Puzzle Bobble (previously known as Bust-A-Move in the West) is a spinoff of the Bubble Bobble series. It puts the beloved cast of Bubble Bobble (and some new characters) into a puzzle game where you shoot bubbles and match 3 or more of the same color to pop them.
The first game was released in 1994, and has spawned a lot of sequels since then, along with countless imitators and clones.
Games in the Puzzle Bobble/Bust-A-Move series:
- Puzzle Bobble / Bust-A-Move (1994)
- Puzzle Bobble 2 / Bust-A-Move 2 aka Again (1995)
- Puzzle Bobble 2x (Japanese, 1995)
- Bust-A-Move 2: Arcade Edition (1998)
- Puzzle Bobble 3 / Bust-A-Move 3 (1996)
- Puzzle Bobble 64 / Bust-A-Move '99 / Bust-A-Move 3 DX (1999)
- Puzzle Bobble 4 / Bust-A-Move 4 (1997)
- Bust-A-Move Millennium (GBC) (2000)
- Super Puzzle Bobble / Super Bust-A-Move (PS2, GBA) (2000)
- Super Puzzle Bobble / Bust-A-Move All Stars, aka Bust-A-Move 3000 (GameCube)
- Azumanga Daioh Puzzle Bobble (Japanese, arcade - based off of Azumanga Daioh) (2001)
- Super Puzzle Bobble 2 / Super Bust-A-Move 2 (PS2) (2002)
- Puzzle Bobble DS (Japanese, DS) (2005)
- Bust-A-Move DS / Hippatte Puzzle Bobble (DS) (2005-06)
- Bust-A-Move Bash (Wii) (2007)
- Space Puzzle Bobble / Space Bust-A-Move / Puzzle Bobble Galaxy (DS) (2008-09)
- Puzzle Bobble Wii / Puzzle Bobble Plus! / Bust-A-Move Plus! (Wii) (2009)
- Puzzle Bobble Universe (3DS) (2011)
- Puzzle Bobble (Mobile/Facebook) (2014)
- Puzzle Bobble Journey / Bust-A-Move Journey (Mobile) (2017)
- Touhou Spell Bubble (Nintendo Switch) (2020)
- Puzzle Bobble 3D: Vacation Odyssey / Puzzle Bobble VR: Vacation Odyssey (PS4, PS5, Oculus Quest) (2021)
- Puzzle Bobble Everybubble! (Nintendo Switch) (2023)
Tropes found in the Puzzle Bobble series:
- Art Shift: In Puzzle Bobble Everybubble, the story of the Rainbow Town EX levels has Woolen temporarily go from the game's usual Super-Deformed style to a more detailed, less stylized anime style. Only Bub seems to notice anything different about her. Turns out this is the effect of a potion... that only works on Bub.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: Katze is an extraterrestrial being who has a bunch of weird abilities, such as turning his legs into a sphere and splitting his body in half while somehow appearing in the middle of his own split-open body.
- Blank White Eyes: Happens in Space Puzzle Bobble when Bob, an unlockable character, is about to lose.
- Bowdlerise: In the Western releases of Space Puzzle Bobble/Space Bust-A-Move, Gunman is renamed Cowboy.
- Brutal Bonus Level: In Puzzle Bobble Everybubble, beating all the levels with 3 stars in an area will unlock 10 EX Stages, which are significantly harder than the normal levels you just beat (designed to put even veterans to the test), and all levels are marked with a spicy warning sign.
- Checkpoint Starvation: In Space Puzzle Bobble/Space Bust-a-Move, unlike other/previous Puzzle Bobble/Bust-A-Move games, when you continue, you start from the first of the group of five levels all over again.
- Continuing is Painful: Continuing in Puzzle Bobble 1, 2, and 3 will reset the score to 0. See also Checkpoint Starvation above.
- Covers Always Lie: Super Bust-a-Move's western PlayStation 2 release has cover art of a random sunglasses-wearing baby with the game's title written on their face. How this is supposed to relate to the game (which is just standard Puzzle Bobble fare) is unclear.
- Critical Existence Failure: Implied in Puzzle Bobble/Bust-a-Move with the use of the bubble dragons' dizzy-dead and stunned sprites when the player loses.
- Crush Blush: In the Puzzle Bobble/Bust-a-Move series, Bub appears to have a crush on Woolen. It's very notable in her pre-battle cutscene in Puzzle Bobble 2: Arcade Edition where she instantly flirts with Bub by sweetly winking at him. Bub responds by shyly facing away from her and plays with his fingers as hearts start shooting out of him. A similar moment occurs in the arcade version of Super Puzzle Bobble, where Bub starts getting very flustered when Woolen decided to join him on his adventure.
- Descending Ceiling: In Puzzle Bobble and Puzzle Bobble 2, which tries to push the stacked bubbles toward the character and past the "lose" line. Replaced with floating nodes since 3, which act the same way.
- Ditching the Dub Names: The series was formerly known as Bust-a-Move in the West, but has since 2021 been released as Puzzle Bobble everywhere.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Puzzle Bobble/Bust-A-Move is the only game in the series for arcades to have twin Bubs/Bobs. The pointer machinery has been kept throughout, though. And series staples like special bubbles and the battle mode mode weren't introduced until the home console ports.
