New Bubble Bobble announced

Anything from run & guns to modern RPGs, what else do you play?
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qmish
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New Bubble Bobble announced

Post by qmish »

For Nintendo Switch, with mode for 4 players

https://youtu.be/LekC6GmwG_A
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Bloodreign
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Re: New Bubble Bobble announced

Post by Bloodreign »

I love the series to death, but not buying a Switch just for this.
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Re: New Bubble Bobble announced

Post by Classicgamer »

Me either.

The best versions of those Taito games were the arcade versions which we can download for free. Plus, they all had decent ports on every 8 and 16 bit consoles and home computers which we can also download for free.

The beauty of those games was the simplicity and originality. They never relied on state of the art graphics even in the 80's and 90's. The arcade rom barely looked better than the Nes version. I can't see how they'd be improved by releasing them on newer tech.

Even if they gave them an HD graphics update, I am not paying Nintendo prices for 30 year old games.
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Re: New Bubble Bobble announced

Post by Classicgamer »

BTW, does anyone else think it was a bit mental that Rainbow Islands was the sequel to Bubble Bobble and that New Zealand Story was Bubble Bobble 3? They clearly have nothing to do with each other. They don't look or play the same. They share no common characters or objectives. They don't even scroll in the same direction.

It would be like saying Ridge Racer was the sequel to Pac-Man.
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Re: New Bubble Bobble announced

Post by Sumez »

There are a lot of issues with that statement. :)

First of all, The New Zealand Story has no relation to the Bubble Bobble series at all, outside of the occasional cameo as Taito is so fond of.
Second, the original "Bubble Bobble 3", and sequel to Rainbow Islands, was Parasol Stars.

Each of those three games have completely unique gameplay mechanics, which I believe Fukio Mitsuji has probably addressed in multiple interviews - he wanted to try out new things instead of making the same game again. Parasol Stars of course is conceptually a lot closer to the original Bubble Bobble, but even though Rainbow Islands is massively different I think once you start getting into either game, you can really sense a lot of things that do carry over in the ways the games are designed. Even though it's not a continuation of the same concept, RI really does feel like a genuine sequel to Bubble Bobble.

That said, there's of course the fact that it's a direct continuation of the "story" in Bubble Bobble. That game ends with Bub and Bob being transformed back into human boys, the same boys that you control in the sequels. In Rainbow Islands you travel around and eventually return to the Bubble Bobble world, facing all the classic enemies and saving the inhabitants of the islands who were also transformed into bubble dragons. It's an excuse plot of course, but the games tie together nicely.
In Parasol Stars you similarly start out leaving the rainbow islands, but return there after saving all the other stars, followed by yet another visit to the original Bubble Bobble world.

If straight up sequels are what you want, there are a few other games boasting the title of "Bubble Bobble 2". The first one, on NES, is one of the better looking games on the platform, and it controls very nicely, but it's not really as fun as the other games in the series. Bubble Symphony however, is probably what most people were originally hoping for in a full blown sequel to Bubble Bobble. Multiple characters to choose from, branching paths, plenty of unique boss fights, and an insane amount of secrets to find. You can even turn back into boys during the game, continuing playing as such.

Finally, the next "Bubble Bobble 3", Bubble Memories, dials things back a bit. It adds a few gimmicks like water and larger bubbles, but in general it feels a lot closer to the original 1986 classic, and is a really damn solid game also.

Anything released after this, doesn't really count...
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Re: New Bubble Bobble announced

Post by Vexorg »

I don't know exactly how it fits in, but I think Liquid Kids is supposed to fit in there somehow as well, although it doesn't seem to be directly related. Bubble Symphony and Bubble Memories seem to be the most direct ones though.
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Re: New Bubble Bobble announced

Post by Sumez »

Liquid Kids feels like a sequel to The New Zealand Story.

You play as a strange animal from the area around Astralia, and you save your captured friends. It even has very similar kinds of warps which can let you skip multiple stages ahead, or even back. It doesn't play much like TNZS, but it feels very much in the same vein.
The water mechanics are of course somewhat similar to the ones in the Bubble Bobble series.
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Re: New Bubble Bobble announced

Post by DejahThoris »

Classicgamer wrote:Me either.

