Bubble Bobble DS proves that the original is still the best when it comes to the classic arcade series. Many people have fond memories of bopping around as a miniature bubble-blowing dinosaur, encasing monsters in your spherical snot emissions, then popping them to turn them into delicious fruit. This is all to the beat of one of the catchier songs in video game history. It's cripplingly addictive even now; just to illustrate the point, this post was supposed to be up about an hour ago.
The original game is included in Bubble Bobble DS (which has been released in Europe, though not America, as Bubble Bobble Revolution), and it's pretty much the only reason you'd want to buy this. The updated "New Age" Bubble Bobble, shown above left, is pretty much a total mess. The game takes place across the two DS screens, but there's no "invisible space" between them -- when your head leaves the bottom screen, it immediately enters the top one, which is inappropriate and disorienting.
This wouldn't be so bad if the playfield wasn't significantly larger than the two screens, meaning that the view has to scroll up and down and left and right as you're playing. This means you can't find the goddamned monsters half the time. I turned it off in frustration after my second or third attempt to "get into it," then immediately went back to the classic version.
Another gripe: although there are multiplayer modes for both versions, each player has to have a cartridge. What the hell? Surely if Mario Kart can be done on one cartridge, classic Bubble Bobble (probably about a hundredth of the size) can.
But oh well. Back to trying to beat my high score (a pitiful 580,000 or so)...
