Once upon a time, in an era where arcades were the verdant breeding grounds of gaming’s next big thing, there was a little game called Bubble Bobble. This cutesy platformer from Taito followed the adventures of Bob and Bub, a pair of diminutive dragons who used the power of bubbles to dispatch their enemies in adorable fashion.
It became a seminal platforming blueprint in its own right, and that mixture of single-screen mayhem and the one-two punch of its enemy takedowns spawned many a clone in the years that followed. Over 30 years on, the indie-made Robbotto is less of a soulless clone and more of an open-hearted love letter to a golden age of simple yet addictive arcade coin-‘em-ups.
Playable solo or in local co-op, you step into the shoes of Robb and/or Otto, a pair of maintenance droids working on a starship cruising through space. However, when the ship passes through a magnetic storm all the other robots onboard malfunction and, naturally, turn maliciously haywire. Safely protected in the shield generator room, the robotic duo must now traverse over 100 single-screen levels and get those pesky bots back under control.
The neat twist here is Robb and Otto aren’t here to destroy their fellow machines, but disable them. They’re more Wall-E than T-1000, so they don’t have access to an arsenal of weapons. Instead, they can fire a spark over a short distance and spray a light fountain of water. One hit of your spark will shock a foe, while a spray of water will disable them entirely. Much like Bubble Bobble’s bubble and spike jump combo, your offensive tools never change but the enemies you encounter will, forcing you to adapt to each one’s movement pattern and projectiles.
With 20 different enemy types to tackle - and ten unique bosses to take down individually every ten levels - Robbotto walks a line between pure frustration and glorious victory as you use nothing more than skill and a dash of luck to defeat single-screen levels filled with deadly chaos. The game mostly manages to avoid straying into deep pits of needless over-complication, although its difficulty curve does steep sharply early on. It’s true to its arcade roots in that sense, but it might alienate some players looking for more of a sedate puzzle/platform experience.
Since you only have three lives to your name (with the chance to replace any that you've lost by hitting certain score milestones), developer JMJ Interactive has made the wise move to include a save system that protects your progress after completing each level. You’ll lose your score, but you can pick up right where you left off as fight your way to the final level. Considering just how many challenging level layouts and enemy combinations you’ll encounter, you’ll soon be thankful for a save feature over a dwindling number of continues.
Things are certainly a little more forgiving when played together in co-op. Working great in both tabletop mode via split Joy-Cons or on your TV in docked mode, Robbotto’s two-step takedown method gets even more rewarding when one player stuns while another sprays in short windows of opportunity. It’s just a shame, however, that you can only save one campaign run at a time. Should you want to start playing co-op with a friend, you’ll need to delete whichever save is currently stored.
Support for multiple saves seems an obvious solution, but even the use of drop-in/drop-out co-op would have helped bridge the gap between either play type. It doesn’t render the game unplayable by any stretch of the imagination, but it removes any sense of casual ‘pick-up-and-play’ fun if you’re looking to play co-op with a friend while simultaneously progressing through the ‘story’ on your own.
Still, whether you choose to play solo or with a mate, there’s still plenty to do with that lengthy Adventure mode, and an extra Boss Rush mode that sets you the gauntlet of facing its ten big bads in a row. Add in local leaderboard support (because any arcade-inspired title worth its salt wouldn’t ship without a high score tracker - although it's odd this one doesn’t support any form of online leaderboard) and you’ve got a fun little trip into gaming’s glorious past.
Conclusion
While it’s as much a tribute act to Bubble Bobble as it is a game in its own right, Robbotto still manages to offer a fun trip down retro memory lane. The simple chiptunes will have you longing to dust off your Commodore 64 or ZX Spectrum, while its 20 enemy types (and ten bosses) do a decent job of keeping you on your toes as the difficulty starts to ramp up. It’s just a shame starting a co-op campaign will wipe your single-player progress and vice-versa. It’s a bizarrely backwards issue in an otherwise positive retro celebration.
Comments 21
Domo arigato.
The only reservation I have with this game is the fact that Hamster have released Bubble Bobble on the arcade archives, so hopefully it's Switch bound. Failing that, this does look to be influenced by that game.
As a Bubble Bobble fan, I can't understand how the hell it's possible to compare this game with the original.
For me it's like comparing Shaq Fu with Street Fighter II... o_O
Like, ow they're fighters in both games so it's the same kind of stuff.
Play Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Islands, Parasol Stars, Bubble Symphony, Bubble Memories or even Nightmare in the dark or SnowBros or Rod Land or DonDokoDon if you like that kind of games. Those are, by far, much better from my perspective.
@Cobalt have you played this then?
@Stocksy
Just by watching how it moves, how it looks and how it plays... trust me I don't need to play it to see what's wrong with a "Bubble Bobble fake clone" less polished than a game from 1986. ^^
@Cobalt Snow Bros! Haven't played that game for ages, not even sure if you can play it legitimately anymore.
@wazlon
I finished it again, a month ago on my arcade !
Tuff last boss but doable.
@AlexOlney Nice one!
My issue with this game is that it is less interesting visually than the 32 year old game it is inspired by.
Probably the ugliest game I've seen in years.
$10 ?! Come on. You should be able to expect a whole lot more for that amount. You could buy full games on sale for other consoles for $10
Hey guys, I really hate to do this, especially when it's on a good review but isn't this posted early? I heard the embargo was August 16 at 12am PT.
https://youtu.be/BtLhF6RpMbc
Worst trailer ever. No way this is a 7/10 game. And I love Bubble Bobble, Rodlands etc
Those graphics are less 80s era and more Wii U indie shovelware era, you know RCMADIAX, Skunk Software and the likes. The Switch has been thankfully mostly free of that bottom of the barrel level of quality so far so I hope this is a rare exception rather than a sign of things to come.
Guys, you do know a game can be similar to another whilst not being as good right? Saying this doesn't look like Bubble Bobble blows my mind!
the graphics are pretty terrible
This might be why there’s no virtual console
@Cobalt "Just by watching how it moves, how it looks and how it plays..."
Wow, I wonder why reviewers bother playing games at all, when apparently, just watching a short video would give them enough information to decide whether other people should buy a game or not
@Kochambra
You forget that I have roughly 2000 hours of "Bubble Bobble serie" as background behind me...
If only I'd had this game on the Commodore 64 back in the day... I would have turned it off and played The Last Ninja instead.
The graphics look so flat and uninteresting...
@DrJiggle That gave me a chuckle.
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