This game is tough, especially if you don't know how to get the chests for items you need, and avoid the bad items. Truly a game, when it was released in arcades, that was ahead of it's time. I find the Famicom and Game Boy ports as well pretty faithful, so I bought them, and have Namco Museum Volume 3 for the arcade game.
I still remember when I saw this game for the first time in the arcades. It was 1988 when I was 14 years old. It was love at first sight, I immediately fell in love with it. I remember that people didn't play too much due to its excessive difficulty. Personally, it took me about a year to finish the game. In those years there was no internet or anything like that. For me it is a very special game and anyone who knows me personally knows what it means. What this game means to me. Today I can boast of having the original Japanese version arcade pcb. Look me video pcb arcade,greetings from spain ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-qU0LHRNJDCE.html
For it's time, a very complex game. There was no internet to share information on how to get chests, and what items don't hurt you back then, so I heard players wrote in notebooks strategies on what to do in each level. Myself I have the arcade version on a couple Namco collections, the good Famicom version, and the good Game Boy version. I have seen the PC Engine version, it is updated, and extremely nice. I also like the sequel, Return of Ishtar, but it seems less focused on battle, and more on escaping the Tower.
I like the Yamato boss, Bubble Symphony nicely parodied the boss in it. I have 4 versions of this game, the Saturn and PS2 versions don't give you good screen zoom like this version does as they don't seem to be widescreen, while the SMS, aka the Mark III and the Genesis/MD fits everything into the proper screen size.
Though we saw a new game recently for this series, I will always have love for this arcade original, and it's 2 SFC sequels. The SFC games are expensive, and we saw both in America, I was lucky to buy the second SNES game for $25. The store selling it thankfully did not see the online value for the game, or I could've paid much, much more. I have had no such luck with the first SNES game, it is too high, and watching people game shop in Japan, the two SFC games even over there fetch a premium price.
This game is legendary for it's difficulty, I have seen few people clear this game. It is part of my collection on the PS2 and PSP, along with Gradius IV. My favorite of the series remains Gradius Gaiden to this day.
I eventually want to get the Famicom version, despite Micronics working on it. We got it on Capcom Classics Collection Volume 1 during the PS2 era, that is how I play it.
I'm amazed Capcom has not jumped on board with the Arcade Archives series. Sure they produced a lot of licensed games, but they have a lot of games that could see a release this way, but choose not to.
Though Cave has been quiet awhile, to me this is one of their greatest games in my humble opinion, this and Dodonpachi Dai Ou Jou. This game is vicious, even more so in the second loop, and the games true last boss is a nightmare.
My favorite Namco game, I love the cool scaling effects this game has, something the System 2 hardware was great at. The music is also fantastic for this game. This game is why I bought Namco Museum Volume 5 for the PS1, I always wanted this game to play on a console, and I didn't have to pay a lot for a nice Japanese copy of the game online, the money spent was worth it for this game.
Ahhh so now I find the video of the person who first topped this ACA's leaderboards, nice playthrough. This series, the Bubble Bobble series, is my favorite game series of all. Getting the diamonds in correct order for each island is quite a tough task to do.