- Market-Based Title: Puzzle Bobble was previously titled Bust-a-Move in North America and sometimes Europe. Whether it was titled that way because of the popular Young MC song "Bust a Move" remains unknown to this day.note However, as of 2021, the Puzzle Bobble name has been consistently used in all regions.
- Little Bit Beastly: Woolen, a sheep girl who looks mostly humanoid aside from horns, wool around her torso, and hooves for feet.
- Marathon Level: Puzzle Bobble 3 has "tower" levels that are several screen heights tall. They take the place of a normal set of five levels. Clearing everything currently on the screen will award a bonus and scroll in the next several rows if not at the end of the level.
- Match-Three Game: The series is about shooting bubbles at each other, matching 3 or more of the same color to pop them.
- Mechanical Animals: Packy and Dream Cat 1, who are both robot cats.
- Mirror Match:
- They're not fighting against themselves, but in the first Puzzle Bobble/Bust-A-Move, twin Bubbluns or Bobbluns 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.
- Played straight in Puzzle Bobble 3's VS CPU mode: If Bubblun is selected, he faces himself in the first round. Yes, the green bubble dragon himself.
Averted if only player 2 (Bobblun) is playing; he faces Bubblun.
- Multiple Endings:
- Puzzle Bobble/Bust-A-Move 2: Joke endings are assigned to each letter at the end of the triangle path map of rounds.
- Story vs mode in Puzzle Bobble/Bust-A-Move 3 and 4 are based on which character you defeated Drunk/Dreg with.
- New Game Plus: The SNES version of Puzzle Bobble has 100 levels and the Final Boss Super Drunk to face as opposed to 30 levels in the arcade and subsequent arcade installments.
- No Fourth Wall: Puzzle Bobble Everybubble involves the cast being completely aware that they are part of a videogame. Develon's entire motivation happened to be that he wanted to have his levels playtested, and the "conflict" is resolved by Bub and Bob joining him in a level-making session.
- Palette Swap: Besides Bubblun and Bobblun, many palette swap bubble dragons skip around during Puzzle Bobble 3's credits.
- Pinball Scoring: Scores can get into the hundreds of millions of points in Puzzle Bobble 2 and onward.
- Recycled In Space: Space Puzzle Bobble/Space Bust-A-Move is basically just Bubble Bobble, but set in space.
- Refugee from TV Land: The new characters in Puzzle Bobble 3 are characters from various in-universe games who were brought into the Puzzle Bobble world - for example, Twinkle is from a quiz game and Musashi is from a Street Fighter-esque fighting game. Their intro screens show the "games" they originate from.
- Shout-Out:
- Puzzle Bobble 3's extended levels feature a set of bubble designs based on the helmets of the heroes from Himitsu Sentai Gorenger. These levels are also marked by classic enemy sprites.
- The intro to Puzzle Bobble 3's VS CPU mode's 1st round shows the opponent Bubblun arriving at the first Bubble Bobble level with Zen-chans that get knocked out immediately, despite its title screen showing up as Puzzle Bobble 3.
- The subsequent opponents' intros show off parodies of other Taito properties (and Street Fighter) - for example, Bubblun's Quiz Go! Go! is a reference to Taito's quiz game Yūyu no Quiz de Go! Go!
- Classic sprites appear at each last stage of the single-player mode of Puzzle Bobble 2, the stage map of Puzzle Bobble 3, and in the background of DreamCat1's world in Space Puzzle Bobble/Space Bust-A-Move where retro Zen-chans are being remade into a newer style in a factory.
- Snot Bubble: For a series revolving around bubbles, the closest the series ever shows one is the first Puzzle Bobble's arcade ending.
- The Starscream: Clurion/Cleon from Puzzle Bobble 4 is shown to not really like working for Madame Luna. If you finish Story vs mode as her, she overthrows her mistress and uses the magic of the rainbow bubbles to create chaos and mischief wherever she goes.
- Story Branching: The single-player modes in Puzzle Bobble 2 and onward, with groups of levels laid out in a triangle and the player being able to go left or right at each junction. Bubble Symphony also generally works this way with the ability to go "left" or "right" through a triangle of areas note though it is not as obvious unless one uses a guide.
- Sweat Drop: The twin Bubbluns/Bobbluns sweat quite a lot while they blow air through the pipe and spin the mechanism's wheel in the first Puzzle Bobble/Bust-A-Move game.
- Sweet Sheep: Woolen is a cheerful, playful, and cute humanoid female sheep with pink wool. She's very close friends with Bub and is frequently seen flirting with him in some of the games (notably in Puzzle Bobble 2: Arcade Edition and Super Puzzle Bobble).
- Tarot Motifs:
- Puzzle Bobble 3 has playable character Lunaluna shout the name of Tarot cards out when bubbles drop down rather than being popped; The Star for one or two bubbles, The Moon for three or four, The World for five or more.
- Story mode in Puzzle Bobble 4 is centred entirely on Tarot cards with your task being to seal the arcana inside each card by solving the puzzles for each level. Your reward for doing this is an automated Tarot reading function on the main menu.
- Wingding Eyes: In Puzzle Bobble 2, Bubblun, seen from the side, gets X eyes when getting freaked out by a red jack-in-the-box character with a giant round metal scissor blade on his head.
