Puzzle Bobble VS

"This is just bad."

Now I haven't played any other Puzzle Bobble/Bust a Move game except for Bust a Move 4 on the Dreamcast, which was quite fun, but I decided to get this just to add to my N-Gage game collection. Let me just tell you now, this game is neither fun nor difficult, compared to the Dreamcast game at least.

Graphics: 4
Now the only reason why this section got a high score (compared to the rest anyway) was because in between each stage, it has a 3D animation of your opponent, which looks very nice and very smooth. Unfortunately that's the only really good thing to look at. The back grounds in-game are quite bland, the characters are animated very poorly, and worst of all, the bubbles and pointer is EXTREMELY hard to see. Taito were stupid enough to put red and light purple bubbles in the game, which you cannot really tell the difference without really focusing on them. The pointer which shoots out these bubbles is so small and thin, you just can't see where exactly you are shooting (which can get quite tedious when trying to make accurate aims).

Sound: 2
There isn't really a whole range of sound effects in this game, just the same sound effect repeated over and over again when you shoot a bubble, voices from the opponent, and that's pretty much it. There aren't a whole range of voices either. I say there's about 2 voices for each character, if that.

Music: 1
I hope you like the Puzzle Bobble/Bust A Move main theme, because that is the only song in the game (besides the credits music). It isn't exactly good either, and gets very repetitive and annoying after stage 2.

Game Play: 2
This game is easy, even on the hardest difficulty. There's around 8 stages (i think) and they are very easy to beat. I completed the entire game, through the Easy difficulty to the Hardest difficulty in about 2 hours, maybe less. The pointer and the stupid colour range of the bubbles is what makes the game hard, not the opponent. Another thing that isn't here is the 'traveling up the alphabet' part of the game, or the card collection game which was in Bust a Move 4. The only way to play the game is to play the CPU, which was just stupid, because they forced both game screens onto the N-Gage's small screen making both screens hard to see. The N-Gage's screen is vertical, so they could of easily done a perfect arcade port, but instead, they just messed it up, completely. The only reason why I didn't give it a 1 is because it has a multi-player option of up to 4 players, which I suppose is better than the vs CPU mode, but good luck finding another N-Gager with this game.

Replayability: 1
I haven't touched this game since I completed it. It's just not fun nor hard. The graphics aren't nice to look at, the music isn't catchy and the game is just dull and repetitive.

Overall: 2
Compared to bust a move 4, which had nice graphics, ok music, and was actually challenging and had more modes than vs CPU, this version is just bad. I bought it just to add to my game collection, but it's nothing that you should go near if you're looking for fun.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 02/18/05