This approach, which has shown up before in games like Sega Genesis Classics, is still charming whenever we see it. If that weren’t enough, there’s also a fully-playable copy of the original Bubble Bobble included here, presented as a cabinet in the in-game world that runs whether you’re using it or not. The character models and levels are all created with a lot of knowledge of what the franchise has done before.
There’s some clear love of Bubble Bobble here, and that gives the game a cozy feel.
If you’re stuck playing alone, this does mean more of an elongated, tedious path than something quick and varied, since these stages are designed to keep one skilled player from totally shutting others out of any action. For example, heading in one direction from the start encounters more enemies, while the other offers a bubble-bouncing traversal challenge. The single-screen levels aren’t particularly complicated, and you’re certainly going to blow through them if you split them four ways, but they do seem designed to let certain players specialize in certain tasks. If the game could justify just doing the same thing the old games did, it chose to do precisely that.
It soundtrack is a simple update of existing tunes. Otherwise, Bubble Bobble 4 Friends really wants to deliver an experience that reminds you of its ancestors. Its real innovation, if it has one, is its support for four players, and widescreen levels designed to let that many people move around and accomplish things at once.
So is Bubble Bobble 4 Friends also 4 You?īubble Bobble 4 Friends is hardly the fourth game in the Bubble Bobble series – there’ve been over a dozen – but the choice to use a number for the first time since 1995 is a significant one: this is a back-to-basics release that focuses on jump-in-and-play arcade antics. It’s a bad development for the American launch of Bubble Bobble 4 Friends, a game that released in Japan and Europe months ago under better circumstances.īut hey: some of you are stuck inside with some other people, whether they’re family or roommates, and it’s possible you’re even more ready for a new cooperative diversion than ever. As the world hunkers down to slow the spread of COVID-19, it’s hard to justify picking up a title that, to get the most out of it, requires more people. It’s an especially bad time right now for local multiplayer games.