PSP Puzzle Double Header: Bubble Bobble Evolution and Puyo Pop Fever

Game: Bubble Bobble Evolution
Console: Sony Playstation Portable
Developer: Opus
Release Date: 29th September 2006

Bubble Bobble is an arcade game series which began in 1986 and received various sequels as time continued. While the gameplay of the original was fairly simple, subsequent games added various features to the series, and Bubble Bobble Evolution is no different. The game features Bub and Bob, the two protagonists in separate but linked castles, working their way through each floor, consisting of 3 themed sections with doors leading between them. If that sounds complex, then it sort of is, considering that I haven't explained any of the gameplay mechanics yet.

Bub and Bob are both able to blow bubbles which can flick switches, trap enemies, and carry items between sections. In this way, bubbles are an integral part of the puzzle solving mechanics of the game, along with jumping between platforms and flicking the switches in the correct order. The goal of each level is to clear the path to the lift, and then enter and move up a floor before switching to the other character and doing the same.

Players can choose to go through the game with tutorial hints helping them every so often, though this doesn't guarantee that they won't fail anyway. Any contact with enemies takes away health, and sometimes it's rather difficult to avoid. Health can be regained by trapping enemies in bubbles and then popping them, but this slows the pace of the game and isn't something I found myself doing very often.

After each floor there's a boss stage, the quality of which varies between boring and semi-broken and fairly competently programmed. With only bubbles to attack enemies, there's not a lot of variation in these stages design wise, though the bosses themselves do change. The overall puzzling in the game can also be somewhat complex with various planning required across each section of the floors featured.

Graphically the game is presented in a cartoon style which is a little tacky; the enemies and details featured don't have a particular theme, and even with themed sections to each level (i.e. Autumn, Winter, Summer), the designs aren't exactly inspired. Small gripes like being able to see a square image border around bubbles when many are blown at once also detract from the visual experience. Musically the game isn't anything special with some playful themes here and there.

Overall Bubble Bobble Evolution is a slightly confusing and poorly put together game which doesn't feature too much of a story or motivation for completing it's puzzles. The themeing and features of the levels seem almost random at times and having to move both heroes up each floor and fight bosses twice can become monotonous. While it's clear that some effort was put into the game, it might have been better without the Bubble Bobble license as an original game which would have been more free to explore some common sense gameplay features.

Rating: 60/100
Grade: D

Game: Puyo Pop Fever

Console: Sony Playstation Portable

Developer: Sega

Release Date: 19th May 2006

Puyo Pop Fever is one of many releases in the Puyo Puyo series, including Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine. The aim of the game is to build combos which once cleared will release nuisance puyos onto the opponent's screen, inhibiting their ability to score combos themselves. Players drop coloured puyos onto the bottom of the screen, attempting to connect 4 together horizontally, vertically or combinations of both. The skill in the game is in not immediately going for connections of 4, but leaving 3's to be completed by falling puyos, thus earning combos.

Each of the game's difficulty levels features a certain amount of opponents who increase in difficulty as players continue. The easy level of difficulty requires little to no skill to beat, and is incredibly short, the medium level isn't particularly challenging until the final boss which has the ability to end player's turns in literally 2 moves. Until this point in the game, players don't need to worry too much about stacking up lots of combos or reaching "fever" mode.

Graphically the game isn't particularly impressive, with cartoon like cutscenes and background for the puzzling action to take place against. The characters featuring in the story are varied, but the story itself is literally a series of bumping into enemies and playing Puyo Pop against them, and not much else. There's some fitting, if a little forgettable music which plays behind gameplay, which sets the tone for the entire game really; it's a competent puzzler but nothing that'll revolutionise the genre.

Overall Puyo Pop Fever can be fun to get into, and working out how to pull off combos effectively gives a nice change from simple Tetris-like games, but there's really not much more to do in the game. Tetris was a universal concept due to its simplicity and ease to get better at, whereas it feel like Puyo Pop has a threshold above which it can be fairly boring and below which players have no hope of beating the bosses of medium/hard mode.

Rating: 62/100
Grade: C