Puzzle Bobble / Bust-a-Move (16-Bit Console Version)

Genre: Match-3 Puzzle

Players: 1-2 Competitive (Local)

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Review:

Puzzle Bobble, sometimes known by the title Bust-A-Move, is a Match-3 Puzzle game released in 1994 in arcades and on the NEOGEO home console. This modern release sees the game coming to Nintendo Switch in 2023… but… wait a sec…

As it happens, we already received a version of this exact same game a whole five years prior to this on Nintendo Switch in 2018, in the form of ACA NEOGEO Puzzle Bobble. So what gives? Well, this is a port of the version of the game that originally released on Super Nintendo and its Super Famicom counterpart in 1995. However, this release is very close to the Arcade and NEOGEO versions of the game, so don’t expect there to be drastic differences… but there are a few.

Puzzle Bobble is one of the most influential Puzzle games ever made, or at the very least one of the most-copied – there are currently at least a dozen different Puzzle Bobble copycat games on Nintendo Switch, and I can’t even imagine how many on mobile devices and PC.

It works off of a simple formula – multicolored bubbles are slowly lowered down from the top, and you need to remove them by shooting like-colored bubbles from a turret in the center at the bottom, trying to match 3 or more of the same color. However, in addition to trying to be smart about your placement, you’re also dealing with the challenge of making sure your aim is good enough that you get the bubbles you shoot where you want them to go, sometimes requiring you to ricochet your shots off walls.

While the core gameplay here is excellent (and this game’s classic theme is immensely catchy), there’s a lot missing that I think players will have come to expect from later installments. There’s no selectable levels, no ability to swap out your current bubble with the next one if your current bubble just can’t be used in a good spot just yet, and no option to leave on the aiming guide for novice players or players who want less of a skill-based game and more of a puzzle-based game.

This release of the game also lacks the ACA NEOGEO release’s “Hi-Score Mode”, “Caravan Mode”, and leaderboards. However, it does still include both English and Japanese versions, and gives players a decent array of options, including various display options, challenge modifiers, and button mapping.

Before finishing, I should address how this game compares to the ACA NEOGEO version of the game. As I said, they’re pretty similar, but have their differences. I already pointed out a few – the lack of leaderboards and a few of the standard ACA NEOGEO game modes that tie into those leaderboards. However, one feature included here I think more than makes up for that – this release includes a “Vs. Com” mode, allowing you to play against an AI opponent. While having online rankings is nice, honestly I think I prefer to have the Vs. Com mode to get more gameplay variety.

However, that is me saying that I think this is the best version of this specific game on Nintendo Switch, but what about the sequels, and all of the knockoff games? Well, there things become a bit muddier. I’m particularly partial to the version of the Puzzle Bobble theme that appears in this game, but it’s hard to see that as a reason to play this over later games in the series that offer better visuals, more stages, a wider variety of stage types, and interesting unique bubble types. And that’s not even getting into more modern games and their user-friendly features like swapping out your bubble or optionally being able to keep the preview line to aim your shot. With all of those things stacking up against this game… honestly, you’re probably better off with something more recent.

That said, Puzzle Bobble is still a superb Puzzle game, highly influential, and this is in my opinion the best way to play it on Nintendo Switch. I do think you’re better off getting one of the sequels that have more options and features, but if you’re looking to see where this series began, I think this is the way to go.

tl;dr – Puzzle Bobble is an exceptional, highly-influential Puzzle game where players aim colored bubbles at other bubbles to match and clear them. However, by “highly influential”, that means there are an absolute ton of game on Nintendo Switch that play exactly like this, including another version of this exact game… although I do prefer this version over the ACA NEOGEO version. This is a truly exceptional Puzzle game, I just think you’re better off playing one of the later games in the series.

Grade: B-

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