Manual Stimulation: Bubble Bobble (Game Gear)

The Sega Game Gear port of Bubble Bobble may be my favorite home version of Taito's arcade classic.

Which of course means it's also one of my favorite Game Gear titles.

In fact, I love Bubble Bobble for Game Gear so much that one of my "bucket list" wishes as a games writer is to interview the folks who developed it so I can learn why they made some of the intriguing design choices they made. 

(Seriously, if you know anyone who used to work for the now-defunct, South Korea-based Open Corp and you can put me in touch with them, please let me know.)

Why am I such a huge fan of this portable iteration of Bubble Bobble? The main reason is that its Bob, Bub, enemy, and item sprites are the usual size, but its backdrops look as though they've been zapped with a shrink ray.

The result is that this Bubble Bobble port gives off some serious Godzilla vibes. As in, Bub and Bob—as well as their enemy combatants—tower over the surrounding environment. It feels strange, yet also thrilling.

It alters the gameplay quite a bit, too, which I'm sure will irk some Bubble Bobble lifers to no end. Personally, I like how it switches things up—even if it does obliterate the few strategies I've developed for other, more traditional versions of the game over the years.

Anyway, enough about the game itself. This post is supposed to be about the instruction manual that was packed inside copies of this small-screened take on Taito's seminal classic, so let's talk about it.

If you scroll back up a bit, you'll see the Bubble Bobble Game Gear manual kicks off with a two-page comic. Sure, it employs an art style I'm not a huge fan of, but it's still pretty sweet—if short.

Sadly, this booklet isn't as crammed full of lovely illustrations as I think it should be. Still, it includes enough of them that you're unlikely to feel let down at the end. 

Manual Stimulation: Bubble Bobble (Famicom Disk System, Limited Edition)

A few weeks ago, I published a post about the manual that came with copies of Bubble Bobble bought from Japanese Famicom Disk Writer kiosks back in the late 1980s. (I also published a post filled with photos of that version's packaging.)

The booklet you see here was stuffed inside of an adorable plastic pencil case along with a copy of Bubble Bobble's surprisingly adept Famicom port. I refer to that release as a "limited edition" in the headline above, although I have to admit I'm not entirely sure it actually was limited in quantity.

Regardless, it helps differentiate this Bubble Bobble package from the previously mentioned Famicom Disk Writer one, so I'm sticking with it unless otherwise corrected.

At any rate, this Bubble Bobble Famicom instruction manual is similar to its Disk Writer counterpart with two major exceptions: the former is a lot larger than the latter (in fact, it's probably the biggest Famicom manual I've seen to date) and it's also in full color rather than in just pink and green.

The size of the Bubble Bobble Limited Edition's booklet is to blame for this post featuring single-page scans rather than double-page ones, by the way. My scanner just isn't big enough for me to capture entire spreads, so I was forced to go with what you'll encounter throughout this write-up.

In the end, some of you may consider that to be the preferred option, as it allows you to focus on the beauty that is this particular version of the Bubble Bobble Famicom manual.

And it is pretty darn beautiful, wouldn't you agree? OK, so the first few pages aren't mind-blowingly amazing or anything like that, but they're still packed with both big and small details that make them decidedly appealing--or at least that's how I think of them.

Take the adorable little illustrations that can be seen above and below. If you can't quite make them out, click on the scan in question and you'll be able to take a much closer look.

My favorite components, though, are the more substantial pieces of art, like the massive Super Drunk--or Super-Drunk as the back of this booklet proclaims--situated in the lower-right corner of the following page.

Manual Stimulation: Bubble Bobble (Famicom Disk System)

As promised in my last post about the packaging produced for the "Disk Writer" version of Bubble Bobble's Famicom Disk System port, here is that Japanese release's instruction manual.

Something I've got to say right off the bat is that I'm sorry if the scans offered up here seem overly pale. The fact is, they pretty accurately depict the real-world product.



Thankfully, they look a lot better when you click on them and blow them up a bit, so I'd highly recommend doing just that as you work your way through this write-up.



Anyway, the first real page of Bubble Bobble's Famicom Disk Writer booklet (below) shares the game's rather simplistic story--rescue Bub's and Bob's girlfriends from the "Cave of Monsters"--complete with an abundance of exclamation points.



The next page, as you probably can make out, explains Bubble Bobble's wonderfully straightforward controls.



The couple of pages that follow (see above and below) attempt to expand that education by sharing a few more advanced strategies that can be employed while playing this classic single-screen platformer.



It isn't until the 10th and 11th pages of Bubble Bobble's Famicom Disk Writer manual that we get to the really good stuff. In this case, that means bios of the game's protagonists (the aforementioned Bub and Bob, or Bubblun and Bobblun in Japan) and chief antagonists.

Manual Stimulation: Bubble Bobble Junior (Japanese GameBoy)

Last week, I published a "Manual Stimulation" post that focused on this game's predecessor. Would you believe I prefer that manual to this one? I ask because that's pretty much the only thing related to the first Bubble Bobble GameBoy title that I prefer to its sequel.



That's not to say Bubble Bobble Junior's manual is a total stinker. On the contrary, some of it is rather nice--with the cover (above) being a prime example.



Unfortunately, it doesn't take this manual's designers long to pass up some golden opportunities. The right-hand page above is a case in point, with Bubble Bobble Junior's backstory being relegated to a third of a page of text. Would it have killed someone to come up with a few doodles to accompany it?



The next few pages aren't much more appealing, I'm afraid, as the high point (if it can even be called that) of this section of the manual is two shots of the game's title screen.



At least the next few pages showcase a few photos of the game in action, although I doubt anyone would describe them as thrilling.





Now we're getting somewhere! Kind of. I think. Oh, well, at least we get to look at an adorable illustration of Bub (or Bob) on the left-hand page below.



Just like the manual produced for this game's predecessor, Bubble Bobble Junior's saves its best pages for last.



In fact, I think the enemy drawings above are even cuter than the ones that can be found in the first Bubble Bobble's booklet. If only there were a few more of them...

See also: previous 'Manual Stimulation' posts

Manual Stimulation: Bubble Bobble (Japanese GameBoy)

I'm always a bit disappointed the first time I flip through an instruction manual that's associated with a game from Taito's Bubble Bobble series.

I guess it's because all of these single-screen platformers are so bursting with color and charm that it can be a bit of a bummer to discover their manuals tend to be black-and-white affairs.

If you can get past that initial devastating blow, though, you're likely to find that these manuals do have their moments, despite being (mostly) free of color.

The booklet below, made for the Japanese GameBoy version of Bubble Bobble, is a good example.



One thing I've really come to like about Japanese GameBoy manuals in recent years is how many of them feature a single color that bolsters and even brings a bit of softness to their otherwise monochrome pages.



The miniature illustrations on the following pages are completely fabulous--and tooth-achingly adorable--don't you think? And of course the subtle injection of color makes them even more so, in my opinion.





I particularly love one of the illustrations below, by the way--with the one in question being the one that depicts a couple of Zen-Chans being swept off a platform by water attack.