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Bubble Bobble
alt title(s): Puzzle Bobble; Bust A Move; Bubble Symphony; Bubble Memories; Rainbow Islands; Parasol Stars
Now, it is the beginning of a fantastic story! Let us make a journey to the cave of monsters! Good luck!

Bubble Bobble is a classic arcade game made by Taito and released in 1986. It features two cute bubble dragon critters named Bubblun and Bobblun who spit/blow bubbles to trap and pop a wide variety of weird enemy creatures (including wind-up toys) that kill them in one hit.

You want the truth? You Should Know This Already: They're really two human boys named Bubby and Bobby who are cursed with a transformation into bubble dragons and they have to rescue their human girlfriends (Betty and Patty, respectively) from a green-hooded giant named Super Drunk.

Pardon the anti-Woolseyism name confusion. We get that a lot.

It spawned a lot of Non-Linear Sequels which may leave a person confused as to what the second installment is supposed to be or when each installment takes place:

And it spawned a spinoff which has its own sequels:

Tropes used in the video games:

  • Adaptation Decay: Anyone who relies solely on the NES manual's comic will be surprised that the characters are all humans and not dinosaurs bubble dragons! This caused a Plot Tumor for the ''Puzzle Bobble / Bust-A-Move" series and DS games; see the listing below.
  • Adaptation Displacement: Most people seem to believe the NES version that's now also on Virtual Console was the original. There was an arcade version, and it did NOT include a compulsory crystal ball!
    • Oddly, the Bubble Bobble Plus website has the NES version rather than the arcade's version of the Bubble Bobble logo. Maybe because Nintendo has the licensing?
  • All There In The Flyers (and Manual): The storylines are not explicitly stated in the first game itself.
    • Exceptions: The Story heading in the Bubble Symphony flyer is misleading and self-contradictory. By this time though the Attract Modes begin to show the true story. Also, don't just rely on the NES version's manual stated above.
  • Ass Pull: True ending of Bubble Bobble, arcade/NES/Virtual Console, and then the Game Boy (original monochrome) versions.
  • Attack Of The 50 Foot Whatever: Bosses, and some enemies in Memories, are larger than the protagonists. But hey, in Memories they can find an item that makes themselves big too.
  • Beta Couple: Cororon and Kululun, female companions, in Bubble Symphony. And whoever the heck the new magenta and orange females in Plus (WiiWare) are. Pab and Peb?
  • Bonus Stage:
    • Getting a certain item in Bubble Bobble to make all enemies disappear and put the player(s) in a race against the clock to get all or most of another type of item.
    • If not for those in the NES version of Part 2 (after a world boss is defeated) being outright stated as bonus games along with the word "bonus" in the font of Bubble Bobble's secret rooms, they'd be an Unexpected Genre Change.
  • Bubble Gun: Exhale/blow outward if you're a bubble dragon. Or, if you're human and you have it, blowing through a bubble straw.
    • And then the PC version cover of the first Puzzle Bobble game has Bub as a bubble dragon using a bubble straw to blow bubbles. Talk about lack of research!
  • Chest Monster: in Bubble Symphony's Treasure Desert world. The enemy is named Mimic.
  • Circling Birdies: In the arcade version of Bubble Bobble, when Bub/Bob "dies"/dies they spin out and fall backwards, having stars above their heads as their eyes follow dizzily.
  • Color Coded For Your Convenience: In the Bubble Bobble series, root for green and blue! And magenta. And orange. Also, each bubble in the Puzzle Bobble/Bust-A-Move games is sorted by color like in Tetris.
  • Color Coded Multiplayer
  • Continuing Is Painful: In Space Puzzle Bobble/Space Bust-a-Move, when you continue, you start from the first of the group of five levels all over again. And out of all available reviews, only Nintendo Power's Sept 2009 issue is most outright in pointing that flaw out.
  • Cursed With Awesome: Blow bubbles to turn enemies into food! How cool is that?
