Full review of Puzzle Bobble 3D: Vacation Odyssey from Survios on PSVR. The first instalment of Taito’s classic series to appear on VR.
Puzzle Bobble VR from Survios brings the classic match-3 bubble action to VR for the first time, but has it translated well, or has the bubble burst?
First off, big thanks to the developer for providing me with a review key for this game but as always the opinions presented here are entirely my own.
I’ve been a Puzzle Bobble fan for a long time, and a Bubble Bobble fan for even longer. For anyone who somehow doesn’t know, the basic aim is to fire bubbles of various colours at a wall of other bubbles and match the colours to make them burst.
Puzzle Bobble has traditionally been presented in 2D and by shifting into 3D Survios have quite literally given it a twist. In 3D the bubbles are now floating in front of you attached to a central core and shooting bubbles causes the entire structure to spin and rotate around it, with the ultimate aim being to burst the outer bubbles and destroy the core. This adds a new level of challenge as where you could traditionally have planned a few moves ahead, you now find that the next shot you were planning may suddenly not be possible due to the target moving out of sight. This means you’re constantly re-evaluating with almost every shot, although with more practise it is possible to get the cluster of bubbles to spin in your favour. It’s also possible to shoot past the bubbles and then have your shot come back, boomerang style, and stick to the back of the pack, sometimes intentionally but more often than not purely accidentally. In later levels you’ll also find bubbles attached to multiple cores which can result in the bubbles breaking off into several clusters all of which have to be dealt with separately. Instead of the usual static bubble cannon that you tilt left and right, you now have a handheld bubble cannon that you use slingshot-style by loading up a bubble and pulling back with your other hand to set the strength of shot. It’s a similar feeling to playing Angry Birds VR and is equally simple to pick up and play. Your partner in crime Bob is always nearby with the next bubble at the ready, and it’s possible to swap your current bubble with the one Bob is holding if it’s a more useful colour.
There are three game modes, Story, Duel and Infinite.
In story mode the game offers up 100 levels of bubble popping action set against the backdrop of a series of different islands, loosely held together by some occasional storyboarding although the story itself’s really not that integral to the game. There are a few different types of level, including some which give you a limited number of shots and some with a limited amount of time. As you progress new gameplay elements or types of bubble are gradually introduced. These include bubbles containing little creatures called Chack’ns which you have to release, and bubbles that increase or decrease your number of remaining shots. All of this helps to prevent the game from becoming too stale.
Duel mode offers a 1v1 online mode where you’re both trying to clear your bubbles and send additional cores to the other player. Unfortunately prior to release I was unable to find any online matches so will have to report back on this aspect of the game in a future video, but it’s certainly nice that the mode is included as online multiplayer is something that rarely seems to make it into PSVR games.
Infinite mode does what it says on the tin, giving you a non-stop mode where you have to clear groups of bubbles before they float up into a swirling vortex in the sky. Things get quite intense in this mode, especially when you’re dealing with multiple clusters of bubbles at once, and it’s a nice addition to extend the replayability of the game.
Throughout the game you earn coins which can be spent unlocking three powerups, or recharging them if you already own them. The powerups include a bomb, which explodes a small area of bubbles, a paint palette, which allows you to choose the colour of your bubble and a compass which allows you to rotate the pack of bubbles at will. These can be useful but the cost to unlock them is quite high and it’ll take you a while to earn enough to unlock all three.
As you’d expect from a studio like Survios, the graphics and general presentation of the game are top-notch. The character models have made a great transition to 3D and are as adorable as ever, although it’s a shame you can’t choose your character from Bub, Bob, Peb and Pab, who all appear in the game. The bubbles look suitably bubbly, environments are really colourful and varied, whilst not being too distracting, and at some points I really wished it was possible to walk around and explore the islands. It’s a shame there isn’t more interaction with the environments to add a little more fun. You can fire a bubble at Bob, much to his annoyance, and you can shoot pelicans that occasionally appear for a few points, but when I see things like hornet nests hanging in trees, or little piles of rocks nearby, I instinctively want to shoot them and see what happens but alas, nothing does. It’s also a bit disappointing that the story is told through static 2D cartoons, it would have been nice to see some 3D cutscenes or at least some 2.5D cartoons with some depth to them.
The sound and music is great, with an upbeat original score consisting of several tracks by the Zuntata sound team and all the familiar sounds you’d expect to hear in a Puzzle Bobble game, including all the cute speech effects.
Move controllers are required for this game (DualShock is supported for the flatscreen version) and as mentioned control is simple enough to learn. Be warned, it can get quite tiring on the arms! The controls work well for the most part but can be a bit twitchy when lining up a shot, which can cause your carefully aimed shot to go off course just as you release the trigger. This didn’t happen too often but was frustrating when it did as some shots require almost pixel perfect alignment. It might have been useful to offer some kind of lock-on button so you could lock your shot before firing, but conversely I can imagine that would make things too easy. The game can be played seated or standing and provides options for a variety of colour-blind modes for those who might struggle with the default bubble colours.
Overall I had a great time with Puzzle Bobble and I think the jump to 3D and VR has been done successfully and adds enough to the formula to make it interesting, even to seasoned players. The 100 levels of story mode actually give a surprising amount of playtime and will probably take the best part of 5-6 hours to get through, and that’s without trying to get the best possible score on each level. The first few levels may not be that challenging, and there are times when the repetition threatens to creep in, but the variety of level types, special bubbles and different environments just about keep things interesting. If you weren’t a fan of the previous games in the series this is unlikely to change your mind, but if you have a soft spot for Bub and Bob or are looking for a pick up and play puzzler, then this is well worth a go. It’s available for a very reasonable £15.99/$20 and for that price you also get access to the PS4 and PS5 flatscreen versions.
