Indeed, the only way to get to Bubble Bobble’s true ending was for two players to work together. While players could compete over the items that appeared on the screen, the game encouraged cooperation rather than aggression.
”, while 1987’s seminal beat-'em-up Double Dragon ended with its players fighting to the death over the woman they had just rescued.īubble Bobble, on the other hand, had a far lighter atmosphere. The four-player Gauntlet, released in 1985, warned that “shots do not hurt other players-yet. If two-player games existed at all in '80s arcades, they were usually competitive and violent. Mitsuji’s concept was unusual for its time. That's why I designed cute characters and included cooperative play in Bubble Bobble." 3.
"So I thought bringing more couples would help solve this issue. "Back then, women were rarely seen in Japanese arcades," Mitsuji later said in a video interview for the video game compilation, Taito Legends. Noticing that arcades in Japan were commonly frequented by men, he wanted to create a game that couples could enjoy together. For his next game, however, Mitsuji wanted to create something very different from the experiences commonly found in arcades at the time. IT WAS AIMED AT COUPLES.īubble Bobble was designed by Fukio Mitsuji, who joined Taito in his mid-20s and initially worked on such games as Super Dead Heat, Land Sea Air Squad, and the (very good) vertical shooter Halley’s Comet. Nevertheless, many of the enemies and collectible items are identical to those in Taito’s later classic-the purple enemies called Monstas make their first appearance here, while two levels in Bubble Bobble directly reference Chack'n Pop. Some of the mechanics are a bit strange: Chack’n’s primary attack is a grenade-like weapon, which is quite difficult to control.
The aim is to retrieve a heart from one corner of the maze-like screen before rushing back to the top. Some of Bubble Bobble’s ideas appear here in nascent form: a single-screen platform game where the player controls a weird chicken-like creature (the Chack’n of the title). IT HAS ITS ROOTS IN AN EARLY 1980s TITLE.īefore Bubble Bobble, there was Chack’n Pop, a far more obscure platform game released by Taito in 1983. Here are a few things you might not know about the '80s classic that started it all.
Widely ported to home computers and consoles, Bubble Bobble marked the start of a long-running series of sequels and spin-offs that is still remembered fondly today. Originally released in 1986, Bubble Bobble is a colorful platform video game with a fiendishly addictive two player co-op mode, which quickly became an arcade hit for Taito.