I'm discovering I don't particularly like any of the non-NES versions of Bubble Bobble. The jumping in the series as a whole is rather stiff which makes them trickier to enjoy as much as I'd like, but the NES version has an important change from the arcade version that makes it much different, and frankly better.
Normally in arcade authentic versions, you can't blow up a bubble while standing against a wall and then jump on top of it. What happens is your body pops the bubble instantly as the bubble is forming. In the NES version however, you can only pop bubbles when they have formed completely which means you can be directly against a wall, blow a bubble, and then jump on top of it using it as a platform. This means you can escape from vertical, single-tile width pits which would be normally inescapable in versions where you can't jump on bubbles spawned point-blank against a wall. This includes later ports such as Bubble Bobble Neo, which specifically has pits in such levels, meaning if you fall down there is literally no way out.
Vanguard wrote:Even in a full party inventory space is extremely tight. If you play ironman Sweet Home you basically need to make sure no one ever dies, though that shouldn't be hard with a bit of foreknowledge.
Basically, in the early game of Sweet Home it can be permanently fatal to lose a teammate if you are stuck without one of their key items. You do eventually find replacements for those items that can be used by anyone, and the game is designed so that if you did lose multiple people you can still beat it (even alone), but clearly doing so is much more difficult.
Dying is not too difficult to avoid though; combat isn't too bad in the sense that there's no instadeath attacks, and the main hazard is the various traps in the game - try and keep your members together in case of a broken board or something like that and attempt to minimize how much damage you take as healing is limited. Also, sending a group of two in against new strong encounters you're not healed up and prepared for will likely go badly (always use a group of three and have the two others join in fights as need be for max safety).
Everything that could potentially kill you can be prepared for and there's nothing random that's instantly fatal equivalent to instadeath Critical Hits like in the Wizardry series where those can and will permadeath people, without much you can do to reliably prevent them from ever happening.