  • Death Throws: Parasol Stars and Bubble Bobble Part 2. Also the US/Japanese NES version of Rainbow Islands.
  • Defeat Means Friendship: If one thinks about this Puzzle Bobble 2 ending◊ and/or one of the good endings of Bubble Symphony with the premise of having to bubble and pop these enemies to turn them into food and items and then move on... Okay, it's a Mind Screw.
  • Degraded Boss: Super Drunk in the first Bubble Bobble returns in Bubble Symphony, a lot easier and the first boss you meet. He appears in other games in between as well but who knows?
  • Descending Ceiling: In Puzzle Bobble and Puzzle Bobble 2.
  • Distressed Damsel: Bub and Bob's girlfriends. And their parents. Wait, what?!
  • Early Bird Cameo: Mighta/Stoner and Monsta/Beluga (the white-hooded boulder roller and floating purple head respectively) were the main enemies in Chack'n Pop, an earlier Taito game.
  • Ear Worm: AUUUUGH!!! Too catchy! They even throw it in other games in the series too!
  • Everything's Better With Spinning: When anyone, be it protagonist or cute baddie, dies. Most previous Taito games did not feature anyone spinning upon death.
  • Everything Fades: Love It Or Hate It, the eight outward facing lines when a dizzy-dead protagonist or an item that's been left alone disappears are not the equivalent of explosions. The protagonists poof away into magic dust and items poof into a cloud of dust that quickly dissipates, as shown in Symphony. Maybe it's because the 8 outward facing lines in Bubble Bobble and its remakes as well as the Game Boy games are so ambiguous.
  • Everything Trying To Kill You: Or: Everything is out there trying to touch you. And kill you by doing so.
  • Excuse Plot: The Game Boy and Game Boy Color ports, due to them being single-player, has Bub looking for the Moon Water "so [he] can help [his] brother" instead of rescuing his girlfriend. Because trying to leave in a plot that requires 2 players to finish on a 1-player portable was too hard back then.
  • Floating In A Bubble: Main mode of transportation.
  • Forgotten Phlebotinum: Holding down the bubble button to: Inflate oneself to float, shoot bubbles in a pattern, or shoot giant bubbles. Each of these only applies to one game in the 1990s, no more.
  • Gannon Banned: Super Drunk is the Final Boss in Bubble Bobble. Hyper Drunk is the True Final Boss in Symphony. The flyer for the latter said so, yet they confuse themselves in Symphony's Attract Mode animations too. The name "Sorceror" Drunk only got into all this because of the uninformed soundtrack listing.
    • 魔王どらんく (on the soundtrack) in Japanese roughly means "demon king" Drunk. How'd "sorceror" come out of that one? Yet the flyer uses はいぱーどらんく, a transliteration of "Hyper Drunk".
    • To clear things up, Hyper Drunk and his palace each have an H. No, not in that sense!
  • Garfunkel: Unfortunately, Bob(blun), the blue bubble dragon, has not been in as many games and ports as Bub(blun), the green bubble dragon, is.
  • Generation Xerox: If the "children" story of Bubble Symphony is to be believed, then no one in the protagonists' families is safe from becoming cursed into dying when they touch anything. Heck, at least two of them will be a green bubble dragon and a blue bubble dragon Because Destiny Says So.
  • Gratuitous English / Blind Idiot Translation: The secret rooms in Bubble Bobble, intros/endings in Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Islands, and Bubble Symphony (Symphony's endings have the characters saying "year" for "yeah".), and some text in Bubble Memories.
    • Bubble Bobble also has the introductory quote that's featured at the top of this page. It has been fixed in the GBA and Wii Ware re-releases by including the first "the".
    • Symphony: "Let's try and challenge". Also results in a Narm moment in a Downer Ending: The protagonists are back as humans but they come across a bunch of boarded up doors. Bob (according to the Japanese version's speech order) says "Year, but will [sic] can't go back to our own world!"
