Not a revolution at all

Note: See updates in Updated Section

With Bubble Bobble being one of my favorite classic games of all time, specifically for the original NES video game system, I just had to check out this new version for the Nintendo DS video game system when I found it on sale recently.

I'll start by describing the basic game play of bubble bobble. You play as a small dinosaur, and the object of the game is to gobble up all the monsters by shooting bubbles that come out of your mouth at them. Trap them in a bubble then run into them, and they will be sent packing! The game play takes place on a pac-man style maze. In order to move about the maze, you jump to the different levels of it. When you complete a maze just jump through an opening at the bottom to move onto the next level. You can also pick up fruit and other items in the maze after you send all the enemies packing in order to increase your score. The game is a simple, action-based classic game that anyone can pick up and play and enjoy.

In Bubble Bobble Revolution for the Nintendo DS, there are 2 game modes, Classic and New Age. The classic mode is pretty much what I described above, complete with the classic NES-style graphics of the original version.

The New Age mode, however is where things get a bit dicey with this game. The game plays basically the same as I described above, however they have added a few things to it, including updated graphics and maze graphics. Overall I didn't think the new-age graphics were that good, they looked worse than the classic graphics, with the characters having over sized heads and whatnot. The game does play smoothly with no motion blur or anything like that though.

First of all the maze scrolls on the screens, which means you can only see part of the maze at a time, instead of being able to see the whole thing like with classic bubble bobble.

Second, the enemies shoot projectiles at you. This becomes a major annoyance as they seem to especially like to shoot projectiles at you while you are "in-between" screens. Since you cannot see the whole maze while playing this game, there are area's that you can only partially see, this makes it seem as the enemies projectiles are coming from no-where, meaning you cannot actually see the enemy that is shooting the projectile, often resulting in a random load of projectiles being fired at you when you cannot even see the enemy doing it so it becomes impossible to trap that enemy in a bubble without being killed off by the ton of projectiles they are firing at you. It does not help matters that the enemies start firing projectiles at you en masse right at level 1, which doesn't even give you time to get used to the basics of this game especially if you have not played it before. It would be better if they eased into this new change, starting off on the lower levels with the enemies shooting only a few projectiles, then as the levels increase, increase the number of projectiles that the enemies fire.

In the new version, there is also a story part about "finding your friends", which I did not fully understand. Another thing is there is supposed to be boss fights in this game, which brings us to the infamous bug this game suffers from.

The game basically ends at Level 30, because there is a game-ending glitch in this game. Note this is only for the New-age version, the classic version does not suffer from any glitches or bugs. At Level 30, the boss will not appear in the game, which leaves the game at a standstill, you cannot pass level 30, even though there are many other levels in this game.

Thankfully Codemasters, the developer of this game, has established a replacement program for this game. The bug affects all versions of Bubble Bobble Revolution shipped to North America. If you go on the Codemasters website and request help for bubble bobble through the online forms and say that you have a glitched copy, they will request that you send your game back and in return you will get a replacement copy of the game, plus a free copy of Rainbow Islands Revolution for the DS. Since I purchased this game I have requested a replacement and sent my glitched copy in.

I cannot help but wonder why Codemasters does not have all copies of this game pulled from the shelves of retail stores though, if all copies shipped to North America have proven to be faulty? Unfortunately I cannot recommend buying this game unless you REALLY like Bubble Bobble (which I do) because you will probably not want to go through all this trouble just to get a non-bugged copy of this game.


UPDATED PART OF REVIEW:

I got my fixed copy back from Codemasters. Codemasters has excellent service BTW and they will have a new game in your hands in a couple weeks from when you sent it, I would say about 2-3 weeks. Also for your trouble they send you a free game, Rainbow Islands Revolution along with the replacement for your Bubble Bobble game.

The fixed game plays nothing like what I have described above, I am leaving the above review in tact so it will help them figure out if they have a glitched game or not, although I have been told ALL North American Released copies of this game are faulty.

In the fixed game for the New Age mode, there are no projectiles within the first few levels of the game, they don't start until much later which is the way it should be, so the insane amount of projectiles I was experiencing was part of the glitch. The other parts of the review still stand as correct. The biggest changes in the fixed version of the game are the number of enemies on each level and the amount at which they fire at you.

The sound in this game is good for both the New Age mode and the Classic mode, although the New Age mode sound is considerably more upbeat and just has more to it than the sound in the Classic mode.