My Arcade Pocket Arcade Bubble Bobble

My Arcade Pocket Arcade

When will I ever learn? I just saw these on the shelf, and thought "Hey there's Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands together, well that's not too bad."

Again, it turns out these are NES versions of the games, not the arcade originals. This time it should have been obvious as the box screenshots make it very clear.

Now I have to add these are not necessarily bad versions, but this does fall a little short of my expectations.

Rainbow Islands

There are three games, Bubble Bobble, Bubble Bobble 2 and Rainbow Islands, which is the "Story of Bubble Bobble 2". The Bubble Bobble 2 doesn't seem to be "Bubble Symphony" either, which I learned is also sometimes called "Bubble Bobble 2". Discombobulating, isn't it?

Bubble Bobble does what Bubble Bobble does. Many have fond memories of it as a simultaneous two-player game, so the PocketArcade one-player environment can be seen as a limitation.

Bubble Bobble 2

Bubble Bobble 2 was perhaps the most interesting of the three as I had no expectations or anything to compare it to. It's a 1990s NES game, with bigger and more varied graphics, but basically it's quite similar to Bubble Bobble. Perhaps it serves a little better as an one-player game, as each of the screens provides a clear problem-like situation.

Rainbow Islands makes it most painfully obvious that it's not the arcade version. I still guess it's better than the ZX Spectrum and C64 adaptations, but it's a far cry from the near-arcade perfect Amiga conversion. The music no longer has the Somewhere Over the Rainbow quote which is sad.

With not one, but two battery compartments

Physically, Pocket Arcade is quite nice, colourful item and the horizontal layout is natural. It's not flimsy, especially with the batteries it has a reassuring weight to it. Recalling the Pixel Arcade Data East hits handheld, it's an improvement.

The buttons have a good feel to them, and the screen, although tiny, is bright and crisp.

You can power it with 4 AAA batteries or with a micro-USB connector. It's therefore possible to use an external power pack, which is good as I have a 20000mAh workhorse. There's also a headphone connector which can be helpful in some situations. The volume level can be adjusted and muted entirely.

Running with reserve juice

There's some of the usual laziness, you can generally only get back from games and game over screens by using the reset button, which also means the volume level setting becomes reset.

There's no real reason why the product of this size couldn't contain more games, just as the Pixel Arcade did, but maybe it's envisioned as some kind of collectible.

So, why not, a few moments of enjoyment with PocketArcade. For 30-40€ -ish. Gnnh.