Bubble Bobble & Chibi Maruko-chan retrospective: Shop ’til you pop | Game Boy Works #120

Ah, Game Boy: The system that ruled the world on the strength of both its portability and its support for multiplayer gaming. Remember Tetris? Remember Pokémon? Remember F-1 Race and its four-player adapter? So naturally, when Taito brought Bubble Bobble—a cooperative arcade game designed to be played (and only fully completed!) with a second player—to Game Boy, naturally they made heavy use of its link capabilities for teaming up with a friend, right? Uh... right? Oh well. At the least the title screen music for this episode's import title rocks hard enough to make you forget your disappointment in Bubble Bobble. And yes, this episode I've finally taken advice from years of drive-by commenters and have palced myself briefly on-camera, which is something I've considered doing for ages. We'll see if putting a human face in there makes this series more personable or appealing or whatever to the average viewer. Do people actually want to see THIS particular face? I don't know, but it's the best I can do to obey the rules of gaming YouTube without going full screamy-thumbnail. Video Works is funded via Patreon (http://www.patreon.com/gamespite) — support the show and get access to every episode up to two weeks in advance of its YouTube debut! And be sure to check out the Retronauts podcast (http://www.retronauts.com), where I (and many others!) tackle a much wider array of classic gaming topics each week.