were disappointing. 

Overall the visuals are underwhelming and lackluster, and while the 3DS is unable to provide top-of-the-line graphics they can certainly do better than what this game offered.

Music

The music in the game like the visuals is quite underwhelming. The first couple of songs seems fun and upbeat but as the music progresses each track seems to be quite derivative. This seemed unusual as the creator Japanese composer Jun 'Setzer' Kadoma has a rich body of work creating; 'Final Fantasy Life Of Ishgard', 'High School Of The Dead' and 'Beyond The Entity'. 

The soundtrack is just shy of thirty minutes. It's hard not to be harsh but there really was nothing standout about the soundtrack. Overall disappointing. 

Gameplay

There are two modes, story, and challenge mode. Each area is divided into ten stages, each one can be completed in anywhere from thirty seconds to around three minutes. You need to match three or more enemies together to make them disappear, and this is done by firing bubbles at them. Think columns but with a bubble canon.

When firing bubbles off you have a little line like a dot scope or the ones you used on Mini Clips Pool Game, meaning you can bounce bubbles off of walls to position them in the best place. It is not as accurate as it could be but isn't bad. For every few bubble enemies cleared you to unlock a special ability, such as changing the enemies bubbles in an area to the same type or creating a bubble that will match with any other. 

There are over eight levels but you will fly through them very quickly. Once you are finished there you can move onto the challenge mode which really just feels like a free play, not bad but nothing exciting.

Overall the gameplay is the strongest element of the game but still is a little underwhelming even when you have the boss stages which are very meh. 

Final Thoughts

So, after four hours how did I feel? Like I could have spent them better. The story just is not there, the visuals and music are very underwhelming, the gameplay is the strongest part of the game and even that was disappointing. All in all a very poor experience, this one gets a 1 out of 5