The Bubble Shooter Returns: Our Definitive Puzzle Bobble Everybubble! Steam Review!
The iconic bubble shooter returns with a vibrant bursting of colorful spheres that aims to swallow up your spare hours. Your screen quickly fills with tactical geometry as you line up shots, bouncing projectiles off walls to clear crowded boards before the clock runs down. It tries hard to capture that old-school puzzle magic, delivering high stakes as layers of bubbles slowly creep downward toward an unforgiving game-over threshold.
[Specs] [Performance] [Performance] [Settings]
Puzzle Bobble Everybubble! Steam Review
- Developer: TAITO CORP., ArcSystemWorks
- Publisher: ArcSystemWorks
- Official Store Listing: Steam Product Page
- Download Size: 2.29GB download size.
- Steam Integration: Steam achievements.
- Game Modes: Three game modes – Story, Vs, and Puzzle Bobble Vs Space Invaders.
- Story Progression: The story mode has a world map level select, where you can fly around on your balloon and choose your adventure.
- Cutscenes: Cutscenes are still art interactions, and they start with a tutorial match.
- Performance Rewards: Earn stars for your performance and unlock new levels and locations.
- Bonus Challenges: Unlocked harder EX levels by beating a location set of levels with 3 stars on each.
- Character Customisation: Each character has multiple costumes or accessories.
- The Memory Album: The memory album contains found and unlocked characters, buddies, and a music player.
- Help System: Help menu shows text and image manuals for each of the game modes and details objectives, mechanics, and controls.
Puzzle Bobble Everybubble! Steam Review
The bubble popping gameplay relies entirely on a delicate mix of puzzle and strategy. You have a small aim line, and the goal is to shoot your colored bubble into the same colored bubbles to clear them, and any bubble attached below them will drop as well. To keep things moving, you can switch which bubble you use from the ones you have access to around your character. Power-ups and different obstacles will come into the game and add different dimensions to the gameplay. You can save a power-up and use it when you choose, but you can only hold one at a time. Bubbles you shoot will bounce off walls, but will always stick to another bubble regardless of colour.
The Puzzle Bobble Vs Space Invaders mode is a block of bubbles moving from side to side and slowly works its way down until it hits the red line, and it’s game over. There are still multiple bubble popping combos, and aliens will shoot at you, while you move side to side and can only shoot up. You still have two bubbles at one time, so you can swap between them. I found the Bubble Bobble Vs Space Invaders to be the best addition to the game. It is a lot more fun than the base game, it’s just a huge shame it doesn’t have online leaderboards. Going from level to level is just slow enough that it drags, which is more noticeable early on as you clear levels in seconds. Additionally, they have very little, no leaderboards or replays, rewinds, etc., and it is very basic. In story mode, you can add Com players to your team. Adding in Com players to join you lessens some of the pain of later levels, and it does seem like a weird addition, as it can play so much of the game for you.
Puzzle Bobble Everybubble! Steam Review: Performance & Fidelity
- Visual Quality: Great graphics.
- Loading Performance: Lightning-fast loading times.
Settings, Customisation & Control Details
- Controller Support: Full controller support.
- Graphics Options: Graphics settings – screen size, display brightness, and pattern mode (colored or symbols). Not a lot of choice at all.
- Control Remapping: You can remap the controls for both the controller and keyboard, and for each local controller player up to 4.
- Audio Configuration: Audio sliders for voices, SFX, music, and vibration on and off.
- Multiplayer Functionality: Vs mode lets you play local or online, and offline it supports up to four players and online you can create a room, both private or public, password-protected, and global matches.
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Puzzle Bobble Everybubble! Steam Review
Summary
GOOD STUFF
The game features great graphics and lightning-fast loading times that prevent you from staring blankly at loading screens. The core bubble popping mechanics feel accurate, and flipping through your balloon on the story mode world map to earn stars and unlock secret EX levels keeps you moving forward. Best of all, the Puzzle Bobble Vs Space Invaders mashup mode is an absolute blast, requiring you to dodge alien lasers while managing your matching strategy, making it easily the most entertaining section of the package. It is also excellent that you can fully remap control layouts for up to four local players across both pads and keyboards, alongside unlocking cool costumes and character tracks in the memory album.
BAD STUFF
Unfortunately, the aiming line is incredibly small right from the get-go, and the developers give you absolutely zero options to modify it, turning what should be a casual time into a frustrating wall for newer players. The level-to-level transitions drag severely, which feels incredibly sluggish early on when you are destroying stages in a matter of seconds, only to sit through unskippable pacing dips. The menus and feature sets feel painfully basic, offering no replay feature, rewinds, or standard competitive leaderboards for the custom modes. On top of that, being forced to play under strict level timers with no option to toggle them off is incredibly annoying, and adding AI Com players into your story mode squad to ease the late-game difficulty feels like a bizarre design choice since the computer ends up playing almost the entire game for you anyway.
FINAL VERDICT
Puzzle Bobble Everybubble! makes its way to PC with great arcade visuals and strong local multiplayer features, but it lands with a distinctly bare-bones execution. While the core bubble-matching stays intact and the Space Invaders mode shines as a brilliant highlight, the lack of leaderboard support and missing quality-of-life options like an adjustable aim line hold it back. It is a solid puzzle distraction for a weekend session with friends, but the clunky transitions and basic presentation mean it might struggle to hold your attention for the long haul.
