Bubble Town 2 - Review

Windows Telephone is just crawling with puzzle games, both of the indie and Xbox Live varieties. Puzzlers are probably the single easiest blazon of game to develop and they're well-suited to playing on the go, and so information technology makes sense. Chimera Town 2 from I-Play is one such game, released early on for Xbox Live. It'due south an adaptation of a one time-pop Facebook game that since been pulled past the publisher. Chimera Town may be a ghost town on Facebook, only is it worth visiting on Windows Phone? Perhaps…

Bubble Town's got something of a story, aimed at the immature'uns. A bunch of evil aliens chosen Lumps are invading Bubble Town, and it'south upward to the Borbs to stop them. See, even though Chimera Town has the give-and-take chimera in its name and is a clone of a spin-off of Bubble Bobble - Bust-a-Move/Puzzle Bobble, the game doesn't technically incorporate whatsoever bubbles. They're Borbs. The writing in the pre-level story sequences is about what you lot'd expect from a cut-charge per unit kids' cartoon evidence, though it does at least inject some personality into the proceedings. Impatient gamers tin always skip past them anyway.

Shoot past the intermission for our full review.

The expect of terror

Earlier I say anything about Bubble Town ii'due south game play, I must address the game'southward biggest fault: the graphics. As yous tin can surely tell from the screenshots, Bubble Boondocks 2 is ane ugly game. The Borbs in particular are just entirely hideous – the stuff of nightmares. The game forces players to expect upon their frightening visages at the title screen, during story scenes, and upon completing each level.

The actual backgrounds and map graphics look pretty bad also… Everything seems to accept been rendered on 3D before having most of its colors removed, which never ever produces pleasing results. t boggles the mind how an artistic team could fail so hard.

I might as well mention here that the music is mostly comprised of a single short, obnoxiously twangy guitar loop. At least it can be turned off! In brusque, to have any hope of enjoying Bubble Town 2, you must be able to overlook its glaring artistic shortcomings.

But, the puzzles!

At present that we've inoculated ourselves against Bubble Town 2's horrific art, let'southward hash out its gameplay. This game is a match-three puzzler.  A ceiling slowly pushes a large stack of bubbles, I mean Borbs from the superlative of the screen toward the bottom. If they attain the Danger Zone at the lesser, the histrion fails the level. That's where the actor's cannon, located in the centre of the Danger Zone, comes into play. The cannon fires Borbs upward at the impending stack. If a fired Borb comes into contact with two or more Borbs of the same color, it destroys them.

Any Borbs hanging from a destroyed set also get the axe, making chain reactions possible. Hanging Borbs destroyed in this way become added to a counter at the lesser of the screen. Each turn, the counter drops by one until it hits zip. Merely then does ceiling actually descend, so Chimera Boondocks 2 provides an incentive to make combos other than just extra points.

Aim for the top!

Dragging left or correct aims the cannon and tapping fires. Shaking the telephone tin as well be used to burn down, though I don't know why anyone would desire to do that. The aiming in general is tedious and clumsy, detracting from otherwise solid game play.  On the plus side, reflecting shots is much easier in Chimera Town 2 than the game it clones. Arrows appear wherever a shot volition bounce off of the ceiling or walls, which actually helps with trick shots.

A few levels in, the game introduces an important ability-up chosen the Lob Cannon. Instead of firing Borbs in a straight line, it allows players to lob Borbs toward the meridian of the stack. The Lob Cannon would be a great add-on to the Puzzle Bobble formula, except that its aiming is only 90% disrepair. You tap and aim a lilliputian cross-pilus to lob, merely the cantankerous-hair appears far lower on the screen than the role player's finger, making the item quite painful to utilise.

Fighting the frizzies

Bubble Town 2's Story Fashion contains 40 levels of Borb-popping fun. In addition to the traditional game play I already described, there are three other types of levels: Ball, Invasion, and Bosses. In Ball stages, Borbs class a spinning ball in the heart rather than coming downward from the ceiling. Invasion levels work more like normal ones except that at that place are two fast-descending columns of Borbs instead of a single stack. Both level types increment the challenge and add a welcome dose of diversity.

Each of the game'south 4 boss battles features a unique mechanic. For instance, before the Cyber Lump can be defeated, players must first clear away the Borbs surrounding his behemothic melon. So borer the screen volition destroy the power panels on his cheeks, at final weakening him enough to exist harmed from regular cannon shots.

Quick Play and the missing Story Mode salvage

Quick Play provides a interruption from Story Mode's ever-increasing challenge. At to the lowest degree, information technology's supposed to. See, players can choose to spring directly into a Classic, Brawl, or Invasion level. Brawl and Invasion aren't automatically unlocked from the start; they must first be reached in Story way. Unfortunately, beating Story Mode actually wipes out the histrion'southward Story progress. This not only makes it incommunicable to replay old levels without trudging through the Story again, information technology also means Brawl and Invasion take to exist unlocked once more. Deleting players' Story Manner file subsequently clearing the game is pointless. I will presume it's a bug rather than by blueprint.

Achievements

Initially Bubble Town 2's Achievements required an active internet connection to unlock, only that was thankfully fixed in a patch. As for their difficulty, merely two should nowadays any real challenge. "Bubblicious" requires gamers to detach 14 Borbs with a single shot of the Plunger ability-upwardly. That tin only be washed on a few specific levels late in the game and takes a chip of planning.

"In It to Win Information technology" is the game's near grueling Achievement  - it's probably semi-glitched. The description reads, "The player must reach a score of 150,000." Simply rather than requiring a cumulative score of 150K every bit you lot would expect, the score must be reached in a single level (level 10 is best). Information technology took me about an hour to score – quite a hassle. Withal, with patience everything is possible.

Overall Impression

At the fourth dimension of this writing, Bubble Town 2 game is the only Puzzle Bobble clone on Xbox Live. Its graphics and controls are sub-par, but the core game play somewhat makes up for those shortcomings. People who like this item kind of puzzle game and go in with low enough expectations will probably enjoy information technology for what information technology'southward worth. I don't regret my visit to Bubble Town, just I hope Taito brings the existent Puzzle Bobble to Windows Phone some day.

Bubble Town two costs $2.99 and in that location is a gratis trial. Pop on over here (Zune link) to get it from the Marketplace.

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Source: https://www.windowscentral.com/bubble-town-2-review

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