Bubble Bobble

Bubble Bobble (バブルボブル Baburu Boburu) is a series of single-screen platformer games staring the characters, Bub and Bob. Developed by Taito Corporation who is now currently owned by Square Enix.

Bubble Bobble

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The first and the most well known in the series. The game's plot is that in a peaceful village. Bub and Bob live peacefully with their girlfriends, Betty and Patty. Until one day, the two girls leave the village to explore the forest, but accidently wander into Cave of Monsters where Super Drunk kidnaps and traps them. Bub and Bob set out to rescue the two girls, but Super Drunk turns them into bubble dragons. Using their new abilities, they journey though the cave to rescue Betty and Patty. Two bootleg versions of Bubble Bobble are known to exist, including Dream Land and Bobble Bobble. The game was ported to several consoles and computers. One of them being the NES and the FDS. Due to a standard cartridge version not being released in Japan. The game is very rarely seen on any standard pirate releases or multicarts. Though the original FDS version was one of the most pirated games for the system. Mostly because of it's small size and it being an early release.

MSX/Sega Master System Ports

Several ports of Bubble Bobble were released in South Korea on the MSX before being converted to the Sega Master System. There is known to be a total of 6 ports. Those being: Bubble Bobble (Clover) New Boggle Boggle (Zemina), New Boggle Boggle 2 (Zemina), Super Bubble Bobble (Zemina), Bubble Bobble (YM Soft)(Alias for Screen Software), and Bubble Bobble 2 (Prosoft). All of these versions completely lack any of the bosses and only include around a few enemies with Bubble Bobble (Clover) featuring a completely new one. They all seem to be based on each other. Though physics and various features of the game aren't consistent. Like the Clover and YM Soft releases have a bug where pressing 2 directions at the same time makes Bub or Bob quickly move backwards. And other versions lack items from killed enemies. Interestingly, some versions use the Korean onomatopoeia 쫑 (jjeong) instead of pop.

Rainbow Islands

Title Screen

The sequel the first game, but nowhere near as well known. The game's plot is that years after the events of the first game, the inhabitants (including their family member) of the Rainbow Islands have suddenly disappeared. So Bubby and Bobby (Their respective human names) set off to find out what happened. It is later revealed that the Boss of Shadow had turned everyone into bubble dragons and locked them up. And that to free them, they would have to collect 7 big diamonds and 3 mirrors to save them. Unlike the first game, it was released on cartridge for the Famicom in Japan. Though that version features several differences from the arcade version including the game being cut-down to only having 7. Which it still forces to go through even without the 7 diamonds. And that Magical Island which is based off The Fairyland Story is now replaced with KiKi KaiKai Island which is based off the game of the same name. The GBC version includes both islands. The game was given a bootleg under the name of Jumping.