ROMhack
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Do doo doo do doo doo
Developer: Taito
Publisher: Taito
Director: Kazuhiro Kinoshita, Seiichi Nakakuki
Composer: Kazuko Umino, Yasuko Yamada
Platforms: 3DO, Game Gear, PC, PSP, Neo Geo CD, Neo Geo MVS, Switch, PS4, SNES, WonderSwan, Xbox One, iOS, Android
Story and Background
In the year 2028, a devastating virus is released into the Earth’s atmosphere. Scores of countries around the world lose their populations instantly and the threat of even greater catastrophe looms when agriculture ceases to exist. It prompts brainiac scientists across the globe to come together create Neo Soya, a delicious fruity snack available for at all major retailers.
Neo Soya becomes the meal du jour but inadvertently turns the remaining population into a hoard of miniature monsters. With nothing left to live for, the remaining population devise a new sport: shooting bubbles at other bubbles of same color. Two major competitors emerge who dominate the sport for the next two thousand years: the blue one and the green one. All the while, jaunty chip-tune music plays in the background.
Puzzle Bobble is the 1994 tile-matching game you’ve probably played a whole bunch of times. Seriously, it’s on every platform under god’s green sun. It was created by the Taito Corporation and as far as I’m concerned is the second-best puzzle game ever made after Tetris.
It features a whole bunch of cute Japanese things, which
Gameplay
At any one time, you have a colored bubble. Using the magic of directional controls you then aim left and right. Once you think your aim aligns to a bubble of the same color you press a button. Matching three of these together creates magic and they all disappear. You repeat this over and over again until all of the bubbles have gone away. All the while, you’re under a timer and should you fail to clear all of the bubbles in time then the world implodes and you have to pop a virtual quarter back into the machine to start again.
Beating all of the stages - known colloquially as ‘rounds’ - achieves very little except feelings of pleasure for having beaten the game. Two players can play together at once. It’s important to type your name out as ASS no matter what your score.
Music
The sound was composed by Kazuko Umino and Yasuko Yamada. They used a YM2610B, a fifteen-channel sound chip developed by Yamaha. It features a whopping four concurrent FM channels, two interval timers, a low frequency oscillator, and six ADPCM fixed pitch channels. These run at 18.5 kHz and achieve a sampling rate of 12-bit.
No, I don’t know what any of this means.
Fun Facts
- The game is called Bust-a-Move in North America and for the life of me I can’t figure out the difference between it and Puzzle Bobble. I don’t think there’s any difference.
- There’s at least 15 versions of the game, including an Azumanga Daioh version.
- The green and blue characters are named, Bub (green) and Bob (blue). They like to eat pizza and watch Netflix together after work.
- Each colored bubble features a unique Kanji character.
- The game forbids putting ‘SEX’ into the high score ranking. If you do, it reverts to ‘AAA’.
Good Reads
Puzzle Bubble - Arcade History
Loads of technical information if you’re into that kinda thing. Also a breakdown of the scoring.
History of the Taito Corporation
Read about how they began by selling imported sundry goods and vodka!
Puzzle Bobble - Retronauts (Podcast)
An audible, better version of this article
You, I Want Your Thoughts!
Did you somehow not play this game?!
Did you ever beat it? (trick question, nobody did)
Who would you back in a fight to the death, Bub or Bob?
What are other good puzzle games, besides Tetris and Lumines?
–ROM
Edit: Also make sure to check out DunDunDunpachi 's ridiculously detailed post about VS. Puzzle games (link).
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