    • Memories: "The only way to get to a boss"... You're already at the boss when you're reading that, aren't you?
      • And "DANGER! The room guarder Koornt or Kligan or Wafful fl (without that emphasizing space) etc. is approaching fast". Or maybe it's the Final Boss, the "Super Dark Great Dragon".
      • The wall-of-text intros upon starting the game (in either Normal or Super Mode). What does "supplicating" mean anyway?
    • Most Gratuitous English examples in the games can be found at ZanyVGQuotes.com under "Bubble _________" and "Puzzle Bobble 3" and "Bust-A-Move 4" (by the way, the latter two are in the same series).
    • Puzzle Bobble 4 / Bust-a-Move 4 gets overloaded with Blind Idiot Translations especially when comparing the Attract Mode how-to-play screens of PB4/BAM4 with earlier installments, which were perfectly grammatically fine before.
  • Guide Dang It: In every single game. Please read a strategy guide before starting.
  • Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Bubble _________ and/or "The Story of Bubble Bobble (confusing installment number)".
  • Improbable Weapon User: Bubbles, rainbows, and parasols.
  • Inexplicable Treasure Chests: A huge chest drops down at the end of each level in Rainbow Islands and after defeating a world boss in Bubble Symphony and Memories. It is the basis of one of Symphony's bad endings.
  • Invincible Minor Minion: The floating skull named Skel-Monsta/Baron von Blubba that comes with Stalked By The Bell. He has been promoted to Sequential True Final Boss status in two games.
  • Involuntary Shapeshifting: Throw in Animorphism (and some Super Deformed Incredible Shrinking Man for Bubble Memories) and you have someone inflicted with a deadly curse.
  • Jaw Drop: Bubble Memories normal mode good ending; Space Puzzle Bobble when Bob(blun) is used and the board is almost full. Both are used in conjunction with Blank White Eyes, mainly used in death sprites in Memories.
  • Kawaisa
  • Kid Hero: Any older than teenage years, and children/descendants come around. Wait, what?
  • Kill It With Fire: Fire bubbles kill enemies and stun protagonists, enemy fireballs kill incinerate protagonists. Obviously, don't touch the latter!
  • Kill It With Lightning Shock And Awe: Lightning bubbles regardless of size used by protagonists will kill enemies but can also stun themselves. Any lightning summoned by enemies regardless of size can simply-kill or electrocute protagonists.
  • Kill It With Water: Water bubbles kill enemies and carry (and/or visibly stun) protagonists. The blue cross item in Bubble Bobble floods the room and drowns all enemies. Just ''being in'' water isn't sufficient enough to kill or stun anyone in ''Bubble Memories''.
  • The Law Of Conservation Of Detail: If you're just coming across the first Bubble Bobble and choose to play it, you wouldn't know Bub and Bob are really human and have girlfriends to rescue. Especially if "it is [the] beginning of a fantastic story! Let's make a journey to the cave of monsters!" You should already. Because about 20-30 or so levels later in the arcade, you see the two captured girls screaming for help. That's one plot revealed.
  • The Many Deaths Of You: Aside from touching something, a bubble dragon or their human form can die by getting exaggeratingly incinerated, unsuccessfully cryogenized, or harshly electrocuted by enemies. Okay, never mind. It's horrible.
  • Match Three Game: Puzzle Bobble aka Bust-A-Move and its own sequels.
  • Mirror Match: They're not fighting against themselves, but in the first Puzzle Bobble/Bust-A-Move, twin Bubs or Bobs blow-shoot and carry bubbles, and turn the crank respectively. And if you lose... one spins out and dizzy-dies as in Bubble Bobble, the other gets stunned.
  • Multiple Endings: Trope Maker. Mostly Downer Endings... for a game (series) that's supposed to be happy!
    • Bubble Bobble: Want to see the real ending? Then you'll have to beat it with a friend! Sorry, soloists playing the NES/Virtual Console or arcade versions!
