Puzzle Bobble Everybubble! (switch)

Powah Dunk | June 20, 2023 | Review | No Comments

Puzzle Bobble is just one of those staple puzzle games, woven into the fabric of the genre like Tetris, Columns or Puyo Puyo, after a foray in the more action paced Bubble Bobble 4, Bub and Bob are back to tease your brain and Puzzle some Bobbles.

So what is a Puzzle Bobble for the 3 people in existence who haven’t played any of the series at this point? It’s a connect 3 puzzle game where you fire different coloured bubbles up the screen, trying to pop them all, you can create chains of them and even drop full sections of the puzzle with planning and everyone’s favourite wall bouncing trick shots, as someone who has never really been into puzzle games aside from Puzzle Fighter even I have experienced the addictive thrill of puzzle meets arcade bubble popping action.

Puzzle Bobble Everybubble! Is the latest in the long running series and seemingly aims to be the most content rich title in the series and remind gamers why this series has lasted as long as it has, the key there being it’s a Taito title and you can tell by how immediately gratifying popping the bubbles is that Taito still hold the arcade experience dear to their heart.

The first port of call in Everybubble! Would be the story mode, here the delightful dinosaurs set out to pop all the bubbles that have covered Rainbow Island with the help of other characters from the long running series. These are presented like puzzle challenges where you get ranked on how quickly and efficiently you clear the stage, these gradually escalate in difficulty and really test your skills in further unlockable “EX” stages should you fully master that world’s stage list.

You can play this mode on your own or in local co-op or if you really don’t want to feel lonely you can enlist the help of A.I but while A.I may be getting better at generating pictures and written content, Puzzle Bobble isn’t really it’s forte, it can be quite clumsy and often works against you so when Skynet eventually becomes self aware a quick match of Puzzle Bobble should but it back in its place!

If you’re like myself and spent a lot of time playing “Bust A Move” on the N64 as entertaining as the story mode is you’ll be wanting to head over to Battle Mode where Puzzle Bobble takes a competitive turn and I wasn’t aware how much I’d missed this until I jumped right in.

Featuring 1 Vs 1 or 2 Vs 2, local, online or Vs CPU you choose any of the cast unlocked in the story mode and have to try and beat your opponent by filling their screen with your popped bubbles, while I would have liked the story mode to be focused more on this style of gameplay ala Puyo Puyo Tetris, it’s still got enough options, especially with the online rank system to keep you playing for hours competitively.

Also unlocked in the Story Mode is the Baron’s Tower mode which is an endless mode where you keep going until defeat and then your score can be uploaded to an online leaderboard for those who crave to be top of the puzzle bobble mountain.

The final mode was a surprising one and one that while I enjoyed a whole lot, is more of a novelty rather than something robust, it’s Puzzle Bobble Space Invaders and it plays exactly like you would expect. Replace the ships with bubbles and your directional shot with one just straight upwards and try to clear a screen of constantly moving bubbles, it’s utter chaos in multiplayer mode, it’s a fantastic mode to celebrate the 45th anniversary of Taito but feels more like a novelty rather than something that could have been really, really special.

The presentation in Puzzle Bobble Everybubble is just as cute and vibrant as you would expect, there’s tons of content to get through and online and local multiplayer guarantees that this one will keep you coming back time and time again, the Switch is an ideal home for the franchise and it stands toe to toe with what has been considered the essential puzzle game of the console (Puyo Puyo Tetris), an essential game for fans of the franchise and highly recommended for the curious crew.