In late 2020, Taito released Touhou Spell Bubble, a rare game in the long-running Touhou series that was developed by an official studio rather than fan developers. The game marries Taito's experience in the competitive puzzle genre with a rhythm game twist. It sounds complicated, but all you need is one match to see that both genres work fine together, and the result is a familiar and fun experience. The slew of DLC finally ended in 2024, so Taito has now released a spiritual sequel with QQQbeats!!!, a fun game with a strange name.

If you're not familiar with Touhou Spell Bubble, the game mechanics will still be familiar if you've played some puzzle titles. This is essentially Puzzle Bobble/Bust-A-Move without Bub and Bob and the usual imagery for that franchise. You have a playfield full of differently colored bubbles and a shooter at the bottom loaded with colored bubbles. You fire a bubble to the top of the playfield, and any matches of three or more bubbles of the same color cause them to disappear. As this is a versus game, any matches you make send junk bubbles to the opponent's field and vice versa, but you can easily get rid of the junk by sending a colored bubble to them, which causes the junk to adopt that same color.

When compared to Puzzle Bobble, QQQbeats!!!'s puzzle elements have seen some major tweaks. For one thing, only three colors are ever on the board at any one time. You're always going to have blue, yellow, and purple on the field, and there's no chance that the color lineup changes or that you'll get a field of four colors — junk and special bubbles notwithstanding. Secondly, the bubbles you shoot will always appear in a set order, and the only way to change it is if you manually swap the bubble currently in the chamber. Making matches also fills up a meter that automatically creates a fever time, where the screen is filled with bubbles of only two colors and arranged in a way that creates big matches with every hit. Each character comes with special moves, such as taking away an opponent's fever meter energy or automatically clearing away a specific area of your board, further emphasizing the game's combative nature.

One of the more interesting changes is the removal of a "game over" state. Normally, filling up the board with bubbles and having it go beyond the red line near the bottom of the playfield would count as a win for your opponent and an immediate match stoppage. However, that's not the case in QQQbeats!!! Passing that red line means that your opponent takes all the bubbles that failed to pop and adds them to their overall score. The losing player does get a reprieve, as they're given a new board with some easy matches and protection from opposing attacks for a short while. It is an interesting take on the expected puzzle norm, and it makes the game feel different from other puzzle titles in a good way.

That covers the basics of the puzzle section, but the rhythm section also plays a role in dramatically changing the gameplay. Making a match of five or more bubbles at a time temporarily stops you from shooting more bubbles while the game goes into a rhythm-based minigame. A circle appears over certain pieces, and your job is to hit a button to match that beat. Depending on the section of the song you're at when this happens and how many bubbles are involved in that match, you can get either a row of singular beats to hit or ones that need to fire off in rapid succession. Naturally, this makes fever time a bigger deal since that's guaranteed bonus points for having so many rhythm matches available at once. The matches are governed by song length, so match time isn't dependent on skill. There's a good variety of songs to choose from, as the soundtrack covers vocaloid tracks and Japanese electronic tracks. There's also a good number of Touhou tracks, a nod to this game's predecessor.

The addition of a rhythm section sounds like it makes the game needlessly difficult, but that isn't the case in practice. There's no aiming for the rhythm-based bubbles, so all you need to pay attention to is hitting the beat. Beat hits are done with the same button as bubble shots, so you aren't constantly switching between two different buttons whene the game switches from puzzle to rhythm and back again. Rhythm mode also prevents the player from stacking more bubbles on your side, so you aren't automatically getting overwhelmed with junk when you're trying to match beats or immediately after that section is done. The simplicity of the rhythm section in the main game is an ingenious spin on a well-tested puzzle formula, and it keeps the game feeling fresh even though the formula has been around for decades.

There are two main game modes, with Story mode serving as the main one for solo players. The pacing for the mode matches that of Touhou Spell Bubble, where you start a chapter with a lengthy visual novel-style cut scene before taking on a match and ending with another lengthy cut scene before you restart the cycle with a new chapter. The mode is a decent length with two difficulty levels to choose from, but the constant stream of various unlocks ensures you see the mode through to the very end.

As for the story, your mileage will vary. The story follows Ceena and Ame, two women who are trying to make it big in the world of game streaming with QQQbeats!!!, a game that has seemingly taken the streaming world by storm. For the most part, the story is fine, and there are a few funny jokes, especially when you see the duo go to conventions and fan meet-ups, but your affinity for the story is dependent on whether you care about streaming culture. All of these scenes are skippable if you want to get straight into the gameplay, but those who enjoy the story will appreciate the fact that every scene is fully voiced in Japanese.

When it comes to multiplayer, you have a standard versus mode against either local players or CPU players. What is more exciting is DUOps, a co-op mode where you and a friend team up to take down a boss opponent. Beats count more here than actual matches, so you'll concentrate on making bigger matches. Both players share their fever meters and ability effects. What makes the matches more daunting is that you both need to be skilled to take down a boss, since one person's attacks alone aren't enough to drain the boss' life meter. Those expecting one person to carry the duo will be in for a shock.

While local multiplayer is excellent, online multiplayer is essentially dead. We're a few months removed from the game's original release, and it's next to impossible to find an online game in either casual or ranked play unless you arrange for opponents to be online beforehand. This doesn't come as a surprise, since there's been little to no advertisement for this game. The lack of an online community means that there's no easy way to unlock everything the game has to offer. It's a good thing that the only things locked away due to online play are simply titles and other profile decorations.

Playing through most of the game modes provides coins that can be used to unlock things in the shop. Some are basic, such as decorations for your online profile card and emoticons, while the more valuable items are non-DLC songs. The good news is that the number of coins you earn has been tweaked, so you're almost guaranteed to unlock something after only playing one song. For example, playing through a level in Story mode always gives you 1,000 coins, which is enough to buy a song. Completing the Story mode almost ensures that you'll get every song in the game without lots of grinding; this was an issue with Touhou Spell Bubble's progression.

As far as graphical presentation goes, QQQbeats!!! is pretty clean. The typical anime colors and style make the game attractive to look at, while the effects do a good job of dazzling the senses without overwhelming them. The game runs at a solid 60fps with no drops regardless of what's happening. The game was reviewed on the Switch 2, but there doesn't seem to be any upscaling beyond what the console is natively doing. The game looks excellent on a 4K set, and there are no hints of blurring associated with low-resolution titles.

QQQbeats!!! is a fun game that's made some notable improvements over the formula established by Touhou Spell Bubble. The fully voiced cut scenes and addition of rapid-fire rhythm segments make the game more exciting, while the addition of a co-op mode gives Touhou Spell Bubble fans something different to look forward to. The soundtrack is excellent, and even though the online community is gone, the presence of local play means that the solid gameplay mechanics can still be experienced long after the campaign is done. QQQbeats!!! is a hidden gem of a game, and fans of puzzle and rhythm games should seek this one out.

Score: 8.0/10