Egads, we did love this cute little thing from Taito. It was available in arcades and on the NES. And it is good fun. Yay!

Bubble Bobble

First released in 1986, as the player you take control of Bob and Bub. They appear to be, sort of, dragon type things. Just really cute ones.

These macho beings are on a mission to save their girlfriends. Chivalry isn’t dead!

Over 100 levels, they have to defeat enemies by trapping them in bubbles. And then popping the bubble (there are many bubbles in this game), which can send attacks flying across the screen to hit more enemies.

You can see that in action here against the totally epic final boss dude.

Thankfully, that’s all accompanied with an awful rendition of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee classic.

Anyway, that’s it—Bubble Bobble is quite sweet and innocent, we guess. The type of game you think the world of as a kid. But look at it now as you go, “WTF, bro?”

We certainly have fond memories of it, though. The cute factor worked well on our young and impressionable minds in the late 1980s.

In fact, we’d say Bubble Bobble is one of the first games we ever remember playing around that era.

We have memories of visiting a local friend’s place and they had a version on a basic early computer. And it kept us entertained for many hours.

And it left a mark, as we remember it all decades later. A simple but addictive little game with a fun concept behind it. Bubble (brilliant)!

Bubble Bobble 4 Friends

Right, the series is far from dead! It did make a return on the Nintendo Switch in November of 2019. Which is, you know, good.

It got a strong review on Nintendo Life, too. A solid 8/10. Fabulous! We’ve not tried it out yet, but based on that we’re now tempted.

This is a multiplayer type deal, with up to four players able to get stuck in with the Switch’s unusual controller things.

Let’s hope for more outings with this cult series in the future. Why? It’s cute. It’s fun. And we can’t see any problem with that.