This is, I think, the second updated Taito game for the DS from Rising Star (though it actually seems to have been produced in Japan by Marvelous Interactive, who do the Harvest Moon games), and it came out in the UK on Friday. Been playing it quite a lot this weekend.
First thing that has to be mentioned is the box art. My word. If you're of a sensitive disposition, you should look away now.
Clearly, they figured they'd go that extra mile with the retro theme of the game, and produce a good, old fashioned, crap bit of western box art.
The Japanese release, for comparison, looks like this:
Really can't see what they were doing there.
Anyway, as for the game itself, it's actually surprisingly good. Like BB Old & New on the GBA, there are two game modes. Unlike that game, though, the new mode is actually a new game rather than a graphical update of the original.
The original mode is a straight conversion of the original arcade game, which just runs on one screen (the bottom, oddly) and is more or less arcade perfect. Like BB Old and New on the GBA, it doesn't quite all fit onto the DS's screen, so you can either have it scrolling or zoomed-out. Unlike the GBA one, there's actually only one row of blocks that doesn't fit, so it doesn't have to scroll much. The zoom mode is better on the DS as well, as they seem to have touched up the zoomed-out sprites by hand, so they don't get all pixelated and nasty.
The "New Age" game mode is the main part of the game. It takes the basic gameplay of the original and adds a few new features. The play area now scrolls left-right, and also spans the DS's two screens vertically. The scrolling means they can make the graphics a fair bit bigger, but it can sometimes mean you're not sure if there're any baddies left in the stage. It mostly works fine, though. The game appears to have 100 levels, grouped into worlds of ten levels each.
They've also added an R-Type style charge attack, whereby you hold the button down for a few seconds and you can fire a large bubble that'll capture all the enemies it hits. You can also get inside these to do a kind of projectile attack, or jump on them to get higher than you could with a normal bubble.
Like Bubble Symphony, you've got four characters to choose from, with slightly different abilities (speed, jump height and so on), but only two - Bubblun and Bobblun - are available initially. The other two need to be unlocked somehow. Also like Bubble Symphony, there're boss battles in the game (the tenth stage in each world), but all you have to do is fire bubbles at the bosses until they die, rather than having to build bubbles up and pop them.
In terms of DS type features, the main game makes no use of the touch screen, but there is a touch screen bonus round, where you have to activate fans by tapping them in order to keep a load of bubbles in the air (I'm not sure if I'm missing something here, as I'm up to level 90 now and the bonus game seems to be almost impossible to fail). There's also some use of the microphone in the main game, which you need to blow in to activate fans that redirect bubbles in a few (about 5 I've seen) of the levels. It's not like the mad blowing in something like Feel The Magic, though, you just blow once and the fans turn on for a few seconds. Also, they've made some use of the dual screen by adding a special ghost bubble. If you pop one of these, you get a mirror-image ghost version of your character on the other screen. Pressing L or R switches you to the ghost, and lets you get into enclosed bits of the level. Works well, and allows for some nice level design.
The graphics are quite nice on the whole, and certainly look better in the flesh than they do in screenshots, but they are quite heavily dithered for some reason, and some of the backgrounds are a bit nasty. They're not up to the standard you'd expect from the DS, really. Sound is good, with some nice arrangements of the classic tunes (far better than the awful BB Old and New version).
There's wifi play in both the arcade and new versions of the games, but it's multi cart only, which is a bit crap.
On the whole, though, I really like this game. It's certainly much better than I expected from the screenshots and general lack of press coverage. As it saves your progress and gives you unlimited continues, it doesn't take that long to get through at least the first 90 levels. Getting to the last world is a bit harder, though, as you need to collect special bubbles from each boss, and I'm not entirely sure how you get these (I've got a couple but I'm not certain how). The extra characters and the arcade port should give it a bit of replay value as well.
First thing that has to be mentioned is the box art. My word. If you're of a sensitive disposition, you should look away now.
Clearly, they figured they'd go that extra mile with the retro theme of the game, and produce a good, old fashioned, crap bit of western box art.
The Japanese release, for comparison, looks like this:
Really can't see what they were doing there.
Anyway, as for the game itself, it's actually surprisingly good. Like BB Old & New on the GBA, there are two game modes. Unlike that game, though, the new mode is actually a new game rather than a graphical update of the original.
The original mode is a straight conversion of the original arcade game, which just runs on one screen (the bottom, oddly) and is more or less arcade perfect. Like BB Old and New on the GBA, it doesn't quite all fit onto the DS's screen, so you can either have it scrolling or zoomed-out. Unlike the GBA one, there's actually only one row of blocks that doesn't fit, so it doesn't have to scroll much. The zoom mode is better on the DS as well, as they seem to have touched up the zoomed-out sprites by hand, so they don't get all pixelated and nasty.
The "New Age" game mode is the main part of the game. It takes the basic gameplay of the original and adds a few new features. The play area now scrolls left-right, and also spans the DS's two screens vertically. The scrolling means they can make the graphics a fair bit bigger, but it can sometimes mean you're not sure if there're any baddies left in the stage. It mostly works fine, though. The game appears to have 100 levels, grouped into worlds of ten levels each.
They've also added an R-Type style charge attack, whereby you hold the button down for a few seconds and you can fire a large bubble that'll capture all the enemies it hits. You can also get inside these to do a kind of projectile attack, or jump on them to get higher than you could with a normal bubble.
Like Bubble Symphony, you've got four characters to choose from, with slightly different abilities (speed, jump height and so on), but only two - Bubblun and Bobblun - are available initially. The other two need to be unlocked somehow. Also like Bubble Symphony, there're boss battles in the game (the tenth stage in each world), but all you have to do is fire bubbles at the bosses until they die, rather than having to build bubbles up and pop them.
In terms of DS type features, the main game makes no use of the touch screen, but there is a touch screen bonus round, where you have to activate fans by tapping them in order to keep a load of bubbles in the air (I'm not sure if I'm missing something here, as I'm up to level 90 now and the bonus game seems to be almost impossible to fail). There's also some use of the microphone in the main game, which you need to blow in to activate fans that redirect bubbles in a few (about 5 I've seen) of the levels. It's not like the mad blowing in something like Feel The Magic, though, you just blow once and the fans turn on for a few seconds. Also, they've made some use of the dual screen by adding a special ghost bubble. If you pop one of these, you get a mirror-image ghost version of your character on the other screen. Pressing L or R switches you to the ghost, and lets you get into enclosed bits of the level. Works well, and allows for some nice level design.
The graphics are quite nice on the whole, and certainly look better in the flesh than they do in screenshots, but they are quite heavily dithered for some reason, and some of the backgrounds are a bit nasty. They're not up to the standard you'd expect from the DS, really. Sound is good, with some nice arrangements of the classic tunes (far better than the awful BB Old and New version).
There's wifi play in both the arcade and new versions of the games, but it's multi cart only, which is a bit crap.
On the whole, though, I really like this game. It's certainly much better than I expected from the screenshots and general lack of press coverage. As it saves your progress and gives you unlimited continues, it doesn't take that long to get through at least the first 90 levels. Getting to the last world is a bit harder, though, as you need to collect special bubbles from each boss, and I'm not entirely sure how you get these (I've got a couple but I'm not certain how). The extra characters and the arcade port should give it a bit of replay value as well.
Comment