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Super Bust-A-Move Review
Written by Robert Falcon on Monday, August 20, 2007
Fun gameplay; closer to more recent versions of Bust-a-Move.
Overly repetitive music and slight problems with visuals.
Sure, Super Bust-a-Move may have come out so time ago for download on cell phones, but we've been playing a bit of catch-up between so many games lately that we missed out on it. Fortunately, Taito was there to remind us of its release and I managed to sit down with it and see how it turned out, hoping for something -- ANYTHING -- better than the drastically awful Puzzle Bobble for N-Gage. That port was so awful that I think Bub and Bob wanted to encase themselves in their own bubbles just to get away from the pain.
Anyway, in the game, players guide a little mini-cannon at the bottom of the screen, shooting upward at other bubbles. Once three or more bubbles are linked together, they eliminate from the screen, taking any extra bubbles attached along with them. Players have a certain amount of time in which to clear the screen. If the bubbles touch a line at the bottom, guess what. Game over.
The game resembles later versions of Bust-a-Move, like the ports found on the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn. However, this might be a little too much for the cell phone format. The graphics look nice but sometimes the huge amount of detail leads to aiming problems. If you're trying to aim the pointer at a specific gap in the area, chances are you might miss it just because it wasn't precise enough, or you didn't get a clear enough view of the playfield. The music sounds great in the game, but only plays in sound samples that last a few seconds. In other words, it repeats. Quite often, in fact.
Past that, the gameplay works fine. Players shoot bubbles and shoot more bubbles. It's not rocket science. But it still works well on the cell phone format, with players able to direct it left and right with ease. Only the aiming issue really comes into play here. Several stages must be beaten in order to win the game, but there's plenty to make your purchase worthwhile.
Super Bust-a-Move has seen better releases on bigger platforms, which benefit from a bigger TV to see the results of your shots better. However, for cell phone play, it's not bad. Limited in areas, sure, but it's still a slightly better port than expected. Maybe for the sequel we can see something with a smoother frame rate, multiplayer action and, hopefully, longer music. Seriously, must the soundtrack sample end not even a minute into starting to play? What's up with that?
