Buy Bubble Bobble 4 Friends

Bubble Bobble may never have had the popularity of a Mario or Pac-Man title, but it's still one of the most iconic arcade games of its era. Two adorable dinosaurs (Bub and Bob) must work together to capture foes in bubbles to earn high scores. That's the entire premise, but back in the day, that was all we needed. Bubble Bobble 4 Friends is the latest home entry of the long-running franchise, and it's a faithful installment.

If you've never played a Bubble Bobble game, you play as one of a group of multicolored dinosaurs with the ability to blow bubbles. The bubbles can serve as platforms that you can jump on as well as ways to encase enemies. Once an enemy is encased, you can "pop" them using the horns and spines on your character's body. However, if you encase and pop multiple enemies in a row, you get chain bonuses that significantly increase your score. If you leave an enemy encased too long, they'll break free. As a result, the gameplay boils down to connecting bubbles and popping them in the largest possible quantity. Since one hit equals death (and thus a loss of a life), this quickly becomes a tense balancing game.

It sounds simple because it is. The core gameplay can be learned in a few moments. Bubble Bobble 4 Friends adds some twists. One is power-ups, which you can unlock by collecting E-X-T-E-N-D letters in each stage, and you can equip a power-up at the start of a stage. The power-ups only have a temporary number of uses but allow abilities, such as bomb bubbles, lightning bubbles, long-range bubble spits, and more. The power-ups are optional, but they make things easier.

The level design varies depending on the collection of stages. Some stages are pure action and require you to quickly bubble and escape from danger. Others are puzzles and require you to use the environment and your abilities to figure out how to finish the stage. At the end of every set of stages, you'll face a boss who is usually based on the mechanics that you've used in that series of stages. It's a simple pattern that makes it easy to play a bite-sized series of chunks when you're playing on your own or for the long haul when you have three friends along for the ride.

Bubble Bobble 4 Friends may have its roots in the arcade, but that doesn't mean it's a punishing game. Yes, one hit equals death, but losing all your lives just sets you back to the start. The stages are so short (especially once you know what to do) that it takes little to no time to get back to where you were. The levels aren't too difficult, and if you're chaining combos together, you can unlock extra lives to help you reach the end. The difficulty is appropriate for younger children as well as adults, with a solid mix of simple bubble-blowing fun and occasional moments of more intense action.

Likewise, the visuals are bright, cheerful and cute. Bubble Bobble's cartoony dinosaurs have always been one of the most distinctive arcade designs in the genre, and they're translated really well here. The environments are varied, colorful and never really get in the way of the gameplay. The music is similarly peppy and cheerful, if not particularly memorable. You'll probably tune out the music after a few minutes in a stage, but it helps to set the bright and cheerful tone of the game.

Bubble Bobble 4 Friends is a solid, enjoyable and well-made entry in the Bubble Bobble franchise. At its core, it's still a simple pick-up-and-play arcade game, but 4 Friends does a good job of expanding and improving on the core mechanics. There's something bizarrely addictive about chaining together bubbles for huge point strings, and the simple nature of the game makes it excellent for parties or get-togethers. It might not be a huge narrative-driven experience like some modern titles, but there's something comforting about returning to the days when all you needed was a dinosaur-shaped blob of pixels, some bubbles, and a whole lot of quarters.

Score: 8.0/10