Bubble Rain (Imanok, 2001)
May 23, 2024
Bubble Rain for MSX2 is a simple, yet addictive, game. You are tasked with 64 rounds, in each of which you have to point a big arrow towards a few coloured bubbles, to shoot another bubble at them. The bubbles stick together, but when three of the same colour touch, they disappear. Any bubbles of other colours also sticking to those and nothing else, will vanish as well then. The goal in each round is to empty it completely.
The bubble gun/arrow is controlled by two rather cute dragons who look a lot like those in Taito’s Bubble Bobble. The green one to the right turns the arrow, while the blue one to the left fetches the next bubble to shoot. This way, you can see which colour the next bubble will be. In the picture above, the red bubble was shot at the wall. It will have bounced and maybe reached the other red ones above, in which case all five of them would have vanished. While you are shooting bubbles, the roof is coming down, pushing the bubbles toward you. This creates a time limit on your efforts. When one bubble drops below the line just above the arrow, it’s game over. Luckily, as is not uncommon with puzzle games, there are endless retries.
The 64 rounds are divided into eight worlds, each with their own music and side decorations. After each world, you receive a password. The music uses OPL4, but that doesn’t mean it won’t become annoying quickly. Imanok should have chosen to change music each round, like Psychnosis did with Lemmings. There is a second, and in my opinion, unneeded time limit created by the fact that after about seven seconds, the bubble will fire anyway, in whatever direction you’re pointing.
The first world is pretty straightforward, after which you get a somewhat more difficult world. Still, most of the rounds have a trick to them, where you can clear the entire round with just a couple of shots. The first picture above, for instance, requires you no more than 8 shots, since the arrow will only shoot bubbles in the colours that are still there.
It took me just two sessions to clear the first 62 rounds. The last two rounds, however, are a lot more tricky. Round 63 just presents you with six rows of randomly coloured bubbles. This means that you get useless bubbles all the time, and quickly it all becomes a big mess that is rapidly coming toward you. The final level had four long strings of bubbles, again in all colours, hanging from the top, which means you have to quickly start clearing them since there is almost no room for the ceiling to drop.
When you do finally make it, you get a nice animation with the two dragons before a huge pile of money. There is a bit of story here that involves a book and some monster threatening these worlds, a problem that has now been solved.
As I mentioned, Bubble Rain is fun, addictive, colourful and for the most part, not too demanding, so suitable for kids.