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Posted on March 8th, 2008 - 962 Reads

Rated Everyone Bubble Bobble Double Shot Nintendo DS Review

-- Written by Clark Nielsen



 You, like me, probably have fond childhood memories of playing Bubble Bobble. Those kind of nostalgic, rose-colored glasses can get you through some pretty hard times, but it just doesn't work with this DS version. It's easy to pinpoint the problem, too. The cooperative multiplayer mode--which is what has always made Bubble Bobble fun--is not given proper justice. Yeah, I know, the idea of having three players at once is mouth-watering, but the sad truth is: Double Shot does not support download play. Everyone has to have their own copy to jump into a game of co-op, but why multiple people would ever own this game is beyond me. This is a huge, huge missed opportunity and seems like something that the developers should have been shooting for since the game's conception. Way to go.

If you're still reading by this point, then you're crazy. I mean, then you must want to know something about the actual game. Which can only mean you're crazy. But I'll humor you. Bubble Bobble doesn't stray very far from its arcade roots, offering up single-screen level after level where you must clear all the monsters by shooting them with balloons and then popping them. There are a lot of levels in the game, but they don't differ by much, and you'll get bored quickly if you haven't already reached a point where the difficulty is impossible. Part of this is that the controls are too old-school for their own good. It's very frustrating when your character continually hits his head on a platform (that he can jump through, anyway) and falls straight down.

Bringing Bubble Bobble to the DS has instigated a few changes to the classic gameplay, though. There are now three dinosaurs to play as, and you can cycle through them in-game via the shoulder buttons. This is useful (but not very rewarding) to take out monsters with colored barriers around them. Levels now span both screens, as well, which is only natural and helps make the game feel a bit broader in scope. An unwelcome addition, however, is the touch-based minigame that follows a Game Over. You're granted infinite continues as long as you can pass the minigame, and the minigame is usually a mind-numbing pushover. Unfortunately, they get to be so mind-numbing, it's likely you'll zone out, mess up, and find yourself back at the title screen. No big deal, right? I'll just go to where I last saved and-- Oh, wait, there is no saving. Bubble Bobble Double Shot doesn't record anything. It doesn't record your progress. It doesn't record your high scores. Twenty years ago, this may have been acceptable, but in 2008, we call this broken.

Final Comments:
There is one level in Bubble Bobble Double Shot where the platforms cleverly spell out "I love BB." Apparently you didn't love it enough, though, because the end product feels like a mad rush to salvage the Bubble Bobble name after the fiasco that was Bubble Bobble Revolution. The game just isn't very fun. It could have been! It really could have, had the multiplayer mode not been restricted to multi-cart. Alas, hoping that people would be buying Bubble Bobble in droves proves to be its undoing.

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