Classic Bubble Bobble (GBC Arcade)

After years upon years of the same old Bust A Move puzzle games, at last,
Taito has seen fit to relaunch the classic arcade game on the Game Boy Color!
How does it do?

Poor Bobble has come down with a strange illness and only a vial of Moon
Water will cure his ails.  What's Bubble to do but launch himself into a
cave after cave of bubble popping action!

Gameplay

Gameplay is for the most part unchanged from the original game.  You blow
bubbles to trap enemies and burst those bubbles to kill them.  Simple as
that.  What IS different are the stages.  In fact, stagewise, the game is
quite different!  So different, you'd really be hard pressed to call this a
proper port.  More like Bubble Bobble with totally new levels.  The game also
adds a few boss fights to the mix.  But other than that, it's pretty much the
same kinda gameplay you expect from Bubble Bobble.  However...  Gameplay is
not perfect.  Popping bubbles isn't as easy as it should be.  Half the time,
instead of popping bubbles, you PUSH them away.  This forces the player to
jump on bubbles which is time consuming and in some cases, near impossible,
almost guaranteeing time out in some stages.  But...  This problem has a
beneficial side effect in that it makes it easier for you to use your own
bubble as platforms to jump to safety, something that was much harder to do
in the original.  Plus, in this version you can jump through and if you're
jumping on your own bubbles, literally CLIMB through established stage
ceilings, which lends easy escape to ordinarly death imposing situations.
In addition to that, the game's limited screen size means you can't see the
ENTIRE stage at once.  This certainly makes the game harder as now, not only
can the player not see ALL enemies, at time forcing him to hunt for enemies
before the skeleton whale thingy shows up, but in certain situations, it
forces the player to jump or fall blindly practically assuring instant death.
All of which makes the game's traditional 1-Up mechanic (pop all the bubbles
that spell out the word, "Extra") fairly useless since you won't live long
enough to actually gather them all.  On the plus side, the game features a
simple password system so you don't have to complete the game in one whole
sitting.

Graphics

The graphics are fairly standard for a GBC title.  The colors look nice on
the GBC and the GBA, but game only has PARTIAL Super Gameboy support which
isn't good.  >:\

Music

Well, the classic peppy tune we all love is back and with a vengeance!
However, unlike the original where the tune played ALL game, there are
various "areas" in the game with their own themes as well as boss music which
while nice, never really matches or surpasses the original theme and add
little to the sound experience.

Conclusion

All in all, it's a nice "conversion" of the arcade classic but far from
perfect.  With a new GBA coming soon, I can't really recommend getting this
game, but if you do, get it used or something.

Score:  6/10