A bubble worth joining
IT was one of the shining lights on a trip to the arcade in the Eighties – Bubble Bobble. It’s certainly one of the first games I can remember playing, when my nan would cave in and let us go into the Golden Goose on day trips to the seaside.
Fast forward a few years, and the game’s catchy chiptune music drifting from my bedroom was always a give away that I was playing Bubble Bobble on my Atari rather than doing my homework.
So it was with no small amount of excitement that I learned last year’s Switch release – Bubble Bobble 4 Friends – was getting a PlayStation release. And what’s more, it was stuffed full of new levels.
Taito’s 1986 classic is regularly voted one of the best games of all time for a reason – it is completely addictive.
The fast paced gameplay sees you racing around the level to clear the pesky bad guys before you run out of time ... and Baron von Blubba appears, to mercilessly hunt you down.
The game’s adorable protagonists – bubble dragons Bub and Bob – are as kawaii as ever, and this time they’re joined by two new creatures, Peb and Pab.
This means that you don’t have to limit the co-op fun to just two players, the whole family can join in.
As you can imagine, after 34 years the game has had a bit of a makeover. he graphics have had some spit and polish, the brilliant colours fairly popping off the screen, while the trademark music, now heard through a far superior sound system, still has that wonderful 8-bit chirpiness to it.
There are now 200 levels to plough through, each one offering a cute new set of baddies to catch and pop. There is a twist though, in that some of the more challenging levels start with Baron von Blubba on the screen, the Skel-Monsta following you around the screen like a shadow until you have dispatched all the bad guys.
Once you’ve blitzed through the first set of 50 stages or so, you’ll unlock hard mode, which is quite a game changer. Those bewitching baddies become fairly aggressive bullies, and you’d better up your bubble-firing skills.
One of my favourite parts of The Baron is Back is Arcade of the Future mode, which unlocks after you’ve completed the main campaign. Starting with 10 lives, you have to climb a 100-storey tower by beating puzzle-oriented stages. As much a game of memory as skill, once you’ve used up your 10 lives, it’s back to the ground floor for you. As frustrating as it is addictive, I’m almost ashamed to tell you how accomplished I felt beating my previous high score.
The skill tree from the Switch release remains, allowing you to activate and upgrade Bub and Bob’s skills – something you will definitely need as you progress through the levels.
While the skills are new, the method of unlocking them is not, as you must burst the letter bubbles to spell out EXTEND.
Collect all six letters, and beat the boss, and you can win an upgrade or a new skill such as the ability to dash through a baddy unscathed, or a bomb bubble which kills off all the enemies around it.
There’s also been a new leaderboard added, which means you can showboat your scores to friends. Unlike the original, you can fit your whole name on the board, rather than being stuck with three letters. To this day both I, and my friends, spell my nickname Chez, as Cez – forced to drop the H to get my name on that glowing arcade screen.
This is a burst of nostalgia for older gamers, and a breath of fresh air for new players, who will find the simple looking levels anything but.
All those frustrations are still there – repeatedly bursting a bubble you’re trying to ride to a ledge at the top of the screen, and being backed into a corner by the invincible Baron because you’ve not been paying attention to where you’ve been going. It’s thrilling and annoying in turn.
The Baron is Back has been perfectly timed for release just before Christmas, and is bound to put a smile on the face of gamers of all ages – and let’s face it, we really need that after the year we’ve all had.
Buy it: £30.99 from 365games.co.uk