    • Bubble Symphony: Taken literally. You don't have to beat it with a friend but you can go through multiple paths/worlds, and you'll see a world-exclusive ending if you don't get the stuff needed.
  • Musical Assassin: Bubbles that unleash music notes can help fight enemies.
  • New Game Plus: Super Mode.
  • Nightmare Fuel - The same music used in the bad endings to Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands.
    • The music when (up to two) Skel-Monsta/Baron von Blubba appears. Or maybe it's him/them chasing you to no end!
  • Nintendo Hard: The Nintendo versions are hard indeed:
    • Bubble Bobble: The NES/Virtual Console version has an objective required for a good ending that is not in the arcade version. And there is a very thick wall in the way.
    • Puzzle Bobble/Bust-A-Move: The SNES version has 100 levels and the Final Boss Super Drunk to face as opposed to 30 levels in the arcade and subsequent arcade installments.
  • Nostalgia Level: See Shout Out below.
  • Ominous Latin Chanting: Symphony's True Final Boss theme. Although with children choirs chanting, it comes off as a little annoying. Your Mileage May Vary.
  • One Hit Point Wonder: Carries on into its sequels but subverted in Part 2.
  • Pink Girl Blue Boy
    • Coro and Bob (respectively) who are always beside each other in Symphony's cutscenes. Extended with green boy Bub and orange girl Kulu.
    • Most likely subverted in the DS game Bubble Bobble Revolution in which an unlockable character Lovelun is pink but the gender is unknown.
      • But he's not wearing a bow.
  • Pinocchio Syndrome: The quest to turn back into humans is made more apparent in Bubble Symphony in which one of your objectives for a good ending is to turn back human while you travel, and Memories in its Attract Mode storyline and when the game begins.
  • Plot Coupon: Big diamonds and mirrors in Rainbow Islands. Symbol cards in Parasol Stars. Keys, music note cards, and a rod in Bubble Symphony. Potions in Bubble Memories. A bunch of stuff in Bubble Bobble Plus/Neo's "Arrange mode". Not like any of the games says if you need them or if they exist, but you need them, and they do exist.
  • Plot Tumor: The DS games Bubble Bobble Revolution and Double Shot keep the "living as bubble dragons in the first place" background introduced by the discontinuous NES manual's comic, or at least give absolutely no indication of them ever being human once. The Puzzle Bobble / Bust-A-Move series scrap the human-character-background completely. All because everyone loves the bubble dragons more.
  • Point Of No Return: Aside from kicking players to the next level automatically after a few seconds, players will miss any available items or Plot Coupons after defeating all enemies because they can't go back.
  • Popsicle Splat - Getting frozen into an ice block in Bubble Symphony kills the character right after the ice shatters shortly afterwards only because touching anything is fatal.
  • Porting Disaster: Let's just say that most of the non-arcade versions were not well received. The port-bashing section of the first game's Wikipedia article vastly outsized anything else for a while.
    • Incineration deaths in the arcade are only otherwise seen in ports on any of the Game Boys and the DS, and although the original GB version kept the style of the arcade sprites, most frames are cut out resulting in a quicker and choppy animation.
    • The squish-yourself-against-bubbles animations are implemented (poorly) only in the Game Boy Advance and DS ports of the original.
    • In the GBA/DS ports, deaths did not match the arcade implementations. In the port, you freeze in midair when you start spinning out instead of just before you explode poof away into magic dust. Also, the standing-non-dead sprite frame is used, followed by the sitting-down-dead sprite frame only when your character spins out.
    • And all this comes from the fact that the source code was lost. According to this.
  • The Power Of Friendship: A major theme, quoted several times throughout the first game (if you know where to look) and the key behind its Multiple Endings.
  • Randomly Drops: The rare items such as the Super Star heart, magic crosses, umbrellas, etc. that appear out of nowhere. Or maybe it's when the unpopped bubbles turn into cool and/or (self-) Shout Out items when all enemies are defeated.
