Bubble Bobble/Ports

Ports

The popularity of Bubble Bobble led Taito (or its licensees) to port to many home computers and video game consoles. Ports of the game were released for the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, MSX, Amstrad CPC, Sharp X68000, PC (MS-DOS, 1989 and 1996), Apple II, FM Towns Marty, Sega Master System, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, PlayStation, Sega Saturn, Nintendo Entertainment System, Famicom Disk System, Sega Game Gear, mobile phone (Sprint PCS), and UltraCade's Taito Arcade Classics. An version also exists for the BBC Micro on public domain though never officially released. At the end of 2006 a new port for mobile phones in Europe was released.

In October 2005, a version was released for the Xbox, PlayStation 2, and PC as part of the Taito Legends compilation of classic arcade games.

Recently, a version for the TI-83 graphing calculator was released.

Game mechanics in conversions and ports

Bubble Bobble has been widely regarded as one of the most playable games of all time, owing much of its success to its previously described game mechanics, which are only apparently simple, and its many hidden features and secrets. Also, most Bubble Bobble players usually manage to master techniques such as riding bubbles, 'bubbling' oneself through the screen or 'kissing' monsters, and expect them to work all the time.

Some Bubble Bobble ports however, from the date of release of the arcade version up today, have been heavily criticized for their mechanics deviating significantly from the arcade version, adversely affecting the gameplay.

For example, in many versions of the game the two-digit trick to make extra bonuses appear at the end of the stage just doesn't work, or the score and bonus awarding system is entirely different, in part due to the complexity of the original one, and most of the aforementioned techniques can be much harder or impossible to reproduce, thus completely changing (arguably ruining) the gaming experience.

Examples include even comparatively recent versions such as the (1996) PC/PlayStation/Sega Saturn versions by Acclaim: they either have different game mechanics (too fast dropping speed, barely working shoes, bubbles going through walls, different jumping physics and many non-implemented techniques) or different behaviour for some monsters (especially the time-up monster).

Another example is the early 1989 PC version by Novalogic, which had the possibility of diagonal jumps with a single keystroke (thus enabling players to go through walls), lacked completely the ability of kissing monsters, and had different rules governing the appearance of some bonuses (most notably the orange-yellow sweet).

The various Nintendo NES and Game Boy ports and sequels are very different, often featuring scrolling screens, different enemies, and the ability for the dragons to fly.

In general, there are as many variations to the game mechanics as there are versions, with some being more faithful to the arcade version than others and some resulting in noticeably different gameplay experience. Although that is a general rule regarding ports of any game, in Bubble Bobble it can become very noticeable and annoying because of the game relying primarily on its fast paced and trick-filled gameplay.

One of the few versions having game mechanics and gameplay very close to the arcade is the Sega Master System version, despite its introduction of extra gameplay elements. Moreover, the version included in Taito Legends for the Xbox, PS2, and PC should be a near-perfect copy of the original arcade version, as it features the original ROM running under emulation. However, even this version lacks accurate emulation of an MCU in the original hardware that handled monster behavior and other things. As of 2007, fully accurate emulation is implemented only in MAME (versions 0.107u3 and up).