The best versions of those Taito games were the arcade versions which we can download for free. Plus, they all had decent ports on every 8 and 16 bit consoles and home computers which we can also download for free.
I mean, you could also just download the Switch version for free? Why's there a difference between pirating on old systems and current?
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Re: New Bubble Bobble announced

Post by Sumez »

Also, none of these games had decent ports on 8 and 16 bit consoles. :P
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Re: New Bubble Bobble announced

Post by qmish »

Sumez wrote:Also, none of these games had decent ports on 8 and 16 bit consoles. :P
Why? Ports on PCE and Megadrive were nice

Also GBA is basically portable SNES, so... :wink:
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Re: New Bubble Bobble announced

Post by Marc »

I dunno about that, I mean I obviously wouldn't ever need to play them now, but the Spectrum and C64 ports of BB and RI were very decent indeed back in the day.

The Spectrum version of BB was even sweeter when ACE magazine accidentally game away the full game as a cover mount :D
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Re: New Bubble Bobble announced

Post by Turrican »

Master System Final Bubble Bobble is all you need, really.
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Re: New Bubble Bobble announced

Post by Sumez »

Lots of decent ports, but not a single one I'd even consider substituting for the arcade versions though. These are the kinds of games where a billion tiny details all play together, and I've yet to play a port that doesn't feel incredibly "off" in some way.
I have yet to play the PC Engine version of Rainbow Islands though - Aside from the sprite flicker, that one really looks like it gets things down quite well. I wouldn't recommend any other of the ports I've played.
The Ocean ports are missing huge portions of the game, I wouldn't even consider those.

I've long been singing the praises of the Master System port of Bubble Bobble, it's definitely the most convincing of the contemporary ports (has a few years on the Famicom one), but honestly after putting some more time into it recently I've been unable to be put off by all the little ways it just differs from the arcade - the controls are very different, and it's confusing due to how well it looks like the real deal. I might even prefer sticking to the NES version which is an obviously different take on the game, rather than an attempt to just recreate the arcade game.
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Re: New Bubble Bobble announced

Post by Turrican »

Twice the maps though...
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Re: New Bubble Bobble announced

Post by cj iwakura »

Turrican wrote:Master System Final Bubble Bobble is all you need, really.
I love GBA "Old & New".
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Re: New Bubble Bobble announced

Post by Sumez »

I wish I had a source somewhere, or any more information to go by, but what I've been told recently is that the people working on this game are supposedly "inhouse Taito", and ININ are only acting as publishers.

What "inhouse Taito" means in an age where Taito is a brand owned by Sqenix is still a mystery to me, but I'm hoping for the best.

Also, the game will apparently include a complete port(/emulation?) of the original arcade game.
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Re: New Bubble Bobble announced

Post by Sumez »

Gameplay video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VL-O13_MFFs

I'm so horribly split on this. On one hand, it's classic platform gameplay, no dumb gimmicks, pretty straight forward. And 1HP KO on the player, etc. as it should be.
On the other hand it looks pretty terribly boring, and made for kids. There's a lot of stuff missing that I consider essential to the series - the puzzles (hard to gauge from the video), the ability to jump through platforms from below, and wrapping from the bottom of a room to the top. It's really hard for me to not be subjective about it, and I feel like I'm lying to myself in an attempt to stay excited for this game.

Apparently there are long term upgrades, which came across like some gross mobile game grinding mechanic, but supposedly it's based on getting EXTEND bubbles, so it might eventually be more like the secrets rooms in Rainbow Islands? I would hope so anyway.

Also, the best news I've seen in a while:
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Re: New Bubble Bobble announced

Post by neorichieb1971 »

I don't like the direction on art style much, but the gameplay seems to be quite intact with a few little tweaks here and there. The stages seem a little bit structured to me, like the path is set for you. It was never designed like that in the original.
This industry has become 2 dimensional as it transcended into a 3D world.
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Re: New Bubble Bobble announced

Post by Sumez »

You can come out and say it. The art style is terrible.

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Re: New Bubble Bobble announced

Post by Marc »

That's.....terrible. Even XBLA BB looked nicer than this.
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Re: New Bubble Bobble announced

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