  • Recycled IN SPACE: Space Puzzle Bobble/Space Bust-A-Move.
  • Replacement Scrappy: Man, the next-gen systems don't even feature Coro or Kulu. It's like Canon Discontinuity or something. For the Wii, they've been replaced (or chronologically preceded?) with two other females named Pab and Peb (according to this), supposedly Bub and Bob's girlfriends. (But weren't the girlfriends supposed to be Betty and Patty? Oh well.) For the DS, we have — what the hell? — Robolun and Lovelun (a just-as-defenseless robot, and a pink unknown-gender bubble dragon, respectively), and a cousin (red male bubble dragon) named Bubu.
  • Ridiculously Cute Critter: Bub and Bob. And Coro and Kulu. And basically all those random baddies.
  • Robot Me: An unlockable character in Revolution (DS).
  • Ryu And Ken: Bub and Bob, once just mere Palette Swaps. But they were fleshed out with different personalities (only apparent in the Symphony arcade flyer and the Memories Attract Mode) and abilities later on.
  • Secret Level: The secret rooms in most (if not all) Bubble Bobble games. Not like anyone's gonna last long enough to get there.
  • Shout Out (these result in Nostalgia Levels)
    • Bubble Bobble recreates◊ a stage◊ from an earlier game, Chack'n Pop. It also features the title character on the Super Star item stated below and in various games.
    • Rainbow Islands features worlds based on Arkanoid, Fairyland Story, Darius, and Bubble Bobble itself.
    • Bubble Symphony features character cameos from◊ other Taito games◊ as well as base some of their Adventure Towns off them. The aforementioned Chack'n Pop level appears again.
    • Bubble Memories' practice mode features "Ready, go!" and level completion music from Puzzle Bobble 2, released the same year. Bub and Bob also look the same in both games.
    • In all Bubble Bobble games in general, whatever the enemy roster is, it will almost always include an Invader (aka "Super Socket") from Space Invaders. This is more pronounced in Bubble Symphony, as one of the boss battles pits you against a giant version of the standard Invader enemy used in the Bubble Bobble games, while you are additionally being swamped with normal enemy Invaders of all three designs and even the UFO, all graphically redesigned to fit with the new sprite style of Symphony. If you do hit the UFO, it falls to the ground and its top comes off to reveal a yummy dish. Just... don't let the Invaders incinerate you.
  • Sins Of Our Fathers: Love It Or Hate It. However, they're really screwing us over with this. Anyone call Epileptic Trees here?
    • Bubble Symphony: The four protagonists are said to be the children of the two original heroes of the first Bubble Bobble, and the True Final Boss targets them for what their parents did to him. Weird because Super and Hyper Drunk are supposed to be two separate entities. But then again there's Bub and Bob's Strong Family Resemblance, which can make new or uninformed players think they've been the same Bub and Bob.
      • Thinking about children, though, one can assume Bub and Kulu are first-Bub's children, and Bob and Coro are first-Bob's children, as the two of each group are always beside each other in cutscenes.
      • The flyer's Story section is (self-)contradictory on this one. It says that "a long time ago, four old men confined the evil Superdrunk in the book. As [the four of them] started to read the book, they freed Superdrunk who changed the children into bubble dragons and trapped them in this magical book world." And then Hyper Drunk's profile on the opposite page says that he was the one who banished the four. Even this flyer mixes up the Gannon Banned factor.
    • Bubble Bobble Part 2: Even more apparent descendants of the first two heroes according to the NES box back named Cubby and Rubby (or Robby according to the Game Boy version's intro). The manual inverts itself off this one however, and says it's the Bub and Bob of the first game.
  • Spikes Of Doom: Part 2, NES: Several levels have them. Also, when a protagonist walks above a certain enemy, it shoots its needle hat onto him, causing him to over-inflate, then deflate to normal and then die.
  • Stalked By The Bell: "Hurry up!"
  • Strong Family Resemblance: If the "children" story of Bubble Symphony is to be believed, then Bub and Bob in this game look just like Bub and Bob of Rainbow Islands/Parasol Stars. With a hair color change.
  • Surprise Difficulty: Let's see, you got two tiny cute little bubble dragons, and a lot of cute enemies. And they're all smiling or very cute looking. And the dragons die when they touch anything.
  • Super Deformed
  • Super Not Drowning Skills: See Kill It With Water above.
  • Super Star: The flashing multicolor heart in later levels.
  • Sweat Drop: Flying sweat drops when anyone is stunned or killed. More apparent (both flying and dripping sweat) in Symphony's cutscenes, which are Anime-styled.
  • Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Basically any female character wears a large or small bow across the top of their head (Coro and Kulu of Bubble Symphony), on one side of their head spike (Peb and Pab in Bubble Bobble Plus (Wii Ware)) or straight on, on the corner of their heads (three of the eleven Alcatraz victims in Rainbow Islands). Whether the characters in question have a tooth or not doesn't really apply anymore.
    • The Bubble Bobble Plus website shows Bub and Bob each with a two-bump tooth (or however one calls them; based directly on the original arcade flyers), and Pab and Peb each with a one-bump tooth. If not for Puzzle Bobble/Bust-a-Move SNES's depiction of Bub and Bob each with a flat tooth, the first description would be fully canonical.
  • Theme Twin Naming: Bub(blun/by) and Bob(blun/by). And Coro(ron/n) and Kulu(lun/n). Possibly Pab and Peb.
  • Title Confusion: Three second-installments and two third-installments, and the release orders and chronological story orders don't even match.
  • True Final Boss: Most if not all Bubble Bobble games, although some (including notoriously Bubble Memories) won't let the players face the regular Final Boss himself unless they get... you know.
  • Turns Red: Enemies who don't get bubbled before "Hurry up!" appears or who have escaped from being bubbled. Or the last one standing when the other enemies have been bubbled and popped.
  • Unwinnable: Bubble Memories and Puzzle Bobble / Bust-a-Move (SNES) because you die/lose too frequently.
  • Video Game Remake: The classic has been remade for the Game Boy Advance and the Nintendo DS. To very-slightly-less-than-perfect results. Bubble Bobble is also featured in Taito Legends, and Symphony in Taito Legends 2.
  • Visible Sigh: In the arcade version of Bubble Bobble when the player gets burned and thus incinerated. It goes by very quickly though.
  • Who Is This Guy Again - Character names are barely stated in the game itself. One must look at flyers or credits.
  • Wingdinglish: The secret rooms in Bubble Bobble and Bubble Symphony.
  • Woolseyism: Bubble Bobble's NES manual and Puzzle Bobble/Bust-A-Move's SNES port rely on such names as Bubble Buster for the iconic wind-up toy Zen-chan, Stoner for Mighta, Super Socket for the Invader, Willy Whistle for Drunk, etc. Puzzle Bobble gave the secret room Invincible Minor Minion Rascal the name Rubblen. But then Bubble Bobble Part 2's NES manual gives them wholly different names.
    • Self-contradictory in the NES/Virtual Console version of the first game in that if you beat the game with the best ending, a screen with both protagonists and all enemies show up credited with their original names.
    • Although Bub and Bob's short 3-letter names have been products of Woolseyism, they work better.
  • You Gotta Have Blue Hair: The humans' Hair Colors are played straight and subverted.
    • Bubble Bobble/Rainbow Islands/Parasol Stars: Both Bub and Bob have red hair. The weird hair (and skin) colors in the NES/Virtual Console versions do not count, as Bub and Bob already had those colors in their bubble dragon forms in that particular version due to NES limitations.
    • Bubble Symphony: Bub has light brown hair. Bob has dark brown hair (or is it black hair?). Coro has pink hair. Kulu has blonde hair.
    • Bubble Memories: Both Bub and Bob have dark brown hair.

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