REVIEW: Parasol Stars bubbles over with fresh features and classic gameplay

I don’t know if this was a “me” thing or an “everyone” thing, but there were certain NES games back in the day that all my friends either had or played. Of course there were the first party Nintendo games like Super Mario Bros., but there were other titles like Double Dragon, Ninja Gaiden, Contra and so on. Very much included in that list is Bubble Bobble, and that first installment is the one that’s forever cemented me as a franchise fan.

I’m not sure how Bubble Bobble made it into that collection of games we all had, but boy, was it a heavy part of the rotation. I poured countless hours into that game with both family and friends, and always found myself returning to it. While that first installment made me a huge franchise fan, I actually didn’t get to play the official sequels until decades after their release. After Bubble Bobble in 1988, my next contact point with Bubble Bobble characters wasn’t until Bust-a-Move/Puzzle Bobble, which didn’t come around until 1994.

In the decades that followed, slowly but surely, I would make my way through the Bubble Bobble series. Oddly enough, one of the games that remained elusive was 1991’s Parasol Stars:
The Story of Bubble Bobble III. I honestly have no clue as to why I never sat down with that one, but thankfully I had the chance to fix that mistake through the Switch. Parasol Stars: The Story of Bubble Bobble III recently just came to Nintendo’s hybrid, complete with some quality of life features and snazzy additions, most likely making it the definitive version of the game.

Parasol Stars: The Story of Bubble Bobble III is a return to the classic-style gameplay of the original Bubble Bobble. The first follow-up to Bubble Bobble, titled Rainbow Islands, had players trapping enemies under rainbows as they climbed to the top of the stage to reach a goal. Parasol Stars: The Story of Bubble Bobble III, just like Bubble Bobble, has you collecting enemies and throwing them into walls (or each other) to clear out the entire wave. Knock out all the enemies and you’re off to the next level.

In Bubble Bobble, you had to blow bubbles to trap enemies inside. In Parasol Stars, you whack enemies with your umbrella. While this means you’re trading the ranged attack from the first game for a limited-range melee weapon, gameplay remains pretty much the same. Sure, you might have to get a little bit closer to an enemy in order to stun them, but after that things play almost exactly as they do in Bubble Bobble. Knock the enemies unconscious, bump them into a wall or other enemies, and make them all disappear. Grab the various treats, snacks and items they drop, and then you’re whisked away to the next stage.

One of the biggest differences between Bubble Bobble and Parasol Stars is the fact that you can now carry enemies with you. Once you bash an enemy with your umbrella, you can scoop them up and tote them around. This lets you hold onto an unconscious enemy to do a bit of platforming, and then throw them at someone else in the way. It’s certainly a step up from the original Bubble Bobble, as now you have a lot more options when it comes to how you attack the opposition.

While you might not be firing out bubbles in Parasol Stars, bubbles are still present. Again, much like in the first game, bubbles will drop into a stage that offer you different abilities. Some have lightning bolts that’ll zip through enemies, others have stars that’ll send out spiral waves to clear henchmen, and so on. This time around, you can combine multiple bubbles with your umbrella. The more you carry, the more damage you’ll do when you throw the bubbles out. If you gather up enough of the same type of bubble, you’ll get a mega bubble that’ll do major damage. Sometimes these are even screen-clearing attacks, and the attacks you do depend on the bubbles you’ve gathered.

Outside of those combat differences, Parasol Stars: The Story of Bubble Bobble III is pretty much the same as Bubble Bobble. Clear all the enemies, gather all the goodies, move to the next stage, rinse and repeat. Stages now have a bit of left/right scroll to them, making for a wider gameplay field, and there’s certainly a greater variety in enemies and stage design, but it’s fundamentally the same experience as the original Bubble Bobble. That’s not meant as a knock against the game at all. With the second Bubble Bobble game trying something new, there’s no doubt fans were happy to see a return to form for the third outing.

One notable difference in Parasol Stars is just how crazy things can get. The stages have more color than ever before, and there’s a ton of enemies floating around. Truth be told, quite early on you’ll hit some stages where it’s quite hard to keep up with the action. The enemies might not be tough, but the screen is so busy that you can lose sight of where you are and what’s happening. You’ll probably die quite a few times having no clue as to what took you out, and that obviously can be frustrating in particularly intense moments. This is where the new quality of life features come in handy.

While you’re free to play Parasol Stars as it originally released, you can also make things a bit easier on yourself. You’ll have the option to rewind gameplay on the fly, so if you made a silly mistake that led to a game over, you can just hold ZL down and rewind to just before the fatal move. You can also fast-forward gameplay if you’d like, which can be used to move enemies into a better position more quickly, or can speed up the end of each level in order to hurry on to the next. Along with these features, there’s also a host of nice, but superfluous additions like screen filters, borders, screen sizing options and more. These things aren’t needed, but they are certainly enjoyable inclusions.

Parasol Stars should more than scratch the itch of someone looking for that original Bubble Bobble experience. Yes, there’s way more enemy variety and considerably more boss battles, but this is classic Bubble Bobble through-and-through. Newcomers to the series might find the gameplay quirks, like the floaty jumps or the nature in which you pass through walls/ceilings, to be completely strange, but I’d imagine this game is squarely aimed at those who already know the ins and outs of Bubble Bobble. If you happen to fall into that camp, you really can’t go wrong with Parasol Stars: The Story of Bubble Bobble III. Straightforward, simple, yet still a bunch of fun